Whatever complaints you have about player retention, what have you done to make people stick around? I'm in Luria, and I can say that there is at least a handful of people who keep people connected to the realm on different levels. Only when you put in an effort, you get a return. I've been in more realm than one that was bleeding dry (a couple of them on Dwilight) and while people may have been complaining about their realm running dry, they were not at all trying to create a good and fun atmosphere to play in.
People in Luria have it easy. Please, let's keep the talk about how Luria is somehow better at retention than other realms out of it. The majority of your growth is from refugees of other realms, not people who have stayed because "Luria's such a cool place". A huge percentage of your realm is staying purely because they want to make their own realm, not because they want to be in your realm.
Why try to change the game to suit the realms currently in power? If Luria has control of all the towns and cities in the area don't just ask for more to be created. Go to war, fight for those towns and cities; make a name for your family and realm!
For the same reason that I don't try to get realms to fight CE on Atamara. They're in such a dominant position, and the leading nobles there are so happy with the current status quo, that it'd be pointless. You do realize that the entirety of Dwilight is at war with Luria, right? And they're still losing.
Seriously, some (not saying all, but some) of the players from Luria who are commenting on this sound almost like people from the US who comment "why don't the people in Africa just get their act together?" (no, I'm not talking about Ebola, in case anyone wanted to take offense regarding that). It's both completely ignoring the circumstances that are causing the issues, and seen by those who do know the circumstances as an incredibly arrogant viewpoint by someone who more than likely doesn't have to deal with nearly as many problems on a daily basis as the ones they are casting judgement on.
