BM is increasingly niche. And honestly I think a lot of its appeal is legacy, all that history that was developed over the years that people who've been here for a certain amount of time can appreciate, while others who are just joining now either don't get it or feel it overwhelming. It's like starting to watch a popular series renown for its twists, but only joining in on season 7, it's easy to feel left out all the time.
Plus, BM is increasingly post-colonial. We used to have so many nobles, that realm creations and destructions were fairly common, and more importantly, fairly feasible. Now, most realms are so spread thin that it's unthinkable to split them further to create new entities. I know it was largely appealing, when I joined, that if we worked hard enough, we'd have good chances of changing history, making new and original projects come true. I'm not saying it can't happen at all anymore, but it used to be possible just about anywhere (assuming one could convince the oligarchies of elite player clubs to pitch in, and barring some continents that were peace-locked for some periods of time). Back then? If you had 5 buddies, each with 2 characters, you already had a base of 12 characters to work with, stack on top the total realm count of say 50, you'd probably get a handful of others join you, either because they were de facto part of your duchy or they didn't feel compelled to switch back, so you could end up with a nice core of 20 nobles when seceding (or doing a colony takeover, or whatever), and end up with two viable realms to pursue your projects. Now, it's like the realm has 15 nobles on average, most of your friends left the game so you've got maybe 3 buddies, and each can only contribute one character, so you end up with a 5 noble worthless realm and a 10 noble crippled host realm. When Dwi was colonized, the host realms didn't really suffer at all from all that noble losses. Many colonist groups formed themselves and had their chance at trying things out. And even earlier than that, on BT, geopolitics were shifty enough in between invasions, and invasions helped clear huge swaths of land for new entities all the time. New realms popped up here and there and I don't ever remember people saying "oh no, we won't have enough nobles left if you leave!" until very late (by the time Enweil died it had become an issue though).
Opportunities for newbies to leave their mark, in my opinion, has greatly waned. Had I only discovered BM in 2017, I don't think I would have stayed long. Nostalgia has largely replaced thrill and opportunity. I'm still having fun, but I'm no longer staying up 'till midnight to get live turn change reports and writing 40 IG messages per day to push the agenda of the day. Partly because I don't have that kind of time and energy anymore, but also largely because I don't feel like there's any potential return on investment anymore. I'm proud of what I did on BT and Dwi, but even if I were to become a responsibility-free teenager again, I don't think I could pull much of that off anymore.
