Sometimes, it happens when small realms decides do piss off everyone else... at least that was PvP. I played in Goatland and after I deleted my acc to re-start the Serpentis, I joined Angmar... I was in the two sides of the war and I enjoyed both... much more than fighting monsters. Even losing, it's always better to lose to another players. At some point you can negotiate, you can kick off the Ruler and appoint another to negotiate or accept the terms... you cannot do that when fighting against a code.
"We will have monster until you change your mentality" isn't working. Not everyone is at the Forum following the discussions on the "new mentality". People are stubborn... instead of join the new mentality, they will fight monsters until the end and then some will just leave the continent/game. As players, many of us have personal preferences and that reflect in our chars... for example, if I love Madina and Madina lose to the monsters, I will not join my enemies or the realms/players I don't like to play with just because we need smaller realms. All that "playing with friends" is nice, but I saw people avoiding to play with me and sometimes I avoided some of them as well.
Also, you have to consider that, unhapilly, we will always have less players, not more. Sink more islands? Reduce the maps? I don't know, but the monsters aren't working either.
