One. Full-looting. Yes, full-looting sucks. I'd say it happened to all my characters (other than Kruuank, who got most if not all of his gear back 90% of the time) about half the times I died. Was I pissed? Yes, but you know what, it A) Made me a bit more cautious in how I approached fights (GOOD THING) B) Taught me how to reequip before the end of the ghost timer (GOOD THING) C) In most cases, allowed me to get a better set than the one I had before (REALLY GOOD THING). So, to say full-looting is dropping the playerbase is not exactly a correct statement.

Two. Preps. While useful, they are not vital. If I have a character, and you give me flight, detect invis, and maybe reduce/enlarge, I guarantee you, I can at least have about a 50% PK ratio. That's all you need, honestly. If you can't win PKs with those preps, perhaps you need to look at your tactics in fights. I have/and will continue to say that preps do not matter as much as timing and willingness to perhaps die to kill someone.

In final, as many of the IMMs and Dio's VIPS have said, the reason the playerbase is declining is because we just aren't getting those 14-16 year old kids to play anymore. Why? Because they are playing WoW, Counter-Strike, etc, etc. Now, we have lost some veteran players (at least in the year and a month I've been playing) because of real life, IE we are in our mid-twenties and life is kicking our ass (or significant other, in mine and Balrahd's(at the least) case). Now, knowing that the veteran players might not have five hours a day to play anymore, the IMMs have ATTEMPTED to make the game a bit more easy to play as a casual gamer. I sure as hell appreciate this, you should to. And that's pretty much it.