Coming back to this thread kind of late. Sorry for the gap.

1. I don't think lack of coders is a big problem. The more the merrier, assuming adequate quality, but in the pantheon of things that are contributing to low numbers I don't think it's a big factor.

2. What specifically do you feel needs to happen in order to "make CF fun again" and bring back those 10 people you know who quit because of recent changes? You mentioned restoring edge points for PK. That's seems like a strange one to choose since the game's halcyon days occurred before edges were even implemented.

Specifically with respect to edges, here's what I think it comes down to:

a. If you give edge points for PK then you exacerbate the power gap between the players who're good at PK and the players who are terrible. That tends to drive off the terrible ones.

b. If you give edge points for RP then you disadvantage those players who're only willing to put forth minimal RP and who are primarily interested in PK. It's really hard for that type of player to handle being gimped because, at the end of the day, they're here to own face.

c. If you give edge points for exploration / observation then you create a scenario where (some) vets feel obligated to waste time exploring / observing places and things they've already explored and/or observed with past characters.

So what can be done? To answer that we need to take a step back and consider what we're really trying to accomplish with edges. For instance, why not just award them based on level achieved similar to how "trains" are doled out?

The reason is that using a fixed system like that completely destroys the staff's ability to use edge points to incentivize certain (beneficial) behaviors, e.g. "participating in PK", "playing a role", "exploring the world and learning new areas", etc.

The tricky part is that what was intended to be an incentive can very easily morph into a perverse incentive and, consequently, actually serve to make the game less fun.

At the end of the day I'm fine with a scenario where almost all long-lived characters end up with roughly the same amount of edge points. Exceptional characters will have more and marginal characters have less, but the difference won't be huge. However, I think it would be a mistake to award them solely on some "fixed" thing like rank. Rather we should attempt to incentivize people who exist at the margins.

For example, award edge points for PK but only for the first few PKs. Above that you don't get anything extra. Anyone who's not totally lost at PK is going to get the same amount of edge points from this source. The folks this targets, though, are total newbies and/or the vets who (for whatever reason) choose to completely opt out of the PK scene. Think Herald gear-locker types who are only interested in PvE.

Same deal with RP. You get some amount of points for having a passable role. It's pass/fail, so nobody feels obligated to spend forever on a role as if it were some magnum opus. You can get some more from imm exp, but there's a reasonably low cap. You get some for being granted a leadership position in a cabal. The players this targets, then, are the ones who actively avoid non-PK interaction with other players and the staff and who can't be bothered to even write a basic role.

Same deal with exploration and observation. Give edge points for them but with a fairly low cap on each so that only the "least adventurous" and "least observant" ~10% of players even have to think about them.

Then I'd give out some periodically based on hours played, but with a rank-based cap. This to prevent some idiot sitting at level 20 for 300 hours to accrue a bunch of edges on a low-level character.

The end result of all this would (hopefully) be that if you're someone who's not in the bottom ~10% in any one area (PK, RP, exploring, observing, etc.) then you don't have to think about edge points at all. You can just "do your thing" and be reasonably sure you won't cheat yourself out of any edge points by declining to "game" the system.

Those are my ideas, at least.