Game has died, Nowhere to go

Not obviously...possibly. When guild ships came out people didn't just get them and started using them regularly overnight. So it's possible that it could be a sign of a drop in population but it's far from inconclusive.

And I guess you just said that the number of fleet instances haven't dropped, so who to believe...

There is really only one test necessary to know if the population is a problem and if the "Game has died". Is there any portion of the game that you can no longer participate in due to population issues? The only areas that is accurate for are solo and group ranked PvP, which are dependent on time of day. I have no problems getting PUG ops going, reg PvP, finding items on the GTN, getting FP pops, etc. on the Harbinger. I pass by numerous players on every planet while leveling. The server isn't dead and I haven't noticed a significant change in my ability to find anything other than progression raiders over the last 6 months and we all know why that well dried up.

The number of fleet instances HAS dropped. I misread what you had stated, sorry about that.

When I started on Harb almost a year ago, we would have 3-4 Pub fleets every night I played. Today, we get 2, and until this past weekend, one was usually very close to empty (20-40 people regularly).

What would you conclude from that?

We do have Odessan now, I mean to use a WoW example the population in Shattrath did drop off once Dalaran was added.

Would make sense, if people want to run stuff like star fortresses, they are going to be there rather than asking on the fleet.

But has anyone done a time series analysis on the populations of Odessan?

Well you got to admit since 4.0 it has been a lot easier and faster to buy guild ships since of heroics. Now we can buy ship in a few week even if 5 to 6 guild member are doing it.

Absolutely true!!!

The only thing I can conclude from that: that there are fewer people on the pub fleet on your server than before.

Why that is, however, I cannot conclude from that. That's all speculation.

As I said, people like to fill in the holes themselves, but that's not factual, that's people meshing their beliefs into the facts and then thinking they're still being factual. They're not...they're speculating.

Now, it may be true that there are fewer people playing overall on your server. I am not contesting that possibility. But I am saying that this fact of fewer instances by itself doesn't prove that.

That's fine, you can conclude whatever you like. Most people don't need to pretend there's a reason other than the obvious.

The main fleet lurkers have always been end game PvP and PvE players. Now that we're like 2 years into the same raids, a lot of that population isn't sitting around on fleet a lot anymore. Some of them may be elsewhere and some of them may be on hiatus for now.