There's no doubt that the population has shrunk since the first launch attempt end february. Where the players went is of no concern but why they left might be worth a consideration.

There's not one reason but a few of them:

1. The technical problems. Right to the first launch attempt the game ran very well for me, with launch (and the heavier population?) the problems started to crop up. Lag, performance problems, crashes, rollbacks. Combine that with a few less than stellar decisions from the development team. People have given up.

2. The PK-ers. The game with it's current ruleset is a PK-ers wet dream. The type of PK-er that does not want a good fight but wants to win, no matter how cheasy the win is. The game does not have any alignment penalties, any consequences or any risk for the PK-er. Victims of excessive PK-ing have given up.

3. The powergamers, many of them coming into the game with pre-made guilds from other games (mostly Darkfall, MO, Shadowbane). Many cheated, macro-ed, multi-boxed their characters to high levels and built there village up in no time. And now they have nothing left to do. Why they came into this game at all is still a mystery to me, anyway, some (many?) of them have given up by now because they're bored.

Personally, I still enjoy the game, very much even so. Will the developers be able to tackle the mentioned problems? I've no idea, time will tell.