There was more people playing in the beginning of season 2 when sneak was completely broken, therefore completely broken sneak = more players.
Uuhhh....maybe AoP just wiped and it's FOnline tradition for server to be populated right after one....cmon Voland, you should know this.
Meanwhile I'm just here trying to make sneaks into recon where they won't be a Fucken nuisance anymore to PvPers.
Exactly, there was a lot of people not because sneak was working, but because there was wipe.. And then a trainwreck of a start. People were leaving because of exploits, sneakers killing em, no pillow intro and etc, many reasons.
People still leaving for same reasons, attributing it to just sneak is not really fair. And seriously, being a nuisance is the whole point of sneak attacks, but that's just my opinion.
I am not entierly sure, but I think John been trying to tell you that if you will do yourself all the work on sneak changes, devs will implement it for testing. But that's the whole joke, everyone just spreading literature about it. (and my statement would also need confirmation bout it from Cirn0/John, just to be sure)
However that's not that big of a problem.
The problem is, there's not much going around to actually pvp for.
PVE people were kept arout due to dungeons/assigments, those people are gone. Population dropped.
Next are the guys whom poke around and look at cool shit, did their thing and left too, because there wasn't that much of it around.
And then "I have biggest dick" guys have left because it's not hard to get gear, nothing to compete for, nobody to kill in bulk, etc. No challenge.
My point is, there's no system to keep people in. And no amount of sneak changes or trap additions will bring back people.
To put it bluntly, server needs content. And nobody is working on it right now, or willing to lend a hand except S1man, and he does what he can.(There's also Courier, but.. its complicated)
Devs are on vacation and all we have is a forum full of angry people. There's will to change, but no action.
I hope I've explained myself well.