I got contacted and asked if I wanted to give this thing another go, too. Like you I have been absolutely blown away by how dead the real time communication aspect is and how tiny even the biggest Alliances are compared to back in the day.
OOC (Thanks for reminding me these silly rules, exist, Slayer): The game still seems to be designed and run as if it was a decade ago, back when there were always more people registering and wanting to play, back when it was completely ok for the health of the game to be free with the banhammer and the ZI stick because there were always new people itching to try their hand at straddling the world, back when no one was SO far ahead that it was insane to dream of someday catching up.
If the game-runners really want to rejuvenate this thing - and apparently they do if old folk are getting emails - they need to take a good hard look at how they can change the rules of the game to make the day-to-day more exciting in and of itself instead of relying on extra-game politics to provide the draw. I'm honestly hugely surprised that CN is still going as well as it is considering that war is so hugely disincentivized at the high end and it is impossible to ever catch up at the low.
