All right, I'll be also one to pop in on account of the "freshmen". This means that I cannot judge the game in the more "global" view as most of you "old school" players do, but maybe I can say at least something.
First, my WWing career is something around seven or so games, including one modded by myself, and one thing I can say is that I definitely haven't witnessed any of these issues that someone has taken something personally. I don't know, maybe I just did not notice, but as far as I remember, for the last year, everything went smooth and no big issues where the players would have been offended did occur. (And one could ask, why should they? I daresay that I know most of you Downers at least to the point to know that you are not little children who can't stand being beaten in chess, or cannot discern in-game attacks from real ones.)
I'd guess, and what others post on this thread supports this opinion, that most of the lack of interest in WW depends on people being busy. However, a curious query: does not this also have something to do with the fact that WW is just "switching generations"? You know, I am not going to wonder if a WW veteran after his 3,456th game says "and I've had enough, I am not playing anymore" (there are, of course, people like Mr. Noggins, who seem to be playing infinitely. But that's a special case
). It's just natural, people come and go, and this can be applied on the Downs as a whole. But normally this "generation exchange" should be sort of a fluent, ongoing process, that seems natural. Older players start to visit the game less frequently, then they cease playing at all. And on the other hand, the new players start to appear more frequently, and in the end they become regular players. Technically speaking, no one should notice the change - or at least, no one should notice the change in numbers. But when you look for example on the list of Gil's last game, there is definitely something strange - not only the number of players is really small, but almost all of the players are just (relative) newbies.
Where I wanted to get with this. I was just wondering if - and that's just an idea, and not meant to be negative (and not aimed against anyone), but a subject to think of - if there is not sort of an "old-school-werewolf-stagnation". If the older players are not being - how to say that -"conservative", that's the word. I mean like one says to himself "and now we preserve our nice little village, where there is Noggins, Boro, Morm, Fea, Phantom, whoever..." and when suddenly one or two or three of them start to participate less, one says: "Well, but Morm, Fea etc. are not playing anymore, what do I have in common with these newbie folks, let's leave," even though the person would actually like to play, but there is the barrier, or unwillingness to accept the new situation, unwillingness to play with unknown players. Of course such a thought would be illogical: when this player came in the first place, he/she also did not know all these he/she now considers as "classic players", and they got acquainted exactly this way - by playing a few games together. But when such a player leaves, there is no way he could build up similar relationships with the new ones. And so, even if he returns some time later in the future, he realizes that he really does not have anything in common with the new players, because they developed their own playing style, and he leaves saying "they are playing something totally different, this says nothing to me". Also because of this I believe there should be a continuity, not a gap between the "old" and "new" WW players.
I am not saying that it's like that - what I'm saying here is just a query or a "probe", if anyone does not think the same. In second place, I believe mentioning such a thing could serve as "warning for further generations", which I think could be borne in mind for all WWers, even for the current and even for the upcoming players. What inspired me partially were phantom's words about his interest rising when there are some players he knows in the game. This is clear, of course everyone wants to play with his friends and remember good old times. But what if some people just take this to the extreme and want the "old times" to remain forever? That would be stagnation and it simply does not work like that - times are changing, people are changing and nothing can stop it. WW can be fun no matter with whom we are playing - because as it was said here, it's also about social interaction; so the fact that there are not the players I know should not play any role in our choice whether we want to join a game or not.