Time to make a seperate realm.

I doubt devs have time for making other realms. I probably would quit if they started to do that because Illyriad itself is still incomplete currently missing many features. To make another incomplete realm competing incoming from new players, while making AoA at the same time would be too much for me to watch and to put my time/money to the game.

That would be a cool addition to the game where the farmville players could be safe. I know if the devs did create a new realm I would create an alliance based on NATO where we were a peaceful alliance until attacked then the whole alliance gets drawed onto war. That way we could protect those who wanted to play farmville. One addition though i would like to see is the adjustment of alliance taxs, where instead of the whole alliance paying the same % you could tax your warriors at 0% as they're the fighters and you could tax the farmers at like 3% and it would be even cooler if you could choose which players could receive money instead of it just going to the alliance leader.
I think the reason why they haven't been able to recruit as many new players is cause they see a world which has ran its course. A new realm would give incentive to new players to play since its all new. People play retro games all the time, the age of the game isnt the issue. The issue is firstly give people a fresh start, and take away sitters and multis cause imo thats cheating and that crap ruins the game for those hard workers who follow the rules to just have everything destroyed by people who have over 10 accounts.
The problem with the war people as you mentioned was the members of the SIN basically terrorized Illyriad. They claimed to want to rid the game of multis and sitted accounts. Reading their posts i was just like wow these guys are horrible at diplomacy. Firstly if they would have united the player base that wished to see the sitter accounts burned instead of being the equivalent of the nazi regime, i think they could've achieved their goals. But instead you had them try and impose a set price on silver steel. Then you had them say if someone left their alliance that was at war with them they'd hunt you down and burn you. Then i remember reading one post from a noob who got completely destroyed by them cause their alliance leader declared war on SIN so naturally they gotta hunt this poor feller down who doesn't even have a 5K pop. Then i remember them demanding sitter rights from one enemy and the devs saying oh yah thats cool, players direct the game. I was like what the hell. Anyways i could list about 15 more things the sin did, they didn't help them selves out at all in the eyes of the population. When you have policies of bunt and destroy noobs at any cost people read and see that and they don't want to be apart of that. Illyriad takes so long to build up in, and the players who have been playing for years can knock you down in days when you spent 6 months or more building up.
So ya the warring community probably did scare off some new players. I think if they marketed this game as a farmville it would do really well. Maybe have a server where its farmville then another where its normal illyriad. I dont even know at this point.

Having a safe-zone in Illyriad will imbalance the trade market, as well as make some players invincible. 

Players will claim as much land as possible in the safe-zone. Then they will farm like hell there, whilst having other options in the PvP area and the ability to always have reimbursement from their safe-zone.

Doesn't work.

Lumelthien wrote: Dungshoveleux wrote: Illyriad is clearly dead. I find it difficult to believe that this type of game is enjoyable for very many people. It's slow, tedious, and just not particularly compelling. There was clearly a "golden age" for the game, where a lot of folks had fun interacting with each other and creating an interesting community. But as more and more of that core of players has moved on, I don't think any other group has particularly replaced them. And given the small audience this game will appeal to anyway, such a group will be hard to attract in the future. I think Illy got lucky. Along the way, players have constantly wanted to change the game to make it more appealing. Sadly, the devs made promises that they were unable to keep. But in all of that, I think what was truly missing is that the slow pace of the game is the one factor that will always undermine it. I suppose this is just a long-winded way of agreeing with you.