New UI work that actually plays like a more modern game + tens of thousands of email addresses to re-engage is what I'm banking on to make it doable. that includes making it app-able, facebookable, mobile friendly, etc.

I'm like 4 pages away from having things set up enough to do an open beta... unfortunately those pages include attacking and spying, which do not have an API yet. qz's been busy with RL stuff so I've largely been working alone :p

I've been playing on the bus on the way to work for the last few months using my alpha UI work and it's getting there. needs some more design love, but the interactions are FAR superior to the legacy version.

osloos has some good ideas there to consider for a tutorial mode, which is something we're also thinking about. except that royalty idea, that's not a good idea ;)

the ramp up to the game right now is very challenging and the current UI isn't strong enough to attract people to stay.

the underlying thing is that we're making a niche, classic indie game for people who loved it and/or the community over the last 20-something years. I think there's a strong possibility that bringing it into a more fresh and modern look with some better training resources will re-engage a large number of people and actually be able to bring in more people to play.

I've also invested significant time into developing things in a manner which can quickly be translated into multiple languages so that we can target non-english markets. The universe of gamers has grown significantly since Earth was in it's prime. We just need to capture a minuscule percentage of those folks to get back to the largest community Earth has ever seen