I think thats funny too, I know a lot of gamers, smart and dumb, and i know a lot of people who are less of gamers, and more of, a once in a while kind of person, but either way, haveing a game with more places, quests, skills, ect would lead to more people becuase its what people call, more hours of gameplay. Currently, what PS calls the RP server, includes people who, Train, Quest, RP, and Explore, All at the same time.
Now this game has had the same 4 cities for a few years, and Training questing, rp'ing, and exploring can only go 'so' far on that. Eventually you run out of quests, eventually you run out of skills that benifit your character, eventually there is no place to explaore, and eventually there isnt anything to rp about other then drinking a beer, thats when you get bored and leave, or start over with an alt. With added content, that makes it take longer to get bored.
On topic, Sarva has talked about training an alt before [either that or it was marathal]
She, like me, concluded, that training form scratch, without help from any alts, is easily done, I've seen many many new players, content with mining, killling rats, kikiris, coamtis, clackers, andforest arangmas. from what i've seen they only ever complain about the rats.
But it is almost impossible for a new player to play more then a week, without being invited to a guild, or handed handouts.
The fact that you are playing an alt, means you are subconsiously, denying certain handouts, from things you know ooc'ly, so that you can acomplish an alt for some RP purpose [i assume you are doing it for rp -__- ]
But new players who still need to learn things, gladly accept help, from everybody, and the ones who join PS for RP to begin with, tend to let that influence their character.