I don't think Badspot being active as a developer is going to do anything to make the game more active. Even when we were still getting updates, Badspot himself rarely actually played the game. I guess there was just more people making servers back then? Or it just seems like there was? Either way it's not really the developers responsibility to keep the community active at this point. Badspot cared about this game for ten bloody years, what more do you want? Though I was hoping they would improve the vehicle physics eventually.
That being said, I do get the sense that there's been some kind of decline. Running a sever now is different than it was years ago. It's become like running a business. People fill out admin applications. There are actual running costs. A lot of them involve downloading client side mods just for that server and often a stuff ton of reading just to understand the game. Most new concepts get hosted a lot for a couple weeks, then disappear forever. I don't know if there's really less servers, or if they've just become less casual (and they all seem to be run by the same people). There's still plenty of things to pick from, but idk it's gotten a little weird.
