From the below stats we see that in late November 2007, the numbers were pretty much the same as they have been (although, yes there were two forums). Back then, things begun to pick up in late December due to increasing bits of news - R made a blog post, someone posted claiming that R emailed them, and another someone did something else to contact R and also posted about it.
When things did come back, not only did the numbers go way up, but we were flooded with players online - For long bits of the day there were some 100 people online at once & it remained that way (despite crashes/char creation bugs) until we set the cap at 70 (then it remained at that for a little longer). I didn't even get to email players about the game until much later because so many people popped up at of nowhere that we couldn't deal with more right then.
So where did they come from? Well there are those who regularly check here without logging in because they don't want to post anything. But, more so, some of you are well connected with others in the community & can get the word out to a good chunk of people who don't bother with the forums very much, if at all. If you tap into that, I'm sure you could... well, you know (though numbers isn't the main issue).
November 23, 2007 - 17
November 24, 2007 - 22
November 25, 2007 - 20
November 26, 2007 - 24
November 27, 2007 - 24
November 28, 2007 - 20
November 29, 2007 - 21
November 30, 2007 - 24
December 01, 2007 - 22
December 02, 2007 - 23
December 03, 2007 - 20
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December 23, 2007 - 31
December 24, 2007 - 31
December 25, 2007 - 29
December 26, 2007 - 27
December 27, 2007 - 36
December 28, 2007 - 37
December 29, 2007 - 63
December 30, 2007 - 31
December 31, 2007 - 37
January 01, 2008 - 75
January 02, 2008 - 75
January 03, 2008 - 89
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December 23, 2011 - 17
December 24, 2011 - 20
December 25, 2011 - 11
December 26, 2011 - 16
December 27, 2011 - 18
December 28, 2011 - 17
December 29, 2011 - 17
December 30, 2011 - 16
December 31, 2011 - 17
January 01, 2012 - 18
January 02, 2012 - 19
January 03, 2012 - 28