STS is definitely trying. You can tell by how many quality of life updates have been pushed over the past year or so. The issue isn't with the company itself, but rather the longevity of the game and what it has become.
Back then, the game was small and fresh. It really pushed the boundaries of mobile gaming and was honestly the best mobile MMO for quite a while (i believe it had won Massively's award in early 2013 and early 2014 for best mobile MMO of 2012 and 2013 iirc). It was the first MMO i've ever played and it drew me in. It was the spiritual successor to Pocket Legends, which in its time was astute in the mobile gaming industry.
Arcane Legends was the most fun ***for me*** for about a year or two until, as with every other game, i got tired of it. Every expansion linearly progressed the game forwards, but never really expanded on the prior content. In the early days, this wasn't an issue because "early content" was only a small chunk of the game. People were able to cap pretty quickly and were always able to find people to run with in almost every map along the way.
The turning point came when the core player base began to retire. Guidemakers, content-creators, and other community pillars slowly began to lose interest in the game, which grossly impacted the community -- which imo was/is still the strongest aspect of STS. The game kept growing forwards, bringing the loyal playerbase forward with it. But again, as these founders began to disappear, so did the endgame population that jumped from one cap to the next, and as the game grew bigger, it was harder for newer players to work up and take their place.
I would say AL is pretty well known for what it is. STS is a pretty small company, and what's kept me around for so long is the community and my love for the company. I've seen many times where it would have been easier for STS to just give up and do something else, but they have been very resilient and have stood by their convictions, despite all the negative feedback. AL has simply outlasted its development to cycle the core playerbase into populating the game in its later stages- due in part by early bad decisions on balanced game progression. Now, you are either at cap, one of the few grinding towards cap, or sitting on your level 41 character trying to find the will to grind towards cap.
Kudos to those who have been here since the beginning. You are among the few who have experienced everything, and can most accurately compare the past and the present.
A side note, and i want to make this very clear, AL is in no way a bad game. There are people who still enjoy this sacred jewel, and rightly so. AL has evolved a lot, and has had a lot of great updates that get people excited to play. But AL isn't as densely populated as it was in its early days. The loyal playerbase has grown smaller, and so has the community outside the game, which is why we don't see many content-creators or anyone actively and successfully promoting the game.
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