yep Alpha will slowly die now
regarding Cocotte and his friend from Skype, and the account sitting discussion... I agree, that would totally help; but they won't ever do account sitting again after the way it got out of control in the old tribal wars worlds - ideally though, it would allow the active players to preserve and 'slow conquer' their friends who had quit without losing the motivation to play themselves, as the scenario you guys discussed is definitely a prevalent one (where players just keep quitting, and nobody in their alliance has the slots to reclaim the cities, so they slowly get taken by others)...