Steam

[pizzasgood]

At the start, there is excitement with intense competition for resources. Later in the game, there are only a few large groups left in control of everything. They slowly become inactive, while new players cycle in and out with relatively few staying. When all that's left in the universe is a bunch of decaying empires and a few people begrudgingly hanging onto them, it's not a very vibrant universe to play in. I'm not saying that we should be resetting monthly, or even yearly. But I would think that three years is definitely a sufficient period. 

If all that's left is decay, then there's nothing stopping new people from coming along and building new things.  The reason these cycles happen has nothing to do with needing to wipe stuff out and reset the playing field.  It's not the reset itself that brings people back; they return because a reset is a defined moment that's easy for everybody to synchronize around.  In lieu of resets or some other big noteworthy event, we all trickle back in at our own pace and miss each other.

Guess what else is a big noteworthy event that's easy to synchronize around and sure to pull people out of the woodwork?  Steam release.  :)