A write-up somewhere for the Nexus of Worlds, and at least a skeletal framework for it, could significantly increase engagement with the Arena.  Star and I have seen it before plenty – even players who’re mostly interested in punching faces rather than Adventuring like having that backdrop of legitimacy to punch faces against.  Gives people a place to start when trying to design a character, as well.  Some vague sense of setting that might spark them to do something cool, instead of staring at an empty character sheet for half an hour, bereft of inspiration, before going “hell with this” and heading back to Casual.

Heh…think of it all in terms of baseball, I suppose.  Right now, the Arena is a baseball league without any teams or any real setting/history – just a big pool of players that occasionally spits out a match.  Now, whether you love baseball or find it incredibly boring, I imagine it’d be less engaging/more boring if there were no Favorite Teams to get behind and root for.  If there were teams to root for, and a grand ol’ setting for the teams to fight over/in, there’d probably be a lot more interest.

…probably.  I mean hell, I’m just the SRI black sheep, what do I know?  …beyond the fact that Arena stables of a fewish players banding together, with their own signature arena and standing rivalries/alliances with other stables, sounds like it could actually be a lot of fun even without necessarily needing a Nexus of Worlds backdrop.  With that backdrop, and stables representing their chosen world’s interests in variously-sized/placed duels to the victory…I’unno.  Sounds like it could be a different, Arena-y sort of take on concepts I’ve seen players striving towards for over a decade.