NEXT please: Alerts serve no end game purpose.

[Emperor Newt]

The problem with alterts is that they can go two ways. Sometimes I see them actually making people go and fight for a continent with decent fights everywhere. And sometimes I see at least on faction not really caring for the alert.

I don't have a full conclusion why that is but I observe the later one most of the times during non-prime time.
On my sever, even during prime time pop balance is not all too great. It's okay, but not balanced. Outside of prime time it's 42+% TR which seeems to make VS and to some extend NC not caring about the alerts. Why that is I don't know for certain but I have a theory.
Most of the time it's the outfits who drive people to fight at specific places because of continent pop balance. If the outfits switch to the continent and pop balance changes then Joe Casual also comes to join the fun. But if the outfits aren't there to do the initial push, and pop balance remains unbalanced, the switch of non-outfit players simply doesn't happen.