Neri left. SMMI has declared he was retiring from GM/Loreing. I am on the edge of leaving.
Neri believes that Castle is dying and he is not buying into a sunken cost fallacy.
SMMI is sticking around for a bit but I'm not sure how long a bit is.
I do not think Castle can survive without the support of Neri and SMMI but I am reluctant to leave because I fucking love this game.
I want to stay and see Castle through, but it is simply too much work. Everything is falling apart and there's a huge argument on the Discord every day over something or another. I can't keep Castle alive by myself. Without Neri we can't cross reference a ton of lore.
I'm sorry, but I don't know if I can stay. Castle may have died already, it could be on its deathbed.
I can see 3 futures for castle. The first is that everything picks back up and we get our own subforum and everything is awesome. This is the optimistic approach. The second future is one where Castle slowly stagnates until nobody posts; a couple years down the line there will be a halfhearted attempt to reboot it and that will fail. The third future I see is where there's another fuckhuge argument that pushes Anya over the edge and she kills it.
Personally, I think it's the second future that is the most likely. That's not to say the first isnt possible or the third couldnt happen tomorrow, but the second is what I see happening. Neri left because he saw the second and third futures. I want the first future from castle, but I'm not sure how possible it is.
I'm staying, for now. Personally, I think a hard restart is needed with new lore, new story, new background, new akras, new tech levels, etc. I would be willing to help with this, but due to real life commitments I can't do it all.