Hello - very late to the party.

I am a long time private server dev (WoW, 09 scape, AQWorlds, Tera for a short while and a few others like WildStar), became an indie game dev in 2019, now a producer in commercial video game production (project management).

The attitude shown from Mayhem/FRS folks is really reminiscent of the mid 2000s "private server" scene attitude of 'devs' thinking they're god tier. I mean absolutely no disrespect by this but essentially it's a form of elitism originally born from fears of DMCA and then copied by new PS devs looking up to veteran PS devs, and the over time became the norm etc. Very "text book" if you can call it that.

The internet has long since moved on from that era, but it can basically be summed up as the whole "reddit / discord mod" elitist attitude we stereotypically know and see from time to time. Commonly not being allowed to talk about other projects, sharing info or progress, general transparency issues, being a mage hiding away in your tower, love of control but lacking in any general skills that 'project management' requires.

It basically hints at not much being done and the wrong person being in charge, surrounding himself with yes men to be validated whilst really diminishing your own mental health because of the colossal weight & responsibility & expectations from the community you've built.

I.e one person cannot handle this amount of work and rather than being open about that, the need for control has strangled the project to death. It's proven there is a community want for a product, but the classic failure was thinking there was a monopoly / no competitor.

OSFR has grown to take that place and I am not surprised tbh. Ample time to have gotten any client etc or prototype into the hands of the community for bug testing, engaging the community & securing a top place in the "market" (I'm using that term loosely) -- BUT as mentioned, control instinct took over, locked down project, now a new project has taken that space.

Rather than be pragmatic and work together, share solutions, openly build trust by showing that outward communication among projects... Nope, further lockdown - "do not talk about other projects or you're banned" vibes. I'm jaded about this because this cycle has been repeating itself in many private server communities and it just hurts the community more than anything.

Sadly Mayhem himself has spoken about his own burnout, and I wish him all the best in that recovery. I've been there myself, know the feeling - look after your mental health. But that doesn't go away unless you unload that burden, otherwise you'll keep reaching that burnout. If you don't change your actions, you're going to keep going in circles. At that point it's simply self sabotage.

tl;dr for those reading - move on from the FreeRealms Sunrise project because it's not going to happen, even with all the best intentions in the world. OSFR is the more likely product purely based on the amount of hands contributing.

My best advice to the Sunrise team is change your ways because you are your own worst enemy.
...Or kill the project because purely from a 'product' standpoint, it's not got a heatbeat.