No, there is 1 reason xmas cRPG failed: because it sucked.
There won't be any old cRPG revival, sorry.
I'm telling you again, that's not the reason.
I like old cRPG yet I didn't try xmas cRPG. Wasn't interested at all. Not because it sux but because it wasn't a serious project. We knew it's going to last for a month or two and frankly speaking, no one wanted to grind from the start.
People who play your mod like to grind. Before it were heirlooms and levels, now are mainly heirlooms the reason for grind. Wipe everything and you'll be lucky if 30% of your playerbase continue to play the mod. And those 30% would stay because they are used to playing cRPG daily.
I'm still playing because it's still fun (but a lot less than before) and because I have high level char which I want to tweak further. Some people who have similar character like me are already bored and are playing this mod a lot less. It's up to you to offer us (although we are minority) something or just let us leave the mod.
Mod wasn't about to die if you didn't change it back in january 2011. You and chadz changed it because you two didn't like it. You have to understand that we have no real alternative to cRPG at this moment and there weren't alternative back then. You can't fuck up so bad that people would leave in greater numbers because of it.
Problem is that you guys listen only to people who are close to you and think that their opinion is what community thinks. It's not like that, there is a lot more people outside those few clans and not more than 50 people from those clans who are you listening to.
Druzhina, Grey Order, Strangers, Pillagers on the one side; Fallen Brigade, HRE, Great Khans one the others, bunch of american clans (huge clans), huge number of Turkish clans, French clans, Dutch clans, German clans, Swedish clans, as well and huge number of smaller clans are majority of players. And of course us lone wolves.
Not your usual quartet of clans you're listening to: Nordmen, Mercs, Guards and Byzantium. You might have greater respect for those players but they aren't majority.
And don't try to deny it, every Start when Mercs were in bad position, about to get wiped, you found some lame excuse (which is your fault because you didn't fix some bugs on time) to restart that Strat so your favorites can keep playing.
Also how many members Mercs and Guards have and how many of them are admins? I won't even mention Nordmen, we all know it's an admin clan and most of the devs are part of that clan.
I don't have anything against those clans but I feel there is no justice in cRPG.
Now Oberyn can start insulting me...