I gotta know...(DEVS only)
 

What keeps you devs going on the same project for several years? I love EQ to death, but you would think you would get burnt out by now. I still mess around with my server and tweak it (even though in vain due to newer and better DB's comin out) but there are so many new things that have/are coming out. I've been a long time fan of this site and this question is more for personal enlightenment =) Thanks guys.

Being a long-time developer of my own projects (and being an ass because you said "devs only" and thus I do qualify :)), I'll say if this was a "job", and devs were somehow forced to do it 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for NO pay, yes. Burn-out is imminent. However, as everyone states everywhere, "we get to it when we get to it" appears to be a good way to prevent burnout. Plus, you have the community in general who pokes around, finds and fixes things too outside the core devs team, which always helps.

I am new, so I don't really know the 5+ year history of this EMU, but it's my guess that those currently working on it have not been involved since day 1. Reading old posts, and seeing many changes to key "names", people do burn out, move on, drop the project, and others pick it up. The old timers could better answer this, but this is what I perceive as a newcomer.

In short, yes. Burnout, RL, or disillusionment/disinterest occur. i'm still hoping to find that rosette stone that makes this code perfectly clear to me so I can begin to be an asset, as opposed to just an ass. ;)