There's been a lot talk lately about what to do now that Zoria is gone. Migration, the "council" of elders, new developers and such. But I would like everyone to consider that none of these will solve Zelda Classic's current existential problem. And if this problem isn't solved, then all the work will be for nothing. The dog's brain is likely to bark its head off at this one but I have to try:
1. There are a new generation of Zelda players. The modern type A Zelda player wants their quest to resemble Link's Awakening, The Minish Cap, The Oracle of Seasons and the Oracle of Time. They don't want their quest looking like NES Zelda - that was for the oldies.
2. Scripting is 100% necessary to make modern type A Zelda quests. There's no way around this one - if you want any new features you must script them.
3. Most people can't script. Most people are script illiterate and won't spend 6 months or so learning how to script. If people find out that scripting is necessary to make their dream modern type A Zelda quest then they'll just quit or keep trying and keep cancelling like certain type A players here.
4. To remedy point (3), requires modular scripting. This involves pairing a complicated script with its own automated setup instructions so that a script illiterate user can simply run the modular script and have it do everything for them.
5. Modular scripting is too expensive. The cost of this is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not only must you pay for the developer but you must also pay people who write modular scripts. Who is going to pay for it? Certainly not any type B player.
Zoria might have been many things. But at least he was smart enough to understand this. Why bother developing ZC anymore if you know that its inevitable end is coming very soon? Why keep good relations with everyone? Even if he did the most stellar job he could - he could never overcome this problem. So why even try?
Perhaps its time for all of us to consider that we should simply do nothing and let Zelda Classic die. Trying to get it to survive is simply too expensive and too costly and no one's going to pay for it.