There are always down times.
That's why I specifically gave the example of 2007. The community had been waiting for FH2 since 2005/6 and had absolutely NO versions come out for that long. ALOT of gloom and doom was predicted, but the community survived just as it has now when 2.0 was released finally.
FOr about 3 - 4months of troll posts, the devs finally decided to 'discipline' the community.
They stopped posting updates altogether.
Do you see? In the end, quality has its own followers. It may have content sure, and alot of good maps. But more than anything, its the history of the mod, the dedicated fans that have been here for so long and the sheer quality of contents that make FH2 survive.
There always the casual fans with short attention spans, but with each release, you get new ones of those. We generally don't get overly excited. They will come and go each season.
But we manage to always have 2 decently filled servers - HSLAN and 762. And one usually fills up to 64players.
Will FH2 last for a 1000 years? Probably not.
Will it even last for another 2 years? maybe, maybe not. Its an old engine.
But for the time being, we're still going strong
And while the devs work hard on the Russian front, let's see what that release, or the ones between now and then do to the numbers, shall we?