While I'm sure many forum members are aware of this fact and I've heard a dev say this once or twice in the forums, how the heck are all of the other people (and gamers who are not forum members) supposed to know that the current FH dev team is understaffed? Neither have they ever posted a new update on the homepage saying that they're having staff issues nor have I ever seen an active "Devs Wanted" call on their website. So seriously, how should the world (and potentially talented modders who would like to contribute to FH) know??
I can’t speak for the devs because I don’t know much about internal matters but I think I can speculate on a few things.
For one, they have posted information on the front page before
http://forgottenhope.warumdarum.de/news.php?id_news=408 here's one from June 4th, 2012. While it was a long time ago, the devs have made other attempts to get the word out. I can't dig it up, but I've seen posts in the
http://www.bfeditor.org/forums/ forums requesting for help as well; that's a website that most battlefield modders who still mess around with this engine know about, so it's def a good place to advertise. On top of that, advertising and posting a new update on the front page takes time, time that's better spent working on new releases imo.
Giving the fact that according to the homepage there are still about 30 active developers listed in the Staff section (though they actually are only a handful now) doesn't really help either to attract new dev members.......How about updating this information once in a while?
I agree this information should be updated, even putting something as small as a button (like the download latest FH version button) on the sidebar saying something like “actively looking for devs, apply here” with a link to the applications page. But then even the applications page isn’t up to date, so it becomes a big task that takes more work to get done properly.
I think the biggest thing that we can’t forget, is that this is an old, old engine. Imo, even if the devs advertised the best they could to every appropriate outlet on the internet, it would only bring in a few more people. I think it has more to do with the fact that the amount of people that want to/ have time to mod for Battlefield 2 is very small. People who develop for a living or are looking to make a career out of game developing have to keep up with new engines and techniques and are rightfully looking for other games to work for. Doing work for battlefield 2 isn't going to boost your portfolio as much as modeling or level designing for a next gen game will. I can't say for certain but I'm sure that back in FH2s heyday it was easy to find modelers, coders, animators, level designers etc who were looking for tasks to boost their portfolio and help them get a job when the latest engine was BF2. So they messed around with FH2, pumped out tasks and moved on in their careers or whatever. I'd venture to say that the devs that have stuck around and continued modding FH2, and the one's that are joining now are doing this more for the love of the mod and genuine interest in game developing and less to help their job.
(not to say that the people who did this just for their job didn't care about this mod) I could be wrong but I give them a lot of credit.
Also that's not to say that we can't do our own part in advertising this mod. Unless a dev comes in and objects, I'm sure they wouldn't mind someone posting on another website saying that 'FH2 is still working and actively looking for people to help model, code, animate and map for upcoming releases.'