<angry-rant>
Tis a very sad day. I am not changing my signature though! I believe that if we stopped all new features and realized that nobody cares how long it takes, we would get it done one day. Now, this is just going to be a bigger rift in the community (very very bad) that will continue to grow until GAE implements an improved Multiplayer similar to MegaGlest's, in which case MG becomes obsolete, as, to be blunt, the multiplayer is the only feature actually big enough to make MG worth playing over GAE. Sure it has improved AI and cliffs, but those are small enough that GAE's mass features win hands down, and the cliffs would be simple enough to replicate, seeing there is less changes to the way the map is drawn than probably any other part of GAE from MG.
If the code isn't compatible to be truly merged, do a "group" merge, where we simply all work together to rebuild MG's features into GAE, but unlike a direct port, both the MG team and GAE team would work together on this one project, starting with Multiplayer, then progressing to the MDC (preferably with a prettier layout and more room for information), followed by the rest of the changes.
Obviously, nobody expected a merge to be easy nor quick, if it takes a year to merge, fine, it'll better the community on the long run. So you don't have the energy to do it all by yourself, fine, there just happens to be a lot of people here, Silnarm, Hailstone, Yggdrasil, Titi, Softcoder, and any others that could be enticed to help, so if everyone did one small thing, it would eventually be complete. After all, all MegaGlest features were programmed in once, so they can surely be done again. Sure, it took a while, but you would now have more experience, know how it was done (even if the theory must be changed a bit), and above all: more programmers.
In all honesty, I never supported the idea of having two separate engines for such a small community in the first place, and the merge would be the best way to make Glest greater, and, hopefully, return her to her glory days where she was winning awards, gaining dozens of members every day, and more.
To sum that all up, please, do not abandon the merge. While I cannot speak for the entire community, I'm sure that the majority of players would rather have a merge than a dozen new features to both engines (bearing in mind that once merged together, the development team is also merged, thus making it faster and easier to implement new features in the future). The bottom line? A strong, powerful Glest like the one we saw when we first came to this site.
</angry-rant>
