I, obviously, never had anything to do with RoT, but I was interested by all the nostalgic comments.
I joined last September, smack dab in the middle of the Zeal era. It was pretty fucking great, but because it was my first time on Herocraft, making great friends, and making my own adventure. All of the veteran players who took me under their wing would always comment on how fascinated I was with Zeal, the RP, and the adventure with "You think this is good, Sanctum was so much better. The wars!"
Fact is, now when new players stroll in to offtopic claiming this is the best server they've ever played on and how awesome it is, I yearn to say "You should have been here for Zeal." The thing is, that's how servers, new maps, and everything goes. There will always be new players who will always find what they have now is great, and older players will long for the past maps. I do have criticisms about Zeal being better than Dragongarde, but mostly I miss the surprise and the learning. People who have been here for a while have made their relationships, friends, chosen their alliances. The lack of "new" is what makes Dragongarde seem inferior to Zeal, for the most part. I'm sure many veterans who were there would say Sanctum was the best of all three.
I think no matter what the founders and staff do to make Dragongarde more fun for veterans, and come on we all love when an event is going down, they won't EVER be able to create that sense of "new". Obviously when the map first started we were all excited, but fell back into our routines, and loss the excitement. Unless you're expecting a map wipe every two months or so, you need to accept that nothing will live up to those first few months you started on Herocraft. Luckily those first few months were so great that we stick around, have laughs, spend time with old friends, and enjoy the newbies rolling in.
That's my two cents, back to class