Sad, but not unexpected. I happened to pick it back up after a few years right about when the first round of layoffs happened. Somebody decided to fundamentally change the game all at once, removing or replacing people's weapons and gear, and while I think it's overall good, it pissed off a lot of people who had spent hundreds of hours farming behemoths.
I've been playing my last hurrahs, knowing this was coming. Sad that Forte (who bought Phoenix Labs) just let it die like this, but they were never in it to make a good game—just a quick buck.
Hopefully a game like this comes again, someday. They were the first game I can recall that had good crossplay at a time when what was novel.