I'm not surprised to be honest. MotU damaged the DDO community, splitting the population and angered a number of subscribers, many of which claimed they quit over it. U19 damaged the underlying mechanics, weakening greatly one of the core strengths of DDO; build versatility.
It's pretty obvious that the population dropped after MotU significantly, and again after U19. From discussions elsewhere on the 'net, LotRO likewise was impacted heavily by the same style management. Asheron's Call has been in Maintenance Mode for ages, I doubt it'll be heavily impacted.
Add in the dismal reception new players receive, between the load to red on first log in, and numerous issues like the never-ending ladder bug and the horrible lag. They can't be growing the player base like that.
I've been checking out new MMOs, but unfortunately, none have either the build versatility nor the active playstyle everyone seems to enjoy. Sadly, Neverwinter seems to suck. I expected it, it is based on 4E D&D. With 5E still in the works, I doubt it'd be converted to MMO for 4-5 years, if at all with the failure of DDO and Neverwinter.
It's sad, reportedly 100 people got the axe, pretty much entirely from LotRO and DDO. Infinite Crisis, aptly named for Turbine, is probably safe since it's a WB IP and theoretically a strong one. Then again, DDO and LotRO should have been shoe ins for a strong MMO IP, but Turbine mismanaged them from day 1.
Someone suggested buying the rights and code to DDO actually. I doubt that could be done, since to release it legally, you'd need to negotiate with Hasbro/WotC, who is likely to not want competition for NWO.
I did (re)discover the U6 Online game.
http://ultimasixonline.thezogcabal.com/ I don't know if 8 people can group together on that, or even if everyone in the guild likes Ultima 6. There is also the former EUO:
http://euotopia.com/ This is closer to U4/5 than 6, but I played it back in the day, maybe about 6 years ago.
I have not played either recently, so I won't swear about how they play these days.