The game has plenty of potential, there were thousands of players at the beginning across many servers.
The game attracts pvp players, backed up by PvE players, working together, viable groups formed, able to produce what was necessary to wage war. The most popular forever war game is Eve Online, they struck a great balance between the amount of time you need to pve to level and create the gear you need for war, and to engage in unrestricted warfare when desired.
LIF has made the mistake with the game balance, there is too much pve required to support the desired pvp that people want. Instance battles where good for a time, I had 100v100 battles with nil lag and it was a great experience.
Today, even with the Chinese getting kicked off EU servers to their own, so they can't cheat and lag on demand, LIF has the other hurdle of reducing the PvE burden required to take part in PvP.
Until they make it easier, instead of harder to make materials for war, the larger player base of PvP players will never return, and the MMO version of this game will stay dead.
The devs confirmed way more people play YO version, they make more money from it, and will put more into it for that reason. The MMO is not worth it in it's current form.
So change the form! Make it a PvP viable game again, less pve, more pvp; they'll get more subscribers, revenue, and resources.
Until then, keep playing...something else. This MMO does not have a future, it hasn't for a long time, and nothing in the last AMA indicated it would.