I don't remember much details about the game outside the famous trailer... did they release a lot of info about it?

there was enough info in articles and on their forum to start to see both the promise and the disappointment lurking in the whole concept

http://www.polygon.com/covers/2014/12/9/7257209/the-fall-of-thq
basically was exactly "we want the WOW money"

so many MMO's either burn out before release due to production issues or become "lame ducks" or "one-trick ponies",

"lame ducks" are games that arrive and immediately fail to live up to their promise and never reach real player satisfaction for various reasons no matter how much the devs throw into them,

"one-trick ponies" are MMO's that have at least one great idea/concept/mechanic that stands above the field of competitors but ultimately fall due to a lack of innovation/dedication in other areas,

WoW managed their success by having a good mix of mechanics at the right time and rose above the field like a giant, while other MMO's captured audiences for their genre or mechanics none of them managed to roll enough of them together like WoW did to topple the giant,

in the end it was make a WoW clone and try to steal a little of its thunder by tweaking mechanics and throwing the occasional innovation in to appear different enough or give up the MMORPG game entirely,

WoW of course will die like all MMO's ... under its own weight and indifference, since the bigger and more complex a game gets the greater the expense of any expansion, all it takes is a few bad decisions that the players dont like and you hit the cascade point and exodus lol

the real question is who is going to be brave enough to take the next real leap of faith required to make a giant,

and thanks to the continued advancment of computer engines, graphics, server tech...just what the next giant is going to look like lol

• For this game I think the biggest thing is having enough customization for everyone to feel as unique as possible and for them to have a considerable amount of attachment to their character(s).

• Faction balance will be important as well. No one wants to log on and get crushed all the way back into their spawn point time after time. They need to have victories whether that is ambushing an decimating a group from the opposing faction or capturing a few stronghold/keeps.

• Customer support will need to be on their toes as well. No one wants to have a character stuck for days at a time or be unable to log into the game for any reason. No one wants lag or compatibility issues.

• Rewards are important. Sometimes when you go hardcore on a game for so long and reach a stale point where there is nothing to obtain this can cause people to get bored and want to move on.

• It has to be easy to log in and get connected with friends. If I log into a game and I can't find or get with my buddies to play together then I get pissed off. When you log in you should be able to click on your clanmate or friend and join their group and maybe even get dropped into that location so you can work together and share experiences.

I'm sure there are other reasons but these are some pillars that I feel are pretty important.

Well there is the fact it's horizontal leveling so grinding can be less tedious or simply not noticed at all. But there will be RNG loot (Random Number Generator; Random item drops after battles for objectives) to acquire different versions of weapons and upgrades which can be grindy. There will also be trading.Strike forces (guilds) are only mentioned but they could expand it to any player, maybe only restricted to Sub-factions.
Drops & trading are mentioned by MichaelChan here and here.

-----------
For the topic, how Eternal Crusade can not fade away is to do the things that make it not fade away. *is a helpful person. also tired.* Could also learn, adapt, and grow. Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) I heard went through changes for the better recently after their unimpressive start. I don't know the changes myself yet but that's what I heard and makes me want to check it out again. Which makes it not fade away.

I rarely see criticism. I see a lot of bitching and moan which is unproductive and toxic imo.

Talking about campaign. The campaign objectives in EC should be more meaningful and engaging to make them more interesting than PS2's. As much as I like that game, I must admit that it grows stale after a few hours of playing, the red alert is so underwhelming that I don't even notice if it's on or not (I still play PS2 a lot though, after all it offers an experience that cannot be found in any FPS, even Battlefield don't have that). I think the devs should be more interacting with the community and even GW authors in the process of creating campaign, to implement hidden stories and secrets under them, don't just make an automated police light that pops up once every few hours.

The only issue i see is the potential in lack of content, but EC seems to have more leeway room for potential content also the fact that they have more room for creativity due to the lack of a producer.

I'm not the kinda guy to write a wall of text, sorry xD

It's funny that PS2 devs seem to run out of ideas for endgame content, while they have a bunch of good things back in PS1 that can be reused.