The last time I checked Tavern, there were only 17 players on EU1 indeed. I was on my phone, so I didn't really bother looking any closer.
Shortly after I noticed that Tueten's crossbow tournament took place on a different server at the same time. Really guys, cut the apocalypse-prophecies. This isn't dying, people are just switching servers whenever there is stuff going on elsewhere. Look at the big picture, not only at EU1.
Do you really believe people play this for 3000+ hours just to randomly quit as soon as some patch fucked up their class (like it has been happening ever since 2010)? If they quit, they make a goodbye and giveaway thread with lots of tears and hugs, so the mod isn't gonna die neither the silent nor sudden way. If it goes out, it goes out with a bang.
Funny how 80% of the "I am leaving" threads are troll threads lately