Auto Assault Disappears Into the Wasteland

As announced in early July, NCsoft will be permanently shutting down the Auto Assault servers this evening. If you own a copy, you most likely only have a couple more hours left to experience the game. Tonight's announcement:
With Auto Assault closing down tonight, we wanted to thank all of you for creating a tremendously cool and dedicated community of Wastelanders. We just didn't want to give you guys a wild, crazy event tonight, but something else that may be just as fun. In the coming days those that are eligible will be receiving a (Parting Gift) message in your e-mail inboxes, with opportunities to take a part in some of our other products, including Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa and City of Heroes. It's our way of saying (Thank You) to the diehard Auto Assault fan base and we hope to see you in are other virtual worlds.

A "Parting Gift" is better than nothing, but why not just release the server code to the community? I'm sure there would be plenty of people willing to host a subscription-free version of the game on their own dime.