Like you said, they could've done this long time ago but... When they lost their players, 90% of in-game users are botting they bring Darkscape to life hoping to attract new players and bring old players back, which also is free to play meaning they are trying desperately to gain player base again. For me, this is a desperate move and I will not change my mind about it.
Once they got a good player-base which will happen, they will make a d**-move and ruin everything just like back in 2007 and again in 2013. I don't think they can afford running Darkscape free to play with p2p content in the long run which will make them taking a move thats against the community's will.