Nothing is forever, and so it goes to MMO games of different kinds. I like three games like this: The Elder Scrolls Online, Grand Theft Auto Online, Fallout 76. However, right now, I don't see a reason to play them, especially Bethesda's ones. In these games, you create your character, evolve them, lead them through different stories and so on. You get emotional bond with both them and the world they're living in. However, at some point of life, which can be big if you're lucky, you will see a message that an online game you spent thousands of hours in, and which you may have bought and into which you donated, will not be available due to their servers' shutdown.
Long story short, I think that developers should provide players with two things when they close their game:
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Official utilities to launch your local/unofficial server;
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Data of your account you can transfer to this server: characters, items, etc.
Some may say that it's too much, because it is a pretty complicated thing. However, at least your character, progress and game itself will be with you as long as you want. Ain't it beautiful?
However, there is also an option when even I think that it's "too much", but it would be even cooler. What if an online game offered an option to play it almost completely offline when you want with the ability to roll back into the online mode? For example, if you choose to play offline, all your character/account data will be downloaded on your PC, and after you play alone for some time, you will be able to upload it back on server. Of course, it would also mean that the downloaded character files will be protected from modifying or will have a special key which will be changed on modifying these files so you won't be able to upload them into online mode. However, as I said it, it may be too much because any protection can have it's flaws, so it may be not a very great idea from the start.
In the end of this post, I'd like to answer to probably the most obvious reaction: "This is an online game and you have to play it online!". My answer is simple: it's not necessarily should be like that and I believe that online games should be accessible as in old times even after their servers' shutdown.