If NCSoft were to "die," what happens to its corpse (part of which is CoH) is, frankly, no longer NCSoft's to decide. It'll be handled by whatever undertakers the courts and the creditors decide, and it'll be sold to the highest bidder.
I don't think I'm alone in thinking that our best bet to see CoH sold off is an NCSoft bankruptcy. After all, isn't that why we watch the NCSoft stocks? Because at that point, the point of bankruptcy, NCSoft no longer has the power to decide what assets are theirs to keep, and what assets are up for sale. The bankruptcy attorney will decide, and his or her only interest, at that point, is to pay off NCSoft's debt obligations in the most complete fashion possible.
Well remember corporations don't die the same as people. Their stuff usually don't really become free for the taken (after their creditors are paid) and unlike most US companies, they have very few debts and more than enough cash even if they sliced their cash by 90% they would still have more than enough to pay off their debts.
Even when dead, the corporation, assuming it have not been sold, still hold to their copyright and IP rights. Trademarks, a little different. Like recently Delorean haven't made a car in ages, and in fact it went bankrupt long time ago, but still they hold rights to the Delorean name and logo and someone literally had to buy the company before they started plans on trying to revive the company. A company that been dead for decades and wasn't all that huge and had a big scandal though. Still someone just couldn't decide they wanted to build Deloreans and since Delorean was dead, they could do it for free and make killer money off of it.
If they sold COX, then of course it's out of NCSOFT hands, and into the hands of whoever bought it and what they are going to do with it, i.e turn it into a twitch grind game for major bucks while using the popularity of COX to drive the profits. "Yeah win win." But if NCSOFT don't sell, then it still legally remain theirs. Ort more than likely, they probably just sell it to a pet friend or sell it to Mr. Kim as part of his parachute package if the ship was really really sinking fast. I think NCSOFT have a bit more friends in the stock holder world in Korea and in the business world in KOrea than a few angry players in the US. I doubt they will all a sudden go and give a bone to the people that cuirsed them the day they shut down the game, and say "here for the good of the people, here is COX." they might sell it to to a game maker that they know good and well will butcher COX ad turn it into a fantasy clone grind game for the good and sake of Korean game play style.