EoR and the Population Problem: A Proposal for F2P and Non-PvP Content

[Whisperfall]

Henrik and Star Vault,

Refinement is what I’ve been hoping for, and I’m glad to see the game heading in this direction. Polishing what exists is how a sandbox earns trust back. I’ve put around 5,000 hours into MO2, and I want it to thrive. With daily peak concurrency around 250 across both continents, the population is at a critical point, and I think the biggest lever is the barrier to entry.

1. Free-to-play Haven and main game

I’d personally prefer a pure subscription model, but I know that’s a minority opinion these days. Free players need to get hooked before they’ll spend money, so the game should be easy to try.

• Make Haven and the main game free, with a gated experience (RuneScape-style): either a skill cap of 50-70 or a much smaller AP/profession pool.
• Keep an optional subscription (OSRS-style, with no bond or WoW-token equivalent) that unlocks the full game: a house slot, extra character slots, mastery unlocks and so on.
• A larger player pool means more customers, and more revenue to fund the development you want to do.

2. Monetization that doesn’t touch balance

• House cosmetics and house skins.
• Market stall skins.
• Other cosmetic items, such as clothing, underwear, tattoos and so on. Players enjoy standing out, and it carries no pay-to-win concerns.

3. Player market stalls (Ultima Online-style)

• Stalls run by an NPC merchant who is paid by the day. The owner supplies the goods by putting them in a chest or handing them to the merchant.
• The current town brokers become a global market search tool, with map/compass tracking to the stall you choose.
• Owners can set alliance and guild discounts.

4. Housing in empty town buildings

• Convert all empty town buildings and rooms into player housing or market stalls.
• This gives veterans a premium land grab, and the buildings can host stalls and furnishings for visitors.
• Cosmetics fit here too.

5. Systems that get strangers playing together

• A veteran mentorship program with in-game incentives, such as a mentor title, rewards, or guild-linked programs.
• A town bulletin board for grouping up for activities, with extra experience or rewards for cooperating with strangers.
• Lockpicking tied into the bounty system: bounty hunters could lockpick into the houses of AFK players with bounties, with a longer logout timer for players with active bounties and no fast logout in safe spaces.
• Treasure maps tied to the existing shallow graves and sunken ships.

Why this fits the refinement philosophy

None of this touches the PvP core, which is what makes MO2 special. It broadens the game’s appeal to roleplayers, crafters and traders, beyond the loop of PvP and farming PvE. Free-to-play brings players back quickly, and continued refinement and RP-friendly features keep them. The cosmetics and subscription then give you the revenue to keep going.

Thank you for your time and for the work you’ve put in. I’d be glad to discuss any of these further.

-Whisperfall

 

[Dargelar]

1. Free‑to‑play Haven and main game
Free race — Humans — and one character; all other races/characters are paid.

2. Monetization that doesn’t touch balance
IMO, the best monetization format is a paid subscription like in Pax Dei: it only unlocks housing access.
Free housing options: either in a city, at a castle spot, or in a citadel.
Personal houses should be available only for a fee.

3. Player market stalls
The servers for this “super‑game” can’t handle large crowds, so trading should be hybrid: local stalls on the map plus a central regional auction in the city, with an extra fee for delivery within the region. Players should be able to buy locally (at the stall) or in the city (regional hub). To sell in another region, you’d need to physically transport the goods to a trading stall in that region.
Cities should be appealing mainly to solo players and non‑guild characters, and ideally be safe zones. Guilds should get access to all their perks remotely from their own spots. This would encourage guilds to spread out across the map and avoid overloading single server nodes.

4. Housing in empty town buildings
Personally, I’m against this idea because of how poorly players tend to decorate interiors — houses quickly turn into fortresses or cluttered storage. Given the choice between seeing item piles inside houses or having empty houses, I’d pick empty ones.
Alternatively, the devs could implement restrictions: ban placing certain items in the middle of rooms, allow them only next to walls, and limit the number of items per house via item slots.

5. Systems that get strangers playing together
The suggestions on the list are garbage.
Player support mechanics would just become a way to funnel experience to alts without any real in‑game value.
I’d abuse the notice board just to get perks.
Breaking into other players’ chests would destroy the already fragile trust in the game. No difficulty or mechanic can balance the potential value of what’s inside chests. We’re talking about devs who don’t even think to generate new lock combinations after loot respawns.
Instead, I’d add a log for each chest showing who took and deposited items. That way, guilds could filter out dishonest players — the game doesn’t have so many players that we can afford to encourage this kind of behavior.

To actually encourage random players to help newcomers, we need a proper regional karma system for each region. If a player kills others in a region, their name should appear red to everyone there; if they have good regional reputation, their name shows green. Passersby will only help if they have at least some confidence that the person they’re helping won’t stab them in the back.
A regional karma system is the most logical choice for this game because it can encourage the organic formation of in‑game factions made up of players from different guilds and solo players.

 

[Turbizzler]

F2P was tried in MO1, and both worked and didn't work, mostly didn't. Your skills were all restricted to 60, which in MO1, made all skills essentially useless, outside of a few more nicher impactful skills at lower levels. Though, MO1 also did not have max damage weapons at lower skill/lore levels, so for MO2 setting the F2P skill point cap at 70, could work. Though, F2P builds, would still be scuffed a lot on the PvP side of things.

The biggest drawback in MO1 with F2P, was it enabled three types of issues
1 - Cheaters, it allowed cheaters to constantly spam out accounts, and as they cheat, the reduced skill/lore levels, were irrelevant for them.
2 - Griefing, you could essentially overwhelm your enemy with shitty F2P grief characters.
3 - F2P Char banking, a lot of people had F2P accounts in the world, to use their char inventory as a bank. It also opens up being able to spam out a lot of F2P accounts, for unlimited bank space, in cities.

MO2 only really needs to a few things, when it comes the games price and monetization.
1 - Reduce the subscription price, as the game isn't worth it's current retail price + subscription(And most likely, never will be).
2 - Make Haven F2P, to enter the main world you need to purchase the game(get 1 month free sub).
3 - Allow players to sub their accounts, with in-game currency.
4 - Expand on the veteran point system for rewards, currently they expect you to sub for insane periods of time, for simple rewards, make things easier to acquire, make it feel like the devs respect the players time.
5 - Monetize cosmetics, as you say, give people more customization options, to make them standout.

#3 on your list could be interesting, the issue is, gamers are very lazy these days, fracturing up where and how to buy things, will just annoy a lot of players.

#4 was planned for in MO1, but from memory, it never came to fruition, due to it creating a full safe space, within guarded towns, allowing players to completely detach themselves from being sieged or attacked. Would also enable griefers to just be an annoyance in towns, due to flagging and other system limitations.

#5 More incentive to explore or just be out in the world, is much needed, especially with more dynamicsim involved.
- MO1 had dynamically spawning graves, you could dig up(Although the rewards were usually poop, but had some unique RP clothing at times). Would just need to make the loot pool worth it, similarly with other treasure hunts.
- Thievery just need to be added, and make breaking into house locks a skill

Overall, the game does not respect players time, and too much half baked systems are in the game. Something they should have learnt from the downfalls of MO1, but somehow have made it worse in a lot of areas for MO2.