I think in-game group finder is the great idea. I'd not favor and market any of the groups in game though, because this will be the unfair advantage.
The idea isn't exactly to market the Mobius group, but to create an official, dev-created, PvE-only alternative to Open. The Mobius group is a player-created alternative, and a great achievement that makes the game better for thousands of players, but due to the limitations of what can be done without official support it can never fulfill what its members truly want.
"When players became able to choose to be subject to PvP or not, the vast majority decided to not be subject to PvP." - not sure if this is the accurate statement. I think accepting consensual PVP will result much bigger player's exodus than disbanding Mobius. None of us knows this for sure and these are pure speculations. It's up to FD to decide what is the best for them based on their commercial interests. I truly hope their decisions will be carefully thought out and will generate continuous interest to the game.
That wasn't a prognostic for ED; that was a historic observation for UO. When Trammel (PvE world) was created, most players fled Felucca (PvP world) and settled instead on Trammel, even though Felucca had a 100% bonus on gathering materials and some exclusive (and important for progression) drops. The devs themselves acknowledge that, while most of the hardcore PvPers left the game afterwards, the increased retention of PvE players more than made up for that, allowing the game to double its player base in short order.
Would the same happen in ED? Hard to tell. I doubt the move would have so strong an effect because players can already avoid all PvP by playing Solo, so most of the players that value avoiding PvP more than they value meeting random strangers should already be there. My guess is that many, perhaps most, of the players that would migrate to an Open PvE option would be coming from Solo. In any case, it would provide a more pleasant experience for everyone that wants player interaction without player conflict.
By asking FD to support the statements they sold us the game with?
"Play your way" / "you can do all this online with your friends, or other "Elite" pilots like yourself, or even alone. The choice is yours"
At no point did they say, you will have to play with every pvper who buys the game cuz "reasons". I want to be able to play the advertised "Co-op" with all other members of the player base, not just the few who read the forums. A main menu item advertising (like Open PvE or have Groups listed in a PvP / PvE group filter and options to enable / disable PvP within the group) would go a long way to making sure all players know there is other ways to play the game apart from open PvP
Actually, Frontier (and DB, in interviews) did indicate they wanted players to be able to disable PvP inside groups. Or, failing that, to provide a setting that would automatically kick out of the group any player that got a bounty by attacking another player. One more bullet point from the DDR that was never implemented.
Oh come on, give players more credit than that.
Majinvash
The Voice of Open
Kinda hard to. Decades of research show that most players never seek any outside info about the game they are getting into. Why do you think most games now have in-game tutorials instead of manuals worthy of that name?
So, coming back to anthonycsheehy's point; yes, please do remember that there's real people behind the spaceships and avatars. Pirates and their "victims" need to mindful of how they communicate and present themselves. With three modes to choose from, no-one should be finding themselves in a situation with another player that they did not want to be in.
Exactly why I want an Open PvE mode. Right now we have:
- Solo: for those that don't want any player contact, be it PvP or PvE.
- Open: for those that want all kinds of player contact, both PvP and PvE.
- Group: can potentially supply the whole spectrum of experiences, but depends on finding the right group (which most players won't ever be able to do) and, even then, with a far more limited number of players, so it's a lesser experience for those that want to meet others.
So, where is the option for those that want to meet other random players, but only for PvE interactions? The closest thing is the Mobius group, but while that is the best that could be done with the in-game group tools, it will never be found by most players and will never be as good as a proper mode for the ones that do find it. Without such an option, for the majority of players that don't research outside the game, players that want to meet others but only for PvE interaction can either go Solo (and forgo all potential player interaction) or Open (where they will have PvP interactions they dislike).
BTW: yeah, there are players that can't completely separate game from reality. I'm one of those. Which is why I now only play games that allow me to filter out all unwanted player conflict.
My favourite one was the fella who called out to someone "I'm being robbed by Cerys 
