so like i have originally said this game has a huge identity crisis. it does not know what it wants to be.
Well, I think it quite obvious it doesn't want to be an open world PvP game. Never advertised as that, plus it has always described the freedom to decide who can play with you, including the option to play alone, as central to its whole multiplayer element. If you purchased the game thinking it was going in that direction, I don't think you did proper research on the game.
Now, I wouldn't be against a new, separate Open-only mode, with its own dedicated save, as long as the current Open mode was left where it is and mode switching across the old modes wasn't restricted in any way. Oh, and that all content was still available for all modes, just like it is today. I wouldn't even be against it having a separate Galaxy simulation. But I do think it would be mostly a waste of resources, as I don't think enough players would join that to make it feel much different than Solo.
you cannot manipulate the economy in WoW by hiding from the world with impunity, and there are no solo modes or zero population servers that you can pop in and out of. you must understand that the solo game mode manipulating the open game mode is game-breaking. it is worse than an overpowered module or a class or enemy npc, etc..
Regarding WoW: ever heard about PvE realms? You can't be attacked by other players on those, ever, without giving explicit authorization by flagging yourself for PvP. In other words, even if other players see you, they can't do anything about it. Just find a player from a low pop PvE server, like Garrosh, to group with you — or use multiple accounts to do that without having to ask anyone for help — and you can go farm there with impunity and likely never meeting anyone while you are farming.
And yeah, there are even solo nodes currently, or the equivalent, inside the instanced Garrisons. You could get every crafting material you might ever need without having to set foot in the open world, if you so wanted.
Back to ED, it's not game-breaking at all; it's a deliberate feature, much appreciated by a large part of the player base. And, even if it was somehow game-breaking, forcing players into unwanted PvP would be far more game-breaking in any game that was explicitly sold as allowing players to avoid PvP, like ED was.
It is indeed easy to play alone if you desire to in Open mode, which is why there is no need for Solo mode at all. It just doesn't make sense to have in such a vast game universe.
There is a need for Solo and Group modes, for many reasons that have been acknowledged by Frontier from the start. In fact, it was Frontier that originally proposed Solo and Group modes.
In fact, the game's networking architecture seems hand-picked to allow providing Solo and Group modes. It eliminates every single technical issue that attempting to provide such modes could cause, and from a game systems point of view Solo mode is likely the one that demands less resources from Frontier's servers. In contrast, the chosen architecture is among the worst ones you could ever implement if your objective is to prevent players from playing alone, as it allows players to easily manipulate their connection and vanish from every other player even if they choose "open" as the game mode.
Yes, the risk is very small, but it's still there, unlike in Solo mode. As many others have said before, there is no reason to have Solo mode in a game with such a huge universe, it just doesn't make sense. It makes an already sparse population even worse, which does not help the game.
It helps the game immensely by allowing players to avoid people they find undesirable. There is a reason MMOs that force non-consensual PvP on the players are, and have always been, niche games, and particularly so if death has consequences above a slight wrist-slap.
Look at all the business potential. It's....It's beautiful.
Of course there is business potential; as others have said previously, it costs money — and often a lot of money — to do such activities. But the persons that take part in the sports themselves aren't doing that for money, at least not for the most part. There is always some more business savvy practitioner that manages to secure patronage, but that is the exception rather than the rule.
It's, sincerely, mind-blowing that the concept of doing things purely for fun needs to be even defended in a game forum.