There are lots of people who like to solo. It is a whole market. MMOs often don't cater well to solo play but EQ2 does a pretty darn good job. I guess lots of people just 2 or 3 box but that is more than the normal player wants to have to control. Most people don't like flipping between apps or using multiple machines. I would bet for every person that 2 or 3 boxes there are 3 or more people that would pay to have an additional merc. In Mercenary Dreams, I proposed that the idea of mounts as mercs be explored. The same mounts in the game now could be fleshed out to become an additional mercenary presence, in which they become a member of the group. Then you would have a mount and a merc as companions. I also proposed a new type of mount that could be like a second character that you might even be able to level up and switch between but that's a whole new dimension. Additional active merc capability could require All Access. I would say All Access and 100dbc per additional active merc a month. The idea is, the party size is made for 6 people. If mounts could be mercs, you only need to find 1 other person to be at your max potential. (not including raids). So then the game is ideal for duos. If it were up to me though, I would explore making the game ideal for solo people. I would figure out how to let a player make a whole party. Then every solo player in the world has a huge world and tons of content to explore. 1000's of hours. I would flesh out the mercs and make them a big part of the game. Then, I would worry about how to make it advantageous for people to group together. The idea I would explore is (Number of human players in party multiplies the cash drops by that number, so a full party gets 6 times the cash) and (when a chest is granted (chest upgrades it tier to better chest by 5% per additional human player beyond 1 player). So a full party of humans gets a 25% chance at a chest upgrade every time a chest is granted. That percentage could be tweaked. It could be 10% per human. Whatever makes it appealing enough to entice players to group. If the rewards are big enough, it can overcome a lot of the drawbacks to grouping up with humans. So a 10% per human bonus would result in a 50% chance for a chest to upgrade its tier. So to recap, mercs enable and enhance solo-ability and probably experience grinding. Human grouping makes you richer faster. I would shoot for the ideal of a couple hours with a human group and your bags will be full of loot and you have made a good deal of cash. Make this cash and treasure amount so enticing that humans players become in great demand.
