Topic: Why not make this game free to play with restrictions?
Step 1. Change to free to play model.
Step 2. Free to play accounts receive EP at a greatly reduced rate (10% rate of subscribed accounts) and is also capped at maximum of 100k ep, if you want to continue gaining EP, you must be subscribed. Subscribed accounts play the game in exactly the same way they can now.
Maybe there's a couple other restrictions you could place on free to play accounts that I haven't thought off, such as loot drops turned down and the ability to do research and production.
Surely this would only be a good thing for player numbers?