Honestly, I always thought you were working on the current payment model for two years of preparing Haven and Hearth 2.0. On our web site -- mmozg.net -- H&H took a second place (http://mmozg.net/2015/2016/01/21/pobedi ... -2105.html: this site for Russian-speaking gamers, so just belive me) in both Readers' and Authors' Choice Award of "The Most Fair Offer in MMO of 2015" nomination. The only flaw its has is a subscription tokens selling, which is basically a legitimate RMT. That's a reason why the first place went to Lineage 2: Classic, which didn't have any kind of shops and the only thing it had was a subscription. And that's exactly the basics of a fair offer -- you don't pay for advantages, riddance of difficulties or unlocking of options, you pay for the game itself.
The idea of giving a player the entire game, but limiting him in the amount of weekly game time is just brilliant. It gives a chance to taste every aspect of a game, makes it possible for friends to join you or come back later any time. It also gives a chance to play even if he can't pay in that exact moment. But if a player plays more than 14 hours a week, more than 2 hours a day, you shouldn't be offering him a hand of help. You shouldn't be rebuilding your payment methods for people who doesn't want to or can't pay for your game. If a person can't pay you $10 a month for far more then 56 hours of gameplay, don't distract him, let him earn the money and advance in order to earn it. If a person doesn't want to pay for your game, then he doesn't really need it. As simple as that is.
I think you should be testing your payment methods with a simple question: what do you sell? Currently you sell an unlimited access to a game and have the most flexible demo-mode in the entire MMO industry. It used to be one of the leading selling point of your project. We've seen MMOs fall one by one because of a wrong monetization methods. Now you started asking frightening question: should we build a paywall for levels of stats? You started considering methods of Korean F2P games with premium accounts.
I can't say I observe strange patterns in your players' behavior. Nothing that would differ it from the six years of free access. An uprising at the start and then a gradual wane after. That's a problem of the game, not monetization. But we stayed with you. MMO lives with long shots and aims. My team had them. For a year in advance. We had a vast world in front of us. We've been building a huge road so we and other players could explore the world. We've created a Christmas Event with lots of gifts and stories of how we delivered them. We've been building structures and entire areas. We've been telling everything to our readers. I know for sure that thanks to those stories we brought you lots of new clients. We did everything we could to help, but perhaps not enough.
I do not invoke you to cancel wipe. I know we play an alpha-version. But please, do not strip us of what helped your game win the first place in "The Best MMO of 2015" nomination among 25 best authors of our web site: a fair monetization system, a vast world with an idea of developing entire civilizations in it, long-term goals without a consistent threat of losing it. And thank you for five marvelous months of our lives. Perhaps, there are not as much of us as you wanted, but we love your game.