Okay I was trying to avoid posting in here because of the... angry... seeming... nature... of some of the posts, but to heck with it here:
This is a plan and may change in exact implementation by then, and one new feature in particular will depend on how players like the idea. Part of this change has already been added, when you enter a pirates game via a lobby, you now go back to the same instance you were in. After the new client releases, and it's stable enough to replace the old, pirates will have its regular lobbies removed. To replace them, will be three new lobbies and an infinite amount of "private lobbies".
To get to a private lobby, you must follow someone on your friends list there. You can create one, and it's "your" lobby and you can even boot people from it. The first regular lobby will be "General", this will be for playing pirates normally. The second will be "Friendlies", for playing friendlies. The third will be "Wager Matches" or something to that effect, which I'll explain in a second. When you click on pirates on the map, you have to pick one of these three every time, your friends private lobbies may also be listed there.
Wager matches will only be playable in that one lobby, the lobby itself will give you lots of warnings explaining what the lobby is for when you enter it. Essentially, they're pirates games where you still earn credits, but there's also a buy in to enter the game. You have to pay 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, or 10,000 credits to enter a game (the amount will depend on what the creator of the game puts in there, custom amounts may be allowed). You will only be charged once the game starts (at which point noone can be booted from it). The winning team gets the losing teams winnings divided among them. No refunds for this will be allowed.
In other words, you have a 2v2 ship battle match with a 1000 credit buy in, team one loses, team two gets 1000 extra credits for the game each, whilst team two loses their buy in. Same goes for any other credit amount. 1v1 games will also be allowed in this game mode, with the stipulation no new credits will be earned, only those from the buy in. However, uneven teams will never work.
I think this would be a great way to encourage people to play competitively, when they actually have something hanging in the risk when you play it. You'll still earn keys and things playing this way too, but you could potentially lose amounts of credits. Again, before you join a game it will warn you what the game is for extensively and how much it costs, and that you shouldn't play this mode unless you're willing to lose that many credits. Personally these kinds of games in other games really made them fun for me, even if I didn't like the game itself.
How does that sound? Genuinely want to hear your thoughts on this, like if you don't think I should do it then say so, the decision hasn't been fully made yet and if it doesn't sound like something the players will want then we won't do it... But I think it could be very fun, and you don't have to play this way if you don't want to.
As for actually banning friendlies, I don't think we'll do it because so many players play that way, and a lot of them enjoy it in its own right. As much as it may seem like it's pointless, some people really enjoy that kind of thing, I thought that was impossible at first to be completely honest but after witnessing it they really do. I'm not going to take something away that people actively like, where a minority dislikes it. However, I do think it should be relegated to a special lobby or private lobby so it's easier to find real games if you want to, and you don't end up playing a friendly match just because you can't find any others.
I expect the player count to increase when the new client comes out for a lot of reasons, a big one being some huge percentage (more than 50%, i can't think right now though) of players never made it into the game because of shockwave, this trend has only gotten worse over time as support for it has died. I think that will alleviate a lot of the problem too.