EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi there. I'm Acrel, and I just founded a corp for the first time about a week ago. Things seem to be coming along pretty decently but I'd like some advice from more experienced leaders on how to improve. The public thread about our corp goals and the ways we plan to achieve them can be found here.

Recruitment: I've gotten several members, six separate people with two alts thrown in. I've got one guy who might be joining in a few weeks depending how things go. My main methods for recruitment are

• Put the occasional ad in the recruitment channel. I know that this is frowned upon, but making people fill out an application on our forums seems to filter out most of the riff-raff.
• Chat with people in the area. While I haven't yet gotten any recruits from this, I've met a few guys who are quite fun to talk to.
• Have a thread on these forums and bump it every day or so during the corp's favored playing times.

Goals and Focus: I have tried to create a long-term goal for the corp, as is evident in the corp description. I'm trying to use shorter-term targets so members know what to do to help out. Right now, I want around 20 members for the combat side of the corp (PvE and PvP) before I start recruiting miners, so I've posted a forum topic about it and sent out an EVE-mail. After that, I plan to get a highsec POS running while we start recruiting our mining division. We'll build up a reasonable amount of subcapital ships and other supplies, then get a POS set up in lowsec for things like capital ship manufacturing.

We're holding weekly ops every Sunday that are usually PvP focused. Once the mining division gets started, the two divisions will hold separate ops as there's no reason to force miners to fight or combat pilots to mine if neither wants to.

Retaining Members: From my experience, I've found that newbies tend to stick with corps that actually help them far longer than experienced players, who often hop around corps incessantly. To that end, I haven't put any SP limits in place and I'm happy to accept players no matter how long or short they've been around. Members need incentives to stick around though. I've got a limited SRP in place to refund the loss of cheap ships in PvP or to gankers, while I plan to start putting a decorations system in place as well.

A few questions....

• Do I need to fix anything in what I've posted? If so, what?
• As a very small corp, I'm currently wary of being wardecced by highsec griefer corps, one of which has approached me with threats before. Any advice on avoiding these, or is it just luck of the draw?
• I'm confused on how to generate revenue for the corp. I have a 5% tax rate currently, but it doesn't do too much. I'm currently running the corp almost completely out of my own ISK, which is a strain on my wallet and doesn't leave much around for getting new ships and replacing stuff.
• All other advice is welcome.

First of all, good luck with your new corp.

I see that you main focus is to pvp, and i have to ask: why recruit miners and missioners then.
I'm in a small corp now, and our main goal is to become a pvp corp. Well, that's the theory, but the reality of everyday is this: 2 men struggling against everything in wspace. That's my ceo and me.

We are a 30 man corp. 15 players inactive, 2-3 miners, and the rest either missioners or Luminaire warriors. Sure, they are all cool and frienly guys, but in hostile space (that's null or w-space), where the real pvp happens, you will find yourself quite lonely.

Why i don't leave my corp then. Well, i like to play with my ceo. He loves eve and the pvp like me, and i hope things change.

A friendly advice: if you want to pvp where the real pvpers play, don't recruit miners, missioners or Lumi titan warriors. It's a big mistake.

Good luck

I just skimmed over the other replies so im sorry if this has already been said.

First off, do NOT burn your self out! Being a CEO or even just a director is a mental drain that you wouldent believe. Try to get help from your corp members, as time goes on and you get an idea on who is willing to work (and who is just kissing your ass to get a fancy title) you can start giving them more official titles and roles within the corp.

I will most likely get ripped apart for this one but i applaud someone who is willing to try and balance PVP and industry. A lot of people frown upon the idea of a diverse corp, not really considering that a good industrial backbone is needed for many things in EVE (for the PVP corps out there, isent this why so many has industry and mission/incursion running alts? ). Just keep in mind that keeping both sides happy will be difficult. Some PVPers will whine about the "carebears" in the corp and how they should get kicked out unless they learn to fight, some of the industry guys will question why the PVPers keep loosing the ships they have to provide and so on.

Get friends! It dosent matter if your staying in empire, going to WH space, going to 0.0 or what. Contacts is always a good thing in EVE, and as the CEO you represent your entire corp. Be careful with how you word your self (both on the forums and in conversations with strangers in game). If you come across as an *******, most wont be willing to work with you.

Be patient. The corp will have a lot of up and downs. You will have periods were a lot of people quit. and times were a lot of people join, or constant war decs. This is just how it is, and there is no way around it exept do as much damage control as you can, and be prepared to start over when the worst is over.

Dont accept anyone that comes knocking on your door. Be picky. But be prepared for the fact that out of 10 new members, 2-4 will stay. The numbers sounds bad, but remember those who stay are people who might turn into those long term hard working members your corp needs.

Dont treat your old members differently then your new ones. In other words..Your old members are screaming that they want to try something new, while your new members are fine with it? Make it an official vote were the new members have just as much of a say as your vets. If the vets dont like the outcome of the vote.. Well not much you can do about that.

Make sure that everyone in your corp understands that the title CEO dosent transelate to "Big boss with a magic wand ready to solve all your problems". Its redicilus how many people seem to have this idea. Shut that idea down right away and make them understand that you as a CEO are there to help provide them with what they need. but they need to figure out what they want, and how its going to get done as a corp.

When people come and tell you "well you should do it like this and this instead, because thats how we/I did it in *corp* and it worked out great", just ask them this; If things was so great in *corp*, why did you leave?
People like being cocky and show everyone else how its done, but upon further investigation you will more often then not find that that great idea they had failed miserably and their corp fell apart (exept the corp falling apart NEVER had anything at all to do with them ofc )

Final note.. Dont let anyone dictate how to run your corp, not me, not any other CEO, not another direcor, and not even people who are considered "famous" for how well they are running their corp and alliances. Your corp is YOUR's and your corp members, not someone elses. What worked for them might not work for you, what works for you might not work for them. Try different things and eventually you will find the basic morals and beliefs that your corp will consider one of its strenghts, and you will keep basing your corp around these morals no matter what you end up doing, or how many times you change your goals.

Good luck!

Haha, Blackwater :D

Isn't that the company from Space Colony?

There is nothing really wrong with your recruitment methods or your plan. I would suggest, however, for a pvp corp that you find some other guys in your corp capable of leading fleets so that you can do so more regularly than once a week.

I kind of agree with the poster who asked you why you intend to recruit miners at this point. If your focus will be pvp you are just creating targets for your enemies. Miners are always the easiest kills.This is especially true in high sec. And in high sec you arent in much need of an industry division to build capitals or the like. For sub caps just buy em off market. If you choose to move the corp into a null sec alliance you can probably get all the miners you want at that point.

Alliances can be useful for building your corp but dont rush into that. Some folks think joining a high sec alliance is a good way to beat a war dec. With costs and recent changes to the game perhaps it is. But in the past being in a bad alliance was like putting fuel on the fire. High sec pvp corps love nothing better than more targets to shoot at.

Also, im not sure if this question was asked but do you have a team speak or ventrillo set up? For pvp ops its essential. For general team building in your corp its essential. If you dont have one you really should look into setting one up. Also for PVP corps look at setting up a kill board. Kill boards are how pvp corps track success/failure. Folks in pvp oriented corps want to see what others in the corp/alliance have done today. New prospective members will often check your kill board before choosing to join your corp.

Everybody gave some good info already.

So all I will add is... Hello o/ See you in the not to distant future.

Lots of antagonism on all the forums towards miners. Honestly, I am not sure why it is a given in MMOs, and even in this one, where the level of education and basic IQ requirements seem higher, that if someone else plays the game and has fun differently from yourself, then he is "wrong". I figure it is mostly from young and immature players, but I may be overestimating the quality of the people playing this game, at least that segment of them which posts on these forums.

Lets say you recruit someone who is a miner right now. Eve has quite a learning curve, as well as a minimum time to accumulate training skill points to enable competent pvp. That "hated" miner you recruit could be a new player, learning the game, getting his feet under him, acquiring assets and gearing up so to speak. He may not contribute much now more than some friendly companionship in the corp chat, and perhaps some materials at a discounted price. He is someone you may not see as "worthy" as a present pvp pilot.

But I suspect that good CEOs understand the value of investing in new players, who might remain and become loyal members, and who knows, in time even become the only type player in this game so many seem to think is worth anything, a pvp pilot.

In time that player may end up contributing more to the good of your corp than the "pvp pilot", and could even become a better pvp pilot than you currently have.

For all the talk in this game about it being a sandbox for everyone to play in as they choose, it sure seems like a great many of those posting on the forums cannot themselves enjoy the so-called sandbox unless everyone plays in it exactly as they do.

And it remains strange to me how if it is true that constant pvp is so much fun, how they have so much time to continually complain about what other players choose to do. Strange is it not?

I forgot to make a point, so editing to add that just imho, a corporation that has all types on players in it, with hopefully a good number of those interested in contributing to the good of their corp, seems more fundamentally sound and durable. So whereas you may want a corp with an emphasis on pvp, they need ships, modules, materials, ammunition and etc., if you also have players who can provide those things, it will save much isk.

In nature a balanced ecosystem works best and survives, much moreso than a totally one-sided one type of organism system. I suspect the same is true here. But it is also likely true such a corp takes more time and skill.

"Never" is a strong word. Your whole theory can be disproved with one, a single one, counter-example, of someone who was a miner once and switched to PVP.

Let's agree to disagree, however.

You are right. My apologies to the old miners, and now pvpers.

Considering he has been playing since 2008 and have been in several different corps i dont see why you would say that he has not been playing long enough, or dont have enough exsperiense.

For your edit. He did not need to have basic things like recruitment explained to him. He simply stated HOW he does it and even added in that he is fully aware over the fact that the recruitment channel isent the best place to recruit. Now you might be thinking about the people who say who he should, and shouldent recruit but this has nothing to do with not understanding recruitment. Thats different people exspressing their own opinions on WHO he should recruit, not HOW.