EVE General Discussion

Honestly, clearing up common misconceptions about corps / alliances / lowsec / nullsec would go much further in persuading people to participate than any mechanic changes. It would also be much more difficult than implementing any possible mechanic change.

You're still promoting a change to EVE that would push many of the subscribers out of the game. They made a choice not to be a part of a Player Corp. Punishing them for that won't cause them to seek other options in the game, it'll just bleed CCP financially. On the other hand, perhaps it would encourage another company to make an EVE competitor to attract the former EVE crowd. (I don't think Star Trek Online quite counts, does it?)

I'm about to go to bed, so I won't be around for a few hours to see or respond to immediate replies to this thread, but I would like to see some discussion about encouraging players to leave NPC corps. I know this discussion has occurred before, but it seems to have fallen off the radar, and a conversation with some associates of mine has sparked a few ideas that I think we can hash out and debug.

For one, we talked about a more in-your-face approach by CCP by way of perhaps a set of NPC corporations that new players will 'graduate' to when they hit a certain number of SP, or by some other grading measure. When they hit this 'level' they are bumped out of whatever starter corporation they were in into the new one, which is subject to the same war declaration mechanics as a player run corporation. We understand that there are a few flaws with this idea, such as the wide range of corporations that would automatically wardec such corporations if they were to be introduced.

So, another idea we talked about was perhaps an incremental increase in tax rates for players that remain in NPC corporations for extended periods of time. For example, tack on an extra 5% a week or something with a notification to the player stating that joining a player-run corporation with lower tax rates would improve their income.

But we don't really like either of these ideas, even thought they have their pros, mostly because they don't really address the problem of the difficulty a new player may have in joining a corp without being made immediately aware of new-player-friendly corps like Brave Newbies, EVE Uni or RvB and they don't really encourage inclusiveness. Nor do they address the paranoia that a new applicant might be faced with if trying to join a corporation that is perhaps a little elitist, and they don't directly address the "I'm going to play an MMO solo" attitude that many such players that remain in NPC corps are often afflicted by.

We've had other ideas, but none worth mentioning for the time being. We do feel, however, that more can be done with a little thought and discussion, and we also feel that more needs to be done. In any case, I'd like to reopen this discussion again and gather the thoughts of respected GD regulars on the matter. I know being a very socially awkward person myself that one of the hardest things in this game for me was getting involved with the right group of people, which after much hassle and discomfort, I finally managed to do. I've never felt more like part of the game, and part of the community, than I have with the guys and girls I fly with now.

"Grr cant wardec newbs"

Perhaps a way of shaking people out of npc Corps would be for them to randomly wardec other npc corps based on points of lore as written about in the chronicles. Npc corps attacking each other would be awesome and if it happens often enough it might make people uncomfortable enough to leave. I would further add that the restrictions on player corps wardeccing npc corps should remain in place to protect noobs a little bit.

This idea would encourage pvp between noobs and teach them about the dynamic nature of eve online, whilst still protecting them from grief play. Nowhere should be totally safe. with a little bit of thought to avoid abuses this could work well.

OP,

What are the benefits of getting more players out of NPC corps?

Sounds like someone needs to HTFU and gank people without worrying about concord.

I'm failing miserably to see the connection between my comment and yours.

A lot of people seem distressed by this idea, and I can understand why. A friend of mine were just discussing on Mumble perhaps a dynamic inter-NPC corp wardec system that new players who reach a certain skill point level are invited to participate in, but then we also feel such a thing would be redundant next to FW. On the other hand, FW isn't incredibly newb-friendly.

I think encouraging new players to PVP really needs to come from other players rather than generic NPC scripts, though. But I'm not just talking about PVP, I'm talking about interaction in general. New players can't learn that virtually every aspect of EVE is PVP without that interaction.