Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The point is not to avoid having "fewer potential wardec targets" but to get players into player corps. Yes, whenever you suggest such a thing you get a bunch of space hermits coming out of the woodwork and accusing you of trying to tell them how to play "their game", and that Eve is a sandbox and they can play it how they want. Eve may be a good solo game for them, but CCP has said that new players that engage socially with the game, including joining player corps, are much more likely to stay with the game. Therefore, devaluing the player corporation in the name of convenience is going to give less reasons for players to form social bonds.

There are four major reasons players form corps as far as I can see: taxes, hangers, structures and perhaps a name/logo (and for a small few, the ability to declare war). Yes, players can just form solo corps and still avoid interactions with other players, but at least in that case there is some risk of interaction finding them in the form of a wardec.

Honestly, player corps need a major buff to get players to want to use them and defend them because as it is, most corps have little value, and thus wars over them have little value. CCP tried this when they added the ability to tax as an inducement to get players out of the NPC Corps and hopefully these new structures will be compelling enough that players form corps to use them and stay when those structures are attacked. What we do not need to do is start removing the few benefits a player corporation has so players can more easily avoid the interactions with other players that statistically are more likely to keep them in the game.

None of these activities requires you to be in a player corporation. I can (and do) every single one of these with characters that are in the NPC Corp.

I think part of your problem understanding why certain things are the way they are in this game is is that you view the player corporation as primarily a social entity, which it is of course, but from the game design point of view it serves a more specific purpose. It is the competitive unit of the game where players can group up for increased rewards (and risk) in pursuit of a common goal. This is why certain things, like shared hangers, only exist within corporations, and why only corporations have to suffer certain downsides, like vulnerability to wardecs, that can cause them to fall apart.

This view of yours is why you can't seem to understand why CCP allows wardecs to regularly destroy social groups, or why in this case, CCP would restrict a feature to only player corporations. This is intended for a risk vs. reward themed PvP game where the corporations are in competition with each other and not just social clubs.

The answer of course is that one should just use a chat channel for a social group, and only join a corporation when you are trying to compete as a group in the shared economy of New Eden. But players seem to have some strong inclination to join player groups even if they are just wanting to run trivial content with friends that could be done just as easy from the NPC Corp which causes so much of the handwringing we see over wardecs in the greater Eve community.

If you see why CCP designed the game the way it is, you will see why certain proposals for change are likely, or even possible to be implemented, and which ones break the design of the game. Shared hangers are indeed only a minor benefit, but making those available to everyone is directly opposes the reason they were given to corporations in the first place. Making the lives easier of some veteran multi-boxers is not likely a compelling enough reason for CCP to invest developer resources to actually remove one of the inducements to get players into corporations.

I see your point and I see an easier way to steal assets....

Read a rumor not long ago about the possibility of shared inventories for alts being developed. Can't remember where it was, but that should cover OP's needs if implemented.