Jita Park Speakers Corner

New players (really new, with no friends in EVE, who found out about the game because of a promo video).

My first experience - in 2012 I think, lasted 1 month, then I quit. It was like this:
"Yes, I undocked, I'm in space!". "How do I move the ship?" "Oh, can't move the ship, only select speed and select warp to, and double click maybe... kind of boring"

"What's with all these buttons? Complex game, don't know what to do. My confused plan was - get some isk, and find a player corporation. Did not even knew the difference between NPC corps and player corps, I read about Sisters of Eve and thought it was some player corp, read about EVE University and thought it was - something the game owners created to help new players. I saw the offices button, I think I tried to apply to "Gentleman's Agreement", the name sounded cool, got no answer.

So I needed Isk, after the tutorial - I saw that mining with an Iteron is more profitable than lvl 1 missions. So I eventually got into a Retriever, then I was happily mining, then I got bored not knowing what to do, and the skills to learn looked endless, then I quit. Only 1 year later I decided to give it another try, armed with more info this time, because the game looked complex and promising.

Without outside knowledge about how to make isk (from reddit), I would have ended up again doing missions in high-sec, or mining, but this time I was decided I was going to PVP, and finally heard about, and got into Brave Newbies. (EVE uni application took too long, and got rejected by TEST). The player corporation made the entire difference.

Suggestion: Create a web-page where all the player run corporations that wish - have their place. The page will present the EVE map, with the empires and pirate factions and - player owned corporations shown on map. Every corp that wants to appear there will send - a recruitment message, a link to it's website, select some types of activities it does, a timezone, and a location where it wants to be shown on the map. More intuitive than the current system. A new player will be able to browse them, sort them, and decide on one. Maybe even read something about EVE history, and see an influence map, or read the daily news.

This is the most important thing for a new player that knows nothing about the game - to find a player owned corp. Maybe - an in-game button similar to ISI that shows the map with the player corps.

Thnx mate,
Put them to paper, as they are first hand. I hooe u reahc out every now and then to a new player and help them as well,

Players should be able to have a profile filled out that could be used to match them to corporations that match their interests. The process should be similar to an online dating site. Why? 2 reasons:

1. It would help a player find a group he meshes better with.
2. It would add all new content as Safari-ers can hook up with corps they want to "play" with.

What could be "hooks" to do the matchup (auto-populated statistics or stuff recruiter can fill out):
-Timezone (this is already a "hook"). Instead of the recruiter filling this out, just make it the actual login statistic of the corp. Which TZ does the corp mainly operate in?
-Systems - same as above. Which systems does the corp operate in?
-Corpie man hours per week (bonus points for docked/undocked man hours)
-Activity - same as above. What kind of activities are corpies engaging in?
-NPC bounties and mission rewards paid per corpie
-Mumble/TS required?
-Corp engages in fleets
-Avg sec status of corpies, with std. deviation
-Avg factional statuses of corpies, with std. deviations
-Corp tax income - don't report the actual value, just use categories like "very little", "average", etc.
-Desired skillsets - make this a minimum/average/advanced skilllist that the recruiter can fill out
-Related to previous bullet: let the recruiter make requirements for specific professions he wants to admit (ie: cap pilot)
-Allow some wiggle room in the requirements (ie: 90% of SP is ok)
-Skill distribution of corpies (make this categorical, ie: PVP, industry, etc.) - this might be controversial
-Distribution of factions/races amongst corpies
-Kills vs. whelps statistics for the corp (get this out of 3rd party services as a primary reference point)
-Sovereignty
-Data on resources in sovereignty systems, including upgraded sites, etc.
-Age of corp

What the player fills out:
-What I want to do in eve: PVP, explo, missions, gank, etc.
-How large of a corp do I want to be in?
-I like to play in hi/low/null
-EVE should know player's preferred TZ automatically
-I prefer to/not to do voicechat
-I like established corps/new corps

The player's "data" could also be gathered in a "fun" way in the form of a picture questionnaire right when he makes his pilot.

Looking at these statistics, I think you can start to imagine how functions could be developed to see where player and recruiter data will intercept. It's sort of late and I'm very sleepy so I don't think I've captured all the "hooks" but I'd like to keep the discussion going.