Assembly Hall

Starting from my own experience, I have been in many corporations from high-sec corps genuinely trying to build an organization, EVE-University, low-sec pirate groups, non-corporate incursion communities, and various Null-Sec groups within the CFC. And in another life on another main in the early days of EVE, I have even been a high-sec carebear and a providence anti-pirate resident.

I would say that there is a scale of ease of access for joining communities and corporations. Some are open societies, and some are closed societies. We could place a group on the spectrum of how open they are to new members and strangers.

EVE University and Brave Newbies are on the extreme end of open societies. They will quite literally take anyone who wants to join them. If you are new to EVE without any friends or connections, they would be among your best options for a well organized corp that is willing to take you in.

Most corporations that openly recruit on the EVE Online forums and the Official Recruitment channel, would fall under the "please apply and fill in the application booklet, give us proof of your competence through your killboard, and standby for anti-spy background checks and interviews" routine. Their recruitment usually follows the tune of "pvpers wanted", "industrialists wanted", "want cool pvp?", fun times, explosions, isk... etc...

Then there are a great many that do not openly recruit. "Vouch Only" corps exist in all areas of space. You have to know someone to get in. In EVE there are many high-profile corps and groups that practice "Vouch" based recruitment. They "do cool things", they affect the sandbox in public ways, and you are not welcome to join unless you are already connected to them.

Being in the The New Order, Belligerent Undesirables, and the CFC, I have met and befriended a fair share of awoxers and people who join corps with alts (or even mains) to "grief" them. I grant that to an awoxer or thief, public recruiting corporations are low-hanging fruit. The poor victims actually WANT you in their corporation and are rewarded with asset destruction and redistribution to the point of manly tears. It is understandable that "some" people tend towards not trusting another eve player further than they can throw them.

According to the CSM9 minutes, CCP wants to remove Awoxing to "make recruitment safer for the recruiter and the recruitee" and to "mitigate the risk of recruiting someone which makes people not recruit." I grant that when a large, well organized entity gets awoxed or infiltrated, they can usually shrug it off. Less organized groups and casual groups tend more towards not surviving the experience. And for a carebear corporation, I expect it can be hell, and it is usually intended to be so by the perpetrator.

Removing Awoxing will most certainly make it easier for people to join corps that can't defend themselves or otherwise survive an infiltration. Though I understand that everyone can try to play how they like, I personally resent the intervention by CCP in trying to help the weak survive. Though my bias is probably due to being on the griefing faction.

But from a perspective of "the greater good of EVE", I would argue that making the game easier for the weak by changing Awoxing mechanics is not good for New Players or people who want to build corporations, in the sense that it would encourage more of such risk adverse players and organisations.

Many of us helpful griefers would tell you that new players and organizations survive EVE by being informed and educated about the risks, and then adapting to them.

Changes to the mechanics will help New Players join bad corps. Closed societies and corps with high standards will not take them anyway. At a demographic level this will harm the collective intelligence and adaptability of the EVE-Born Newbie as you give them easy access to bad corporations.

From a griefing perspective however, bad corporations do not survive and never will. What the future will most likely see is that other methods of doing harm to corporations in high-sec will still be used to their fullest extent. The collective screaming of the victims will continue to beg for more safety. But they will never be safe without game-breaking changes to make them totally safe.

Malcanis' Law will always apply, even in this situation. As you make things harder we can only get more organized, more resourceful and more brutal. - I would know, I will be instigating it.

CCP Seagull: "Why is not every corporation recruiting openly if this is not a problem? I know that it is also corporation roles and access. But you are smart enough to know what you are getting into but do you not agree this is hindering recruitment?"

I would like to add that it is not just Awoxing that "hinders corporation recruitment". Anyone that is not high-sec does who not openly recruit fear something else: The metagame.

Awoxing is the least of their problems.

I posted the following in the GD thread, I think it's appropriate to post it here too.

Even the API won't save a corporation from an experienced and determined spy who would also be aware of these tools. At least at the null-sec level, the bar is set very very high, to the tune of professional internet forensics.

What the API does do is make it more difficult for incompetent griefers like me to run amok with 10 hour heroes. I'd actually need some kind of untraceable income for skillbooks and equipment.

Metagame wise, I believe that no serious corporation will ever auto-accept people. And no game mechanic can change that.

Tear Jar, I do think that a proliferation of unsolicited corp applications would be very very bad. Making the corp joining process take less effort will not help the corp or its people adapt to EVE or survive the nuances of its metagame or the nuances of the in-game aggression mechanics.

CCP does anticipate us wardeccing all of these people into oblivion don't they?

Couldn't have said it better

nobody removes awoxing. Friendly fire within a corp will wake up concord. thats all.

if you read the CSM notes you will see that they want to change it to lower the barrier to invite random people into your corp. Which might help noobs, since the earlier a noob is in a corp the better for the noob.

The real issue that CCP needs to be focusing their attention on is the staggering number of corps recruiting new players to sustain their personal tax farm while feeding new players terrible information that keeps them in the cycle until they quit.

thanks god nobody is removing or prohibiting awoxing.