EVE General Discussion

Eve Uni recruiters join the chat in realtime providing status of applications and they each have time zones they operate in. The E-Uni website even offers you information on queue through the in-game browser. E-Uni chat is one of the friendliest channels you can join.

Here is a key statement he made:


Why does he have to be told that? Why is being told that a sticking point in his mind for essentially his 'quit' forum post? I'll be honest with you, his departure doesn't seem like a real loss for the game. He applied to the E-Uni, the all-sec accessible, friendliest supportive player corp and removed himself from the process for every wrong reason he could possibly manufacture.

Can you explain to me why you think this person is a good example of a rookie player? To me he's a perfect example of the first "50%".. the kind of player EVE would never have retained in the first place.





From CSM 9 Winter Summit notes I linked earlier:







Someone from BNI simply said the following which I think describes them properly: Security is designed to keep people out. Brave is designed to keep people in.

My experience with RUN is that it used to be a fairly lively NPC corp up until a few years ago. People would talk in chat on a regular basis, sometimes helping, sometimes trolling, and a lot times just BSing. Nowadays, a lot of that is gone. Oddly enough, that decline seemed to start right around the time CCP decided to introduce a measure to help nudge people into PC corps. What was it called? Oh yeah, NPC corp tax. So some folks rushed into PC corps while others spawned their tiny personal corps to avoid the tax. I don't begrudge the tax, I just hate what it did to the starting corps.

Why do I hate what it did? Because once you leave a starter corp, you can never return to it. You just go to the other NPC corps. And honestly, that is where the main issue lies in my eyes. You've reduced the number of active, social players in the starter corp without putting in something to help increase the beginner's ability to socialize. I would recommend implementing an NPC racial alliance channel that is automatically joined by all NPC corps of that race or start dumping folks back into the starter corps when they leave their PC corps. Stop separating the active, older players from the new folks.

Also, that 40% that aren't station alts are still interacting. They are buying, selling, scamming, being scammed, hauling, being ganked, and etc. Very little that anyone does in EvE doesn't have an impact, no matter how small. Every time they undock, they are interacting, just by making themselves a target. Just because they aren't interacting the way you want them to, in a way that is directly visible to you, doesn't mean they haven't contributed to your experience in some small measure, directly or indirectly.

I agree 100% with what Tregod posted above.

I've been asked lot's of times why I still remain in the NPC Starter Corp.

My answer use to be Freedom ............. Freedom from taxes, freedom from subjugation and freedom from wars.

Freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I wanted to without having to report to another player or worry about the consequences of my actions affecting other members in corp. The cost of that freedom was no ability to own or access a POS or Outpost.

Eventually CCP listened to a very small but immensely loud group of players who didn't like the idea of not being able to legally target players in NPC Corps. CCP decided to implement the Tax thinking that would entice players to leave NPC Corps. Some players did leave and soon after forming their own 1 - 2 man player corp were quickly WarDec'd by larger griefer corps who were hot for easy killmails.

That alone pretty much caused players to become disgusted with the game and quit. It also removed any desire in others to leave NPC Corps. I remember back in the first few years of playing this game there use to be well over 600 members in RUN Corp. Corp chat was very active, mainly with Industrial characters and mission runners along with a few Explorers and some PvP / Ratters. There were Mining and Mission Ops as well as Low / Null Sec 'Noob Fleet' roams happening all the time. As an Explorer I would also set up Exploration Ops which usually consisted of 1/2 dozen members to run various Combat sites and expeditions.

However, over time as the game mechanics slowly changed to favor ganking, along with CCP's 'War On Bots', the member count decreased. Griefer / ganker corps placing alt 'Spy' characters into corp chat pretty much killed off any more ops happening. Now there's barely over 100 members in Corp and chat is pretty much dead.

So now when people ask me why I stay in NPC Starter Corp my answer is still Freedom .......... Freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want without having to report to another player or worry about the consequences of my actions affecting other members in corp.

Also I like to help out new players whenever I can, usually by answering their questions in chat and sometimes I'll give them ISK to cover the loss of their ship.


DMC

1. "I don't want to take orders from some slumlord, better go alone."
2. The gullible type, who is easy to trick into goon newbie farm.

You can't live your EVE life because some players -that try to avoid pvp- cannot be wardecced?
Do you know the limitations of an NPC corp?

From who's point of view are wardecs fair?
Only that pov has to be taken into consideration?

Why?

I think I know the answers, so don't talk about one sided, it's hypocritical.

Yes, in some ways - especially the ability to socialize - NPC corps are very similar to player corps. Which bolsters my belief that NPC corps don't cause players to leave, like some in this thread have put forward. Rather, the sorts of players in that 40% who end up quitting end up in NPC corps because of their play style, and would quit anyway, I think, if they were in player corps.



Perhaps I've missed some of the suggestions, but mostly I recall being presented as a "fix" is to make staying in an NPC corp so unpleasant, possibly by taxation, or limiting the kinds of ships that can be flown, that pilots are forced (or incented, depending on your terminology preference) into leaving. That is not what I would consider a "fix."

And for my part, I do not think NPC corps are broken. I suspect DeMichael Crimson doesn't either, although that's just a guess on my part, as the issues he describes such as ganking are applicable to player corps as well. The concept of spies/trolls in corp chat isn't unique to NPC corps of course, but it's a particular issue because those characters cannot be kicked from the channel or the oorp. CAS gets around this somewhat by having dedicated, moderated chat channels for specific activities. We've even had spies in fleet that has led to pipebombing, which again isn't an NPC corp specific issue, but that was an easy fix by adjusting our tactics and killing the smartbombing battleships on their second attempt, so it's all good. But none of that is indicative of a broken NPC corp system that needs fixing.



What are they intended for though, do you think? Some seem to want them to be a placeholder for a week or two for newbies before moving on to a player corp - some say large player corp, since a single-member player corp doesn't accomplish the goals of interaction that CCP seems to be indicating as the root cause o the 40% leaving after a while.



It's... I'm not sure if I can explain it properly. I'm part of a group, but I get to choose how I contribute. Or not. I log on and immediately join fleet. I can ship spin in station, or mine, or mission, or rat, or explore, or scout, or join a roam, all as I see fit. There are some consequences to my actions, in the form of being socially ostracized, if I do something particularly disagreeable to the fleet. But mostly I get to play EVE the way I want to play, be it solo or part of a group, which I've done both of, and I get to do it with the support (when available) and advice (always) of my fleetmates. No paplinks, no required logon times, no CTAs.

This is possible with a player corp as well, of course, but that's highly dependent on the leadership of said corp, which doesn't exist in an NPC corp so we have to figure out how to get along on our own, rather than being told how to do it.



I will admit, when I make a supply run to Jita or Dodi once or twice a month, it's nice being able to move items to the staging system in my Nereus while worrying only about ganking and not wardecs, or pay somewhat low fees to RedFrog to move larger items, since I assume such freight service costs would go way, way up if they were subject to decs.

But I live in null 99% of the time otherwise, where decs don't matter, so I never give decs a second thought. I don't know what their optimal role, if any, they should have

For my part, if the game mechanics last year when I fired up my EVE trial were such that was forced into joining a player corp in a week's time (or two or three...) I would likely have just quit as I wasn't willing to commit like that right away. Instead, I was able to dip my toe into different activities due to how some players in CAS operate, made friends, learned a lot, and am now committed. And CAS's leaderless nature allows me to remain committed.

Have to say I agree with Eli Stan. He definitely understands what I was talking about.

NPC Corps are not broken.

Granted we can't be WarDec'd but on the other hand we also can't WarDec other corps. Being exempt from that comes with a price. As I said earlier, NPC Corp members can't own or access POS / Outposts. Also before Crimewatch we couldn't come to the defense of fellow members under attack or seek retribution on their behalf.

I will say that over the years I've seen a few Player Corps I would have loved RUN Corp to WarDec. You may think that's a joke but I'm not kidding. Back when we had well over 600 members I could easily see us doing the ultimate blob, a couple hundred 'Noob' members stomping on a couple of war targets all at the same time. That would definitely get the job done. Sure when we're alone we're nothing more than an insect, something that's easily swatted away but together we'd be like an angry swarm of Wasp's causing death by a thousand stings.

Don't know why Player Corps are so dead set against NPC Corps. Obviously there's a lot of other Player Corps available for WarDec. It's not like the WarDec exemption is keeping members of NPC Corps safe in low / null sec space. It definitely doesn't keep them safe from high sec gankers. The only reason I can think Player Corps want the ability to WarDec NPC Corps is due to easy killmails and the NPC Corp has no Alliance backing. Course since we are NPC Corp we should at least have the backing of Minmatar Republic NPC's in high sec as our Alliance backing.

Anyway, after 7 years of playing this game I have no intention of ever leaving NPC Corp. I like where I'm at and what I'm doing in the game. Since this game is a sandbox I have the right to play it as I see fit. If CCP starts forcing players to play this game a certain way then it's no longer a sandbox. Removing the players right to choose is not good for the game. Forcing players to leave NPC Corp will only cause more people to quit.



DMC

Does everyone assume that we are in NPC corps to avoid war decs? Because that isn't really something I think about. Since I have never been in a player corp I don't have any experience with them. Good or bad. Though I have no doubt there are lots of alts in the NPC corps that are war dec dodgers. Though it will just be the alts in CAS. The rest will be in the Scope or the other secondary bloodline corps.

Are they really that big a deal? I plan on moving to null soon anyway.

Nope, not at all a fact. Let's go back and look at what CCP said, from Sibyyl's post:

• 40% move into "a very isolated playstyle, mining and/or missioning and they stay pretty much to themselves. They don't trade very much, they don't engage in a very diverse range of activities". These players are involved in "theme park" activities, "sticking to missions and leveling up their raven" (CCP's own words). CCP "can see very clearly" that their NPE directs players in this direction. For "many of them that's not a good fit and they end up leaving"

Nowhere in that statement is a cause of player isolation identified. Nor are NPC corps mentioned whatsoever. NPC corps can be very social. Player corps can be very isolated.

The key aspects of "NPC corp mechanics" are:

• No war decs.
• No control tower or SOV ownership.
• No CEO or other corp roles, including no ability to kick a toon from the corp.
• No corp wallet or similar asset management.

Did I miss any? I don't see how any of the above can be "causing people to quit by boring them to death." None of them imply isolation or keeping to one's self.

Actually, CCP does point out a possible cause for the lack of retention of the 40% - the NPE. I know that my experience with the NPE, while it taught me a few of the basics, also directed me towards the solo activities of mining and missioning. Their setup with Dagan does try to get newbies to work together in order to bring enough DPS - but coming from never having played an MMO before, I didn't think to approach it that way and took it as a challenge to overcome just like I would in a single-player game. Which I did. So Dagan alone isn't enough to get it done. Something that is more clearly along the lines of "you need to fleet up with somebody else in order to accomplish this next goal" might work. Leverage EVE Voice too, even though it's somewhat unreliable. This is where NPC corps can shine - and where I know full well that CAS does shine.

Didn't even read what you quoted, did you?

The playstyles enabled by NPC corps are bad for the game. Go ahead and take another crack at it, I'll wait.