EVE General Discussion

I posted this to /r/eve as a "rough draft", and after a little discussion I'm posting it here.

If you leave a player corporation, you're put in an NPC corp, which you cannot leave. If you have a character which, for some reason, you don't want associated with any group, you have to make your own one-man corporation.

Why can't we have characters who aren't affiliated with any corporation at all?

Personally, I would like to do this for RP reasons, but if there is a practical purpose for keeping the current system, or for not changing, I would like to hear it.

If the idea is that people will be more likely to join player-owned corporations, I would like to see some evidence to back up that notion.

A lot of people brought up the same points in the Reddit thread, so I will address them here:

Argument: "Forcing players to make their own one-man corp is a "tax" on dodging taxes"

Rebuttal: Corporation Management is a 1x skill, and the skillbook costs 20,000 ISK. Compare this with the 13% tax from an NPC corp over the lifetime of a character with any measurable taxable income. This is not a valid reason to keep the current system.

Argument: NPC Corporations provide shelter from wardecs; the 13% tax is what you pay for protection.

Rebuttal: Again, this is easily dodged by creating a 1-man corp, which as mentioned above, costs nothing. This is not a valid reason to keep the current system because it is already basically nonexistent for single players, who do not benefit from being in a group.


One possible legitimate reason which was brought up on Reddit was that there could potentially be technical issues (greater load on the server, and/or errors) unless a solution is implemented which would require testing and bugfixes before being released.

I'd bet it's database related.

Because CCP says so.

/thread.

I'm not sure I get what this means?

Don't really know, and I don't really care either.

I see the point the OP is making. Playing a true drifter in game and not being a part of a corp, would be good RP I guess.

Not sure why we can't and tbh, never thought about it. But it's an interesting idea all the same. Although it may be in the wrong forum.

I can think of a few!

Being unable to speak to Mission Agents. And unable to gain security rating. And no ship insurance.

ISK talks, so I don't see service denial being so much of an issue for the disenfranchised.
Lack of protection would be a greater issue.
Without membership in a corporation there's no compelling reason for CONCORD to act on the behalf of those without affiliation.
This would make things interesting for a capsuleer, as pretty much anyone could shoot at them without fear of retribution. Imagine a permanent suspect flag if you would.
On the other hand a disenfranchised player would still have to pay CONCORD to be allowed to engage in open hostilities in high sec with a corp or they would suffer the wrath.

It's an interesting idea at least.

Yeah, perma suspect sounds like a good tradeoff.

I'd do it.

Just spitballing here, but it could be interesting if there was an incentive for 'corporates' to pay the unaffiliated to do the 'dirty work'. Maybe if they flesh out smuggling or something similar, the lone wolves of new eden would have an edge in such things. Scamming opportunities on both sides of such a deal could make this really interesting. It would be Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in space, at least, more than it already is.