EVE General Discussion

What you say works for both the NPC corp and player corp.

Player corp /= players with goals.
NPC corp /= players without goals.

It would not have mattered what ship you were in. Mining frigate or T3 Sleeper killer. You are a target of opportunity. I have died myself when mining Arkonor. I certainly did not take it personally and GF'd. So there is a design but of course players have the freedom to ignore this - I am merely highlighting the irony. It can be touchy because, given such freedom players will consistantly choose the low hanging fruit. I doubt the developers behind mining barges considered a single mid slot to a drawback, nor did the player base at the time highlight the obvious consequence. But I also doubt the ships were intended for kill-farming, vilification of the activity or targeted role-play.

why do new players stay in npc corps, because they are new and probably don't want to open themselves upto war decs. I didn't feel the urge to join a player corp till i got to about 5m sp. then it started to dawn on me that being in a player corp probably would benefit me more than going solo. even then the first player corp i joined was war decced during the same week so i left and eventually went to null with only enough skill to fly a retriever.

my advice would be to at least train for a battlecruiser before joining a nullsec corp/alliance, I remember sitting in a PoS for a couple of weeks with nothing to do because i couldn't belt rat solo and we didn't have 24/7 mining ops.

before you take the plunge you need some isk to fall back on if things go wrong, you need to be a little bit self sufficient so belt farming at the minimum, even with that your opening up the doors to relying on other ppl where as you can do everything yourself if your in highsec. those things are barriers to entry. for the question of the topic though i would say 90% of the reason is war decs, if your new and your reading through the wiki's and learning pages you'll soon find out that with joining a player corp opens you up to war decs and when your a few months old trying to earn money the last thing you want is a bunch of guys camping your catalyst in a station when you want to run level 1s.

Regardless of the question posted in the thread's title ("why do players stay in npc corps?") the question posted in the comment you directly replied to was "Why join player corps?" And that's obviously the question you proposed an answer to.

Your whole entire answer was about playing with other people.
Here are some phrases from your answer that address playing with other people:

• "band together to work on common goals"
• "seek out others like ourselves"
• "can't hope to achieve goals as fast as a group would"

My apologies - I never meant to suggest that CAS is the only group in EVE that attempts to connect with newbies. Pandemic Horde, Karma Fleet, BNI and EVE Uni are some of the other groups that are doing their part. CSM Mike Azariah is another, with his Operation Magic School Bus. Are you part of an org that reaches out to newbies and tries to engage them? If so let me know and I'll include it in my informal list.

We are talking about new player retention rates. Which, yes, is something we can and should be concerned with.


Not only have we figured the obvious out, we (and orgs like those above I mentioned) have decided to do something about it. Any idea is worthless if nobody ever does anything about it.


Actually, no, we don't act like a real corp, nor do we try to. We have no CEO, we have no roles, no corp hangars or wallets, no SRP, no SOV, no fleet doctrines, no CTAs, no concern about spies, no tracking of ISK efficiency, nobody is ever kicked for inactivity...

(Full disclosure - some pilots do have alts in player corps for various activities, including the Alliance Tournament, but that's done on their own or in cooperation with a few other individuals, and is not SOP for the group in general.)


Indeed, it has occurred to me that new player retention is as high as it'll ever get simply because EVE isn't for everybody, and there's nothing the players or CCP can do about it. I hope that's not the case, though.

37 pages, I admit, I read and jumped, and probably missed someone already saying this.

We made our own corp. Granted not an NPC corp, but we did so to get a common station and keep track of each other, but my answer is still the same for an NPC corp, or mini self corp.

Over my alts, many corps refuse new players, or set SP requirements high enough that you need to play a year to even consider them. Many corps (not all mind you this is not a blanket statement) have long requirements for membership. Some claim new pilot friendly, but that means they add you to the ranks and ignore you. Null sec is guaranteed out. Low sec is almost guaranteed out. Hisec is, well... who really wants that?

If left in an NPC corp, you might as well just play with yours...wait, bad sentence choice, but you get the drift.

I love the game, don't get me wrong, I've started and had at least 3-4 accounts that went dormant. This one has lasted so far. 32k pilots, and space is still a very lonely place if most corps are only looking for 15m+ SP

CODE at least has active members. Most player corps are just plain failures. Just a bunch of people who might as well be in NPC corps.

you really have no idea about this game do you?

No that is not the correct way of playing. YOU MUST PLAY LIKE THE PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD WANT YOU TO BECAUSE REASONS.

yes and i answered it with.

"because a player wants too. it's human nature to band together to work on common goals, we can't help but to seek out others like ourselves, we're hard wired to do it and for very good reason.

but if you're a solo player it's not for you, don't join a corp, there's more than one way to skin a cat.
but as a solo player you can't hope to achieve goals as fast as a group would.
but some want to be solo, they enjoy the challange of having to work harder for everything.

each to their own. if that's what people want then let them have it."


so what's the issue,?

i'm saying let people play as they want everyone is different and let CCP sort out the new guy retention.

The issue is that you assume NPC corp members are not social. A player does not need to join a player corp to engage in significant social interactions in EVE.