Interaction and the social aspect of Eve Online

[Natocha_Daisy]

@Josh_Elize

What I mean by this is say I want an escort to null or a mercenary to protect me or a buddy to roam with,

Hi, I recently made a suggestion for a mercenary feature. You can read the discussion here:

Mercenaries - A good idea?

I do wonder if you are trying to make it too complicated. Would it not be simpler to have a few options, such as mercs on patrol, mercs on defense, or mercs on fleet/formation/wingman duty? You simply get a merc or however many of them that join your squad and follow broadcasts. Simple, easy and most of the backend is already there. You would need a way to keep them flying with you, so formations for members in fleet would be a way to resolve that. This would also be a good way to implement …

@Josh_Elize

Anyway how do you guys, especially as a newbro or someone with very little repertoire, manage the “herding cats” or social aspect of Eve Online? For the successful, did you go through a lot of effort or was it a natural progression? How many of you are in the same boat?

To answer this: I simply treat Eve Online as a solo game with a chat forum. It’s easy to socialize in a chatroom, because it’s cyberspace, not ‘real life’ as such. Many people treat it as ‘real life’ and are comfortable joining corporations and befriending otherplayers regularly on voice chat: this doesn’t work for me.

It’s best to do what you’re comfortable with and don’t step out of those boundaries to please other players.