Save dead Corp - Sole active member for 10 years could inherit or claim the corp

Council Of Stellar Management Assembly Hall
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Hello everyone,

I would like to raise a topic that has been bothering me for a long time and that, I believe, deserves discussion within the EVE community.

I started playing EVE Online in 2007. When I began, I joined a small corporation that had been created in 2003, shortly after the game’s release. It is not a famous or powerful corporation — only 12 members in total, myself included — but it means a lot to me. It was my first corporation, and after all these years, I still feel attached to it.

For a very long time now, I have effectively been playing solo. I am also the last active player in this corporation, and have been for nearly 10 years. The CEO and all other members have been inactive for a very long time.

For almost five years, I have regularly contacted EVE’s Customer Support asking if there is any possible way to regain control of this abandoned corporation. Unfortunately, there is currently no solution:

  • I do not own shares

  • I have no specific roles

  • I am not the CEO

  • Yet I am the only active member left

I fully understand the need to protect corporations from hostile takeovers or abuse. However, I find it really unfortunate that there is no in-game mechanism, no appeal, and no exceptional process for very specific cases like this one: a corporation that has been inactive for many years, with a single remaining active pilot.

What saddens me the most is that this makes it impossible to:

  • Reopen the corporation

  • Recruit new players

  • Bring life back to something that has existed since the early days of EVE

In a game that prides itself on being a sandbox and deeply roleplay-oriented, where deception, theft, espionage, corporate sabotage, and betrayal are all valid gameplay mechanics, it feels strange that there is absolutely no way to reclaim an abandoned corporation.

To put it another way:
In New Eden, you can lie, scam, steal, infiltrate, spy, and destroy empires…
…but you cannot break into the CEO’s office while he’s been absent for a decade, pick the locks, open the safe, and take control of an abandoned company.
Nor can you enforce a fictional “will” or legal succession after the corporation has effectively been dead for years.

I am not asking for an easy or abusable system. I am asking for a strict, well-defined, and rare mechanism, perhaps with conditions such as:

  • Extremely long CEO inactivity

  • No active directors

  • One or very few active members remaining

  • A long waiting or verification period

This would allow players like me to preserve old corporations, their history, and their identity, instead of seeing them slowly fade away forever.

I would really like to hear the community’s thoughts on this, and whether others have experienced similar situations.

Thank you for reading.

Fly safe.

3 Likes
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I read through your request/proposition, and looked you up and your corp; and I do have a couple of questions.

  1. Do you know who owns the shares of the corporation?
    I know nowadays, the CEO usually grabs the shares. But, back when I first started, admittedly sometime after you, CEOs were still distributing shares. So, in your case is it possible…an active player still owns the shares? Or even a share?

  2. Under that circumstance (where an active player long, long unassociated with the corp owns a share(s), what do you propose? To deal with that?

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a simple solution would be to provide an opportunity for share holders to vote, if none vote (either yes or no) after a given period of time, say 30 days, then have the vote pass so that the remaining active member can take control of the corp.

that would prevent a hostile take over, while still allowing a corp that has gone inactive to be revived.

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@Mexye

Who do you suggest is allowed to propose such a vote? A non-affiliated shareholder or the last remaining active member?

I can see where a nonaffiliated shareholder could be put forward, as the individual to propose a vote; but, I still don’t see a way forward as to the last remaining “active” corporation member.

Something else that occurred to me, @Lektra_Kil , pilots used to buy up old corps, for a wide variety of reasons.

I believe there is a mechanism, and I may be wrong about this, at this time, but a mechanism where you could buy a corp and if the corp had offices, the new CEO could seize absent members assets, under a specified series of circumstances. It was a little known, I suppose potential scam. By “potential” I mean, if those players had permanently quit, I’m kinda fuzzy on the whole “scam” aspect angle; but, none the less, at some point in EVE’s history I remember reading/hearing about this.

How would this angle affect your proposal? Should it affect your proposal?

Should the last remaining active pilot in a corp, under the circumstances you outline be allowed to “loot”/reallocate corp assets, member’s assets (whether they are active or not), or should the new “CEO” under these circumstances be disallowed reallocating the assets of inactive members, and any remaining corp assets as part of any “bargain” allowing the reopening of the corporation as you’ve outlined it.

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Who do you suggest is allowed to propose such a vote? A non-affiliated shareholder or the last remaining active member?

I would be happy with either of those. if all other members in the corp have been offline for > 1 month there is no reason that a single member should not have an option to start a vote, which would notify any shareholders to give them an option to vote on it, particularly since as far as I am aware there is no way to discover who has shares without having roles at a minimum.

as for your point about buying a corp, that would require the CEO to be active to transfer the corp to them, so that would not affect this situation where everyone (including the CEO) is no longer playing.

also I don’t see how they would get access to members assets unless they were in the corp hangers, which realistically makes them corp assets not personal ones.

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My point in referencing this is…if new arrangements were instituted in game to allow a “last pilot standing” to revive a basically dead corp, i.e. resume recruitment, etc., as the OP suggested, that implies a new CEO is installed, due to the old CEO being “ousted”. So, does the successor CEO, after such a vote/event, have the authority in addition to opening the corp to recruitment have access to corp assets?

I am assuming access to corp assets is a given; but under the circumstances, as outlined by the OP, should this be the case? I can see arguments for and against.

Given corp transfer has had an established history since…forever, if the rules were changed to allow a “last pilot standing” to force a power structure change (change of CEOs), should corp assets be “impounded”, as is done when office rental fees go unpaid? I believe this is still the policy currently, someone correct me, if I’m wrong and this is no longer in game.

And, if the corp assets are impounded, should the successor CEO be responsible for paying “impound” fees to release those assets for the current CEO’s/director’s usage? Or allowed to do so?

Currently, corp office rental fees can be paid automatically from the corp wallet. I can see past CEOs setting up an auto payment system and renting an office/offices in relatively inexpensive systems as a way to memorialize their corporation’s history in EVE and leaving a fat corp wallet behind to do this/fund this. Actually, I’ve thought about doing this myself, at various points in time. I’ve always wondered if this is why some corporations, which appear dead, still have offices in obscure systems.

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so the requirements to get access to the corp would be holding shares (which they could use to take control anyway) or be the last member standing.

in that situation what would you propose doing with the corp assets if the new CEO does not get access to them? just voiding them into space? reality is they would become the new CEO, the idea that they are a second tier of CEO who can’t do everything a normal CEO could do would make reviving these corps rather pointless.

I can see past CEOs setting up an auto payment system and renting an office/offices in relatively inexpensive systems as a way to memorialize their corporation’s history in EVE and leaving a fat corp wallet behind to do this/fund this.

they could still do this, they would just have to be the last member in the corp and hold the shares.

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Thank you for all for you replies.

@Sere_O_Asis you made some valid points.

In my opinion, the process should be simple and maximize existing game mechanics. This could go as follows to validate conditions necessary for the corp recovery :

  • Extremmely long CEO inactivity : Condition validated if rental office fees are no longer paid
  • No active directors : Condition validated if a vote is called and nobody votes except the one who calls the vote (with a 1 month limit on voting delay)
  • Ability to call for a vote : Every member of the corp (wheter they do possess shares or not) should be allowed to call for a special emergency voting session once a year

The third point could be problematic when we speak about huge corporations, but safeguards could be added like (validation to obtain from a director of the corp - and if after a set period of time no director validate or invalidate the request, it would be automatically granted)

As for the Corp asset situation, once ownership of the corp changes, they should be treated as usual (if “impounded” then the fine should be paid for getting them back etc). The way I see it, the core of the issue should be adressed here.

The solution I’m advocating for should be set to treat the core issue here –> last standing member of a corp with no shares/roles, because from what I’ve read and heard, there are processes in place for treating other situations (like last standing member with some shares owned).

@Sere_O_Asis , to anwer your two questions :

  1. I do not know who owns the shares. i could guess who hold Some of them, but really no clue about their exact wereabouts
  2. My proposition to deal with this situation is detailed above : identify conditions to this case, analyse and see if there no existing in-game system that cover this situation, and if not design an in game mechanic that will cover this situation by validating pre-requisites and then allowing this new process to be enforced (with all necessary safeguard)
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Interesting problem.

Why do you care about this particular corp? Assets? Age? Lore?

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And there won’t be. What shall the support tell the original owner should he return and find his corp taken over, his assets sold and his ISK taken? “Sorry, you were afk for too long”?

It happens all the time that players quit the game for many years and return, sometimes after a decade or more.

Friendly advise: You are best off to just move on. Found your own corp, begin to recruit and write your own story. You will not make progress in that case. Not today, not tomorrow, not in a year. And no GM, no CSM and no forum will help you a single bit. Use that time to build something on your own. Be proud and remember your past if you want, but don’t waste your time sticking to something that is gone.

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Hi there, @Syzygium

I get your POV. And in a sense I did that with other toons.

But there are many type of players in this game. Some do new things and other cherish bond and memories. Some want to let the light on, just in case old buddies come back, some people want to carry on, with what they already have.

Aside from this poetic request, I will specify here that it’s not about the assets or money. They could all be jettisoned for all I care. It’s about he memories.

Anyway, regarding your comment about old players returning, back in the day, there was a 2 year timer on your account before it got permanently deleted. So in any case, assets and money already had been lost in that sense.

And again, since you can already take ownership of a dead corp by casting a vote while you possess a share, you already have means via ingame mechanic to take « money and assets of a corp »…

Thanks again for your feedback and taking the time to answer. It gives me perspective on how this is perceived by other players

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Hi there @Derlin_Fishen ,

For me it’s about Age and Lore. Few ongoing corps are corp from that era, and few players still active today have toons from that era.

It’s about keeping the memory alive.

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What about founding a corp called ‘The New xyz’ ? That way any returning players who search for it have a good way of finding it

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Dear CCP, player Joe hasn’t logged in for a while, plz give me his stuff.

you see the issue ? it would be more believable if you’d been willing to forgo any corp assets, instead of wanting to take possession of other player’s items.

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start :clap:another :clap:corp :clap:

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Dear CCP, player Joe hasn’t logged in for a while, plz give me his stuff.

if its in the corp, its not his stuff, its the corp’s stuff.

why should members of the corp be deprived of that stuff?

if you stop playing and don’t want it to happen, the simple solution is move the items to your personal hanger.

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A solution to this could be an extra field during the corp creation process where to founder is asked to name two characters who would act as his successor if he does not log in for a certain amount of time. If the first successor char does not take the role after a month or so, the second successor becomes eligible to take control. If and once the founder logs back in, he automatically is given back his power and the successor is deprived of it. The founder can not be kicked from corp or stripped of any roles. Twice a year or so have a notification ask the founder (or his successor while he is in charge) if he is still okay with the set successor settings. If you simply don’t want any afk takeover, appoint two alts as successors or have an option to forego the successor settings at all.

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in the corp -what- ? be specific. if he’s not on access list, then the CEO or directors DID NOT want this player to have access to any items in those hangars.

it’s not his stuff, it never was, and was never intended to be by the OWNERS who placed items in corp hangars, that this player INTENTIONALLY did not have access to. it may be he was a bit of an ass, as he posted only wanting the corp name for “nostalgic purposes”, but when pressed, declined to forgo corp assets, which we clearly now see was the true motivation.

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While we’re on this topic, my friend hasn’t logged on for several years, and I know he would have wanted me to have his stuff, so can you please transfer his character to my account? Okay thanks.

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in the corp -what- ? be specific. if he’s not on access list, then the CEO or directors DID NOT want this player to have access to any items in those hangars.

and its still not there personal assets, and with them no longer around it doesn’t really matter what they wanted anymore.

at the end of the day, when you are not playing the game, you don’t get a say over assets that are not owned by you.

it may be he was a bit of an ass

It may be that the CEO/directors were a bit of an ass, so why do they get to deprive people who are active members of that corp the name/assets when they no longer play the game?

The idea that everything that is in the corp’s wallet/hangers is the personal property of the CEO is just absurd.

At the end of the day the CEO/directors have plenty of options to stop this before they stop playing, if they choose not to take those options they have no one to blame but them self.

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