What if

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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Before I finish the question, let me tell you why I am asking it :).

New players who join eve get overwhelmed with an insane amount of options and choices to make. And a lot of them are joining the game before reading any guides and to be fair, if you start playing a game this should never be a requirement.
While the new player experience teaches them some basics and gives them a few free ships they quickly end up with the question: What do I do now? Some will try out things on their own, maybe they even enjoy it. Maybe they succeed maybe they fail.
It has often been stated that player interaction is a big factor for player retention. But people don´t really seek out to join corporations right away. Some just might not feel ready to join a corporation yet, others do not even know where to start looking. And the ones who try are faced with a huge load of options and for a new player it´s almost impossible to make an educated choice here.
In the worst case they even end up in a corporation which takes advantage of them but does not really teach them anything.

So now we get to my question:

What if CCP would hire a hand full of people to actually control the starter corporations and turning the corporations into something like a light version of a corporation.

The corporations can not join alliances, they can not put down structures and won´t be able to be wardecced, just the way it is now.

The job of the people in charge of the corporations would be to:

a) assist new players with any kind of assistance in terms of game knowledge
b) organise events and fleets for new players to participate in
c) set goals for the corporations and if the goals are met reward the players
d) help organising logistics for fleets and events (either by transporting stuff or hiring ppl to get stuff to the location where it´s needed.
e) hand out prefitted ships for events

I am sure there are even a lot more useful things they could do to make the early days of new players easier and more engaging. I feel like this could help a lot of players to actually experience a light version of corporation life within the game without any commitment. It would also make the chat channels of the starter corps feel a lot more alive.

Of course this is just a small start and many additions could be made to learn different things, like an area which is only accessible to new players and the starter corps fight each other for dominance there. This could introduce them into structure mechanics in a fun and very relaxed environment.

Of course limitations would also make sense to a certain degree to prevent ppl to stay in there for years to bash newbies of opposing sides. So something like moving players to other npc corps after a 3 month period or something like that so at least there is a somewhat level playing field maintained even if more experienced players sneak in there to farm easier kills.

Now this could maybe belong into features & ideas, but I don´t feel like it´s fleshed out enough with all the details.

It´s mostly just a random idea I had.

Feel free to discuss :stuck_out_tongue:

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The problem with that is that CCP shouldn’t interfere on that level as the game is player driven. Everyone has their own play styles, likes and dislikes and that would include the people being in control of those groups which then, by extension, means CCP is acknowledging and supporting those views. Which shouldn’t be. Beyond that, not everyone want to be part of a big corp, be “pushed” to learn at a certain rate or play at a certain time.

Personally I would like to see the following:

Shutting down the starter corps, I know that’s going to rub some people the wrong way and I understand why but as it stands starter corp feeling either empty or full of spam is worse than not having a starter corp at all. People outside a corp get taxed more than the 11% and it affects more than what it is now meaning there’s a really good reason to join or start a corp. They can compensate that by having the career agents pay out a bit more.

The corp finder needs to have more limitations to avoid corps going “we do everything”, because they don’t and it’s going to put newbies on the wrong foot. Corp finder should also show a “number of characters active last 30 days” so you can better assess how dead or active a corp actually is.

More emphasis during the career missions on corporation and teamwork (and by that I don’t mean “use remote shield booster”). You don’t really need a mining and production career agent, you can combine those into one and then use the freed up agent fort all kinds of corp related concepts.

Change the wardec system so any big corp is automatically a potential target, meaning all the clown groups who just spam invite everyone (having 5k people) stop being a thing. Because those tend to be the death of newbies.

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I started a week ago. Here is experience.

Did the intro series of missions, was quite good and kind of well explained to an extent.

Spent a lot of time asking questions in the help chat.

Did the career agents.

Asked what to do in the help channel and was told SoE arc thing.

Did that, was interesting but I felt it was a bit long.

Did some mining and thought of a Bruce Lee quote. “Rocks don’t shoot back”

Got offers from multiple corporations that I didn’t contact. Asked in help chat what they were and was directed to recruitment. Joined a corp after some chatting.

Did some exploration on my own, enjoyed it.

Corp said, it’s better in wormholes and spent the afternoon showing me some things and how they work.

Had an awesome time and I bought omega for me and an alt.

All I would say is I wish the tutorial did a bit more explanation into what things are behind the scenes. What is a corp, how the hanger works, what is null-sec, what is low-sec.

And it was my corp that made me see the light in this game not the intro or tutorial agents. Had I not popped the question in help chat I probally wouldn’t even be on the forums/enjoying the game as much as I am.

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Well, it´s not meant to be much of an interference, the main issue is that if it´s not from ccps side, let´s say you let volunteers do it there is even a bigger chance that people pushed into a certain direction or towards certain powerblock which would use something like that to funnel ppl into their own lines. Anybody in charge needs to be a person very familiar with game mechanics, but completely neutral, without affiliation to any of the player run organisations. Otherwise it would not work.

And it´s not about pushing people into group content or being part of a big group. It´s just supposed to give people options to participate in corp like activities, but without any obligation to do so.

@Jovax

I guess you are one of the lucky ones then and I am not saying that this is super rare to happen or anything. But too many ppl just aren´t that lucky to find the right corp or to ask the right questions and this was mostly a quick idea on how to catch those ppl as well :).

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Joining a good corps has been known for 20 years to go a long way to retaining players,

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If that’s the case it surprises me that the most you get in the tutorial is. "Oh by the way there are corps, anyway… Rocks.

Surely you would expand on what your main retention path is?

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Well, corporations are just a very complicated topic and there are so many different types of corps that either a tutorial on them would be very superficial, or way too much information at once. And if you paid attention to rookie help within your time there as a new player I am sure you saw that a very large amount of the questions there could be answered by actually following the tutorials or by just reading what is right in front of them.

A lot of people do not like tutorials at all. So while maybe more info on corps there would not be bad, I don´t feel like it will make this much of a difference.

Beeing in a corp that is doing stuff is just so much better, because you don´t just read stuff but you learn as you experience them which is way more fun.

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The ROI is not there for it. I get your point about it. However, EVE online is a game not an online college. The retention/payback won’t be there for an in-house paid CCP guide/ceo. Maybe they might get a few more subs? :man_shrugging:

The closest thing CCP has to this is a partnership program if you get like so many views on your social via your activities they give you free omega time.

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Well the monetary gain would be pretty hard to meassure I guess.

On one hand a few more subs could be players who get really hooked and keep giving ccp money for many years. And might even spend money on top of subs.

Also more players in the sandbox means more content for everyone. If even it would help to bring back a slow but steady increase in player numbers the long term effects could be worth it.

Short term this would probably not be profitable I would agree on that.

But then again, the money would be invested there much better than their failed side projects :stuck_out_tongue:

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This is my biggest issue with the career tutorials and pretty much anyone newbies get in contact with, it’s so prevalent how newbs are pushed into mining from so many angles.

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Maybe the emergency of AI might help with the starter corps . Have an ai running day to day activities and projects in the corp even being taken overy by a paid person now and then.

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AI might be a cheap alternative there I guess, however I have a few issues with that.

Mostly because an AI like that would be a very sophisticated bot and that might trigger some issues within the game community. It´s hard to justify players not being allowed to use bots and then CCP using bot´s to do a job that should be done by somebody playing the game.

Especially if said AI is anything other than an automated event planner and chat bot. If the AI would start interacting directly with the game that would open up a door we don´t really want to go through.

Decent AI as NPCs to shoot is one thing… A full bot that can replace a player CEO, not sure I want to see that.

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Oh thank God! For a minute, I thought someone necro’ed Verlyn’s “So, what if” topic. Titles people, use them!

This is why I tell people, in Rookie Chat, to take in YouTube tutorials. They come in with the same 20 questions about the game and all they really need to do is watch some tutorials.
The standard NPC corp they get placed in by the game will tax them 11% on missions. I made my own private corp and have no such tax. However I recommend to new players seeking a corp to use the tax filter as they search them. I believe 4% and less would be acceptable.

That is not going to happen. Hire people as in paid? Maybe volunteers, but again the startup corporations exploit the new players with 11% tax already. So do you honestly think CCP would care about some mega corp scamming players? CCP consider most scams as simply part of the game. The only bannable ones are those that step on their financial gains.

All of this exists in the game, the players just need to know where to look;
a) Rookie chat. I do this all the time while jumping across space. If their question is too complex for a one line answer, I tell them in a message.
b and c) Decent corps with do this already. I joined a mining corp and went on several ops together, we even did some moon mining.
c) Also Opportunities in the game menu.
d) If the corp you join doesn’t do this already, then it might be time to seek another.
e) Magic School Bus program ran by Mike Azariah.

I don’t want to just shoot down your idea, but it sounds to me like you desire to help new people. The very best way to do that is to make your own awesome corporation. It costs nothing to create a corp, recruit people by being helpful in Rookie Chat. Don’t recruit in Rookie Chat, instead follow up with a personal recruitment mail. Now that they know you are a helpful player, they will be more open to that invitation. Set your tax low and show them how much they will save in your company.

I dropped the mining corp I was with because they stopped doing ops, members grew more distant, as they were busy doing other things. This is why I would recommend having more than one CEO in the corp. I was fortunate ( in another MMO ) to have neighbors who ran a guild and I pitched in as a co-leader. So I also recommend you pick your CEO’s from people you meet face to face and not just random strangers.

If I were making a public corp, I would be sure to choose a theme. This will set the right mood for the type of players you are looking to attract. There is nothing wrong with a pirate corp, such as “Goon Swarm” for example, as long as you understand, having players attacked by your corporate members isn’t going to be a great recruitment drive tactic. I find it very condescending to be attacked by a pirate and then sent an invite to join them. If you make a mining corp or an enforcer group, you may get labeled as care bears and white knights.

Fly safe o7

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I know how rookie help works, I have been there for years. It´s still not the same. The point is to catch peoples interest who do not want to spend hours watching videos just to play the game.

Learning by playing is way more fun and watching videos should not be a requirement to play and understand the game. People should be able to learn it ingame, either via tutorials or by players training them.

However plenty of ppl don´t want to join a player corp right away. They just play solo and get bored.
It´s also not about taking away players from other corps that train new players or anything like that.

It´s merely meant as a tool to pick up at least some of the players that currently fall through the system for whatever reason it happens.

Just an additional layer to keep a few more ppl in the game. And It´s not like I would ever expect CCP to spend money on it.

Which is why it´s simply asked as a hypothetical question rather than a serious feature idea.

edit: as for the 11% tax… that money could actually have purpose if it was an actual corp. Use the taxes to hand out rewards for events or whatever rather than the money vanishing in the void.

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Thing is the best way to explain an MMO like this IS in video format. A video can cover the same 10 FAQs all in one go. It’s the most efficient and cost-effective way.

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I disagree with that… it´s the most time effective way to teach a larger amount of ppl. Different ppl learn best in different types of ways.

And me personally I learn best when I am actually having fun. I learn things faster by trial end error than just watching an endless amount of videos.

On top of that a structured learning plan which ppl will guide you through is useful as well, because often information can quickly become confusing or hard to understand when you don´t have the required knowledge to understand a random guide you clicked on.

A personal conversation takes lot´s of time for a teacher, but being able to elaborate on the spot or fill in blanks goes a long way.

edit:

Take fitting ships as an example: I came across tons of ppl in eve who still after years can not fit ships properly, because all they have ever done is copy other ppls fit without learning the reason as to why ships are fit in a certain way or in what situation a certain setup is actually better than a different one.

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There’s more than just one vid for everyone on youtube. So if one vid doesn’t work for someone, then they can just search for another vid on the same topic.

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Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun, to go through the same topic again until you finally get it.

If that approach is fine for you, well great… I always preferred training ppl directly and always had crazy good success with it.

And just to make sure you get it… I am not saying video guides are a bad thing. But there are plenty of ppl who prefer a more personal approach. Just because it works for you, don´t assume it works for everyone.

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Oh yah video format also has cons and yah vids don’t encourage critical thinking like in fittings. CCP rather just push out content and let us form our own schools and tribes to figure it all out.

EVE University/EVE Rookies fits this bill just right.

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You know I don’t think there is 1 person playing Eve. Who knows every single aspect of the game any good tutor will use Guide or videos to teach what they don’t know.

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