Is it time to force players to join a player corp?

Should CCP impose a time limit on how long players can remain in an NPC corps?

  • Yes

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • No

    Votes: 7 87.5%

  • Total voters
    8

Dr Zaius

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There are a lot of complaints about people "hiding" in NPC corps in order to protect themselves from war-decs. In the past, a lot of these complaints have come from pirates and griefers who were just unhappy they couldn't indiscriminately target every other player in the game. But increasingly these complaints are coming from the carebear community, as griefers have turned to hiding in NPC corps so they can't be held responsible for their actions.

Apparently, both carebears, PvPers and EVE's outlaws are unhappy with the current state of affairs, but they all use it to their advantage. That's not surprising. Since the game is what it is, you can't blame people for taking advantage of the system, even if they really want to see it changed.

So is it finally time for CCP to impose a limit on how long new players can remain in an NPC corps? Perhaps 60 days or so?
 

pward

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Some people play the game to take out their aggressions on other folks. Personally I don't want to be someone elses chewtoy, which is why I avoid PVP combat. Market PVP is something else entirely: MMM... I LOVE THE SMELL OF PROFIT IN THE MORNING!

Yes, when I price my stuff lower than someone else, they lose a sale. But, they don't lose their entire investment in a ship and fittings because I felt like attacking everything in sight.

Empire wardecs are (in my experience) a waste of programming time and energy. Unfortunately, that's all rolled into all wardecs, so it's got to stay.

My corp was wardecced once, and it was withdrawn when our CEO informed the other corp we had no intention of engaging in PVP combat. They threw down the dec because they wanted PVP combat in safe space, against a known enemy. And people call me a carebear...

For other players, enjoyment of the game (which equals continued subscriptions) means avoiding even the possibility of having someone else restrict your empire movements with a wardec. To do that and enjoy your missions/marketing/mining/industry/whatever may mean that forming a corp is more hassle than it's worth.

I also question the need for the NPC corps when a person is booted or leaves a PC corp. Why not just make them "unemployed". No corp chat, and a blank spot in their employment history, while retaining the wardec immunity.

Probably a better long term solution is to force "graduation" from the NPC school corp after the first month (or 60/90 days?) of a new toons life. After that, you're either in a PC corp, a militia, or unemployed.

I would go a little bit further and recommend doing it per account. If you create a new toon after three years of an account being active, there is no excuse to need an NPC corp, if "unemployed" were implemented. An account in this situation shouldn't need the training wheels of the NPC corp.
 

Dr Zaius

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I fully understand that people play the game for different reasons and a lot of people don't see EVE as a PvP-centric game. In fact, I've spent most of my time playing as a carebear, so don't get the idea what I posted above is somehow the result of wanting to drive people into PvP or lure easy targets into low-sec. Not at all.

When I'm playing as a carebear I want to be left alone. I run my missions, sell some salvage, and sometimes just go on walkabout to take pretty pictures. I get annoyed when gankers scan me down and interrupt me in the middle of a mission. And I too tend to view people who seek out such lopsided fights as even more "carebear" than I am.

From where I sit, it seems the griefers and gankers that have now learned to use the NPC system against the carebears. They use it to hide from anti-pirates and gank at will, and there's largely nothing that can be done about it under the current system.

Is the war-dec system broken? Yes, clearly it is. For starters it's simply too cheap to declare war. Starting a war should be a serious affair that carries real costs and real risks, and the current system, as one dev described it, amounts to a "pay to grief" system. And I agree with him. The costs should be much higher than they currently are and a strict limit of 3 simultaneous war-decs imposed. Fight too many wars at once and you'll go broke. Too, players should not be able to painlessly hop from one corp to another at will. Like war, joining and leaving a corp should be an important decision that carries risks and rewards. Corp hoping is no different than the sort of sleazy meta-gaming tactics employed by scammers and griefers.

Having said all that, EVE should not be a place where people can play as if risks don't exist at all. While it should be expensive and never something to be done on a whim, players should be able to declare war on other players--it's part of living in a dangerous universe. If the changes I proposed were implemented, it's unlikely that small carebear corps would face many war-decs as it would be too expensive and involve little or no gain.

I don't want a pay to grief system. But what EVE currently offers comes dangerously close to being a meta-gaming griefer's paradise. That needs to change. There need to be consequences and risks for carebears, PvPs and outlaws alike.
 

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One thing that might remove the "griefers hiding in NPC corps" would be complaints causing them to be ejected to "unemployed" status.

Right now there isn't a CEO to complain to about an NPC corp members behavior.

All sorts of folks "hide" in an NPC corp. If it's ok for empire residents (carebears/missioneers/whatever name you call them) then it's unfortunately also ok for suigankers or other miscreants. At some point the balance will tip in favor of it being worth more to the community to do away with NPC corps, but I don't think we've hit that point yet.

I'm hiding in my PC corp, hoping I don't get saddled with the CEO position again. Last time I was CEO it became too much like work or ordering folks around.

I'm relatively safe in empire, even when jetcan mining (not much lately with the orca) I am prepared to pay the consequences of the jetcan getting flipped. Loss of ore is far cheaper than loss of hulk/orca.
 
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Dr Zaius

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Part of the problem is the way EVE practically encourages the use of alts. This leads to an unfortunate situation where no one anywhere ever really suffers any lasting or significant consequences for their actions. Get banned from high-sec? Simply use an alt to do your shopping and deliver the goods to pirateville.

I realize there is no way to control the use of alts, but there are some things CCP could do to mitigate the effects of rampant metagaming. For one thing, we need a bounty system that actually works.
 

pward

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Even a bounty system that "works" would be meta-gamed. Say there are restrictions on who collects the bounty. Can't be a corp or alliance mate, and (somehow) restricted so that other accounts you own can't collect your own bounty.

  1. Create new email account.
  2. Get trial account.
  3. Jump clone the bad boy to an "empty" shell.
  4. Bounty your main for a bazillion bucks with the noob.
  5. Transfer bounty to main.
  6. Let the trial account lapse.
Now that I'm thinking about it, it's probably better to scrap the whole bounty system, or work really hard to cover all the potential loopholes (jumpclones, alts, etc) that already exist.
 

pward

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How about replacing it with a system where the pod pilots in the .5-1.0 systems can attack any low security individual in system. Call it "citizen's arrest", enforced with legal empire podding. Maybe the limit should be for toons that fall below -1.0 security, so that noobs who make a mistake with a smartbomb (wasn't all that smart was it?) in a mission or belt aren't attacked everywhere they go.

You want to be a criminal, suffer the consequences.

And please adjust the "kill rats to raise security" mechanic. Just because one criminal is killing other criminals, doesn't make him a saint after a while. I would like to see some sort of "cap" on gain of security when negative. I've suggested before that negative security should plateau out at whole numbers when raising it. If you get to -4.99, the best you can raise it to is -4.0. You hit -5.0 and there is no going back over that line. Similar to the suggestion above, a player could go from -.99 to positive, but if you slip past -1.0 you carry that for life.
 

pward

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They should probably do away with alts as well. With three accounts active, I've got 9 characters to play with. Three that I care about, the rest are throw-aways. Research alts and market presence toons that I haven't really used recently since my corp put up it's own research POS. The market presence in Jita is nice, but most of the time I avoid that system like the plague. If I do need to go there to buy or sell, I've got a list of parts in mind to buy, or a bunch of datacores to sell.

Maybe there should be alts on the account, but only allow one "active" at any given time. With a 30 day timeframe between switching characters. It still retains the option to start over, but the inactive characters won't be assisting your low security toons, or amassing datacores on the side. When I say inactive, I mean totally inactive. No RP gain, no interaction at all with the inactive toons.

Call it cryo-sleep or some such. No transfers into or out of their accounts or hangars, for all intents and purposes the inactive characters don't exist.
 

Chaim628

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Hi guys,

Restarted after a year and took an Amarr character. Back to Frigate 3 and wondering what/if I should join. Is a NPC Militia any good ? Any player corporations to recommend, or should I stay and do some more agent mission first ?

Thanks !
 

pward

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The Militias are for faction warfare. Missions with the objective of capturing the "flag" in opposing territory. I've not participated myself, but you can give it a whirl if you're interested in PvP.

Staying in an NPC corp is perfectly acceptable if you're getting your feet back under you. You can look in the corporations button for corps that are advertising for new members. All sorts of filters and options to match up a corp with your playstyle. (Just remember this is EVE, and the corp ads may not reflect their actual intents.)
 

Dr Zaius

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One of the problems is the mentality of most corps and alliances. The vast majority of 0.0 corps only accept players who agree to participate in corps operations on a regular basis. They consider this your "payment" for getting access to 0.0 rats and other resources and tend to boot players who don't participate often enough as they view them as parasites.

So we have a situation on the EVE forums where a lot of people constantly complain about characters who are still in NPC corps and request that CCP force them to join an organization that can be legally attacked. But then the same people attempt to restrict the corps to "active" players who are willing to play for extended periods several times a week and participate in fleet ops. Catch 22.

In short, the goal here is to force all casual players completely out of the game or force them to become regular PvPers if they want to continue to play. This is one of the motivations for forcing characters out of NPC corps and also why you so often hear people complaining about level 4 agents in high-sec. These people want to deny everyone else any meaningful way to make ISK in high-sec.

CCP has resisted these efforts for the most part, but it wouldn't surprise me to see all the good agents removed from high-sec and players forced out of NPC corps. If they're going to do that, I would prefer CCP just get rid of the security status of systems altogether and make all of EVE null-sec space. That would do away with 99% of the gatecamps because there would be no "border" where people could sit, waiting for easy targets.

The bottom line is the hardcore pirates, greifers and other PvPers want to reshape EVE into a PvP-only game where casual players are run out of town very quickly.
 
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The bottom line is the hardcore pirates, greifers and other PvPers want to reshape EVE into a PvP-only game where casual players are run out of town very quickly.

I don't agree with this, if this was done, the pirate and greifers wouldn't have anyone to take advantage of, as they usually can't hack it in 0.0 themselves. Most PVP corps in 0.0 are a team, a good team has many positions to help the team, if you are an individual and just care about yourself we would rather not have you with us. Most 0.0 corps have the following view;


"By God, I wouldn't lose as much honor as a single man more would cost me, I think—not even if it meant giving up my best hope for victory. Oh, do not wish one more! Instead, make this known throughout the army: whoever has no spirit for this fight, let him depart. He will be given safe conduct and money for his passage home. We would not want to die in the company of a man who fears to die with us."
 

Dr Zaius

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Most PVP corps in 0.0 are a team, a good team has many positions to help the team, if you are an individual and just care about yourself we would rather not have you with us.
Which is exactly what I just said. They don't want casual players and they want to dictate when and how much you play.

And I have no problem with that. They are free to run their own organizations however they see fit. If they don't want casual players and would prefer the casual players stay in high-sec, that's fine. The problem starts when they not only refuse to accept casual players but then lobby CCP to force the casual players out of high-sec. In short, they are not just concerned with 0.0, they want to dictate how other people play the game. There are only about 10,000 whine threads on the EVE forums on this very subject.

LT COL KILGORE said:
I don't agree with this, if this was done, the pirate and greifers wouldn't have anyone to take advantage of, as they usually can't hack it in 0.0 themselves.
I agree it doesn't make good sense. But that's exactly what they are whining about 24/7 on the EVE forums.
 

Chaim628

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The Militias are for faction warfare. Missions with the objective of capturing the "flag" in opposing territory. I've not participated myself, but you can give it a whirl if you're interested in PvP.

Staying in an NPC corp is perfectly acceptable if you're getting your feet back under you. You can look in the corporations button for corps that are advertising for new members. All sorts of filters and options to match up a corp with your playstyle. (Just remember this is EVE, and the corp ads may not reflect their actual intents.)
Tried to join the Amarr Militia but would have to get the permanent account. I forgot if you loose your days of trial if you move over to a permanent account, otherwise I might rat for another good week or so, although I just went into 0.5 and they are pretty miserable bait : 5-15K+junk each.
Btw. I forgot what the impact was of the Assault warning, I got it twice yesterday and just docked.

Anyway, I'll probably choose between Eve University and CVA. Any reference on the last one ?
 

pward

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I'm fairly certain if you go full-fledged from the trial, that the payment cycle starts as of that day. You don't get to finish the trial, then start paying.

I've no idea about CVA.
 
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Anyway, I'll probably choose between Eve University and CVA. Any reference on the last one ?
I'd go with Eve University, it is the best place for new players. I would not still be in game if I hadn't joined it in my early days. It is a great place to learn before you venture out into the Universe.
 

Chaim628

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I'd go with Eve University, it is the best place for new players. I would not still be in game if I hadn't joined it in my early days. It is a great place to learn before you venture out into the Universe.
OK, that might be the best option, I read nothing but recommendations.
I see they have an office in my solar system, nice. :smoke:
 

pward

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To be honest, I've been thinking about a change of pace and joining Eve University to get the exposure to the "other side". My main toon might be 3+ years old, but I'm almost certain they could teach me something.
 

Chaim628

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Did the interview yesterday evening with a Eve Uni recruitment officer and got accepted. The mail said I was recommended by Kilgore. Did they actually check ? Thanks in any case. :)
Going through the whole set of info tools : intro mails, channels, mailing lists, websites and forum. Jeez, this IS a University. And I have not started any classes yet...:crosseye:
 
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Did the interview yesterday evening with a Eve Uni recruitment officer and got accepted. The mail said I was recommended by Kilgore. Did they actually check ? Thanks in any case. :)
Going through the whole set of info tools : intro mails, channels, mailing lists, websites and forum. Jeez, this IS a University. And I have not started any classes yet...:crosseye:
Welcome to Eve University Chaim628. They wouldn't know kilgore, that is my name for these forums. My char in Eve Uni is, Lisa Deturk if you need any help with anything give me a shout. There is a wealth of info and alot of very helpful people in the Uni.
 
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