Old Player, New Character - and the NPE

Hey there.  I've returned to EVE Online after a few years; the kids are older, and after reminiscing with them over the holidays about our "favorite" video games, I realized that I truly missed EVE, for many reasons.

So late one evening after the family went to bed, I downloaded the client, reactivated my account, and saw New Eden through Adhar's eyes once again.  EVE, you're as beautiful as you ever were.  Moreso, if truth be told.  The detail on the ships, the movement, the glowing, dotted trails outside the stations.  It's all beautiful; always has been.

But that's not what I wanted to share with this post, precisely.  It is wrapped up in my return to EVE, though.  A lot has changed in the intervening years.  Hacking - completely different.  Scanning down sites - I'm glad to see that probes still play a role, but I haven't messed about with them yet, so I'm not sure what's changed there.  Apparently Planetary Interaction went through a phase where pilots could outsource to research teams, or something like that.  The new manufacturing interfaces look really sharp - and I'm not quite sure yet, but it looks like there is no limit on how many jobs a station facility can run.  That was always a pain in the backside.  Oh, and clone grades went away - very cool; bet there was some salt over that one about making EVE too inviting for new players.

With all that's changed, I thought perhaps a tour through the New Player Experience would help.  Specifically, the NPE version re-launched toward the end of 2016, if you're reading this some time in the future.

And that experience, at least so far, is the purpose of this post.

Biomassing History
Which character goes to the ash heap of history?  Certainly not Adhar - folly!  That left two mostly unused alts; I was never one for multi-character play, and back in the day, one alt just lived in Jita for price checks.  It was a matter of minutes to sweep out the hangar and get it ready for a new inhabitant.

Recruiting Greatness
I can hear some of you now - "Greatness? Pfft, new players aren't great, they're fodder."  More on that later.  Rolling up (dating myself here, I know) a new character was much the way I remembered it from the last character. Getting through the tutorial was more important than the new character's physical appearance, so I didn't spend a lot of time there.

Aura and the Drifters
Aura's overhaul and voice acting were great, as well as the military commander.  Overall the experience and in media res approach worked very well.  The opportunity to look at all of the ships on display before the big fight was cool, and certainly brought back memories of past glories.  All of the ships were standard as far as I noticed, also fine for a new player.  One thing that could have been worked in (perhaps it was and I missed it) was a reminder that bigger isn't necessarily better.  Of course, the list of "could have been worked in" is likely longer than I care to imagine.  It would have been a good use of some of those ship's captains voice overs, maybe.

Overall the introductory adventure and directions flowed well, all the way through the end of the hive.

Relocation and Blog Refresh

After a 28-month (or near enough) period of hibernation, I awake to find a much-changed (and not-so-changed) New Eden.

Most of my former corp mates are unreachable, or dead. On the plus side, beyond a layer of dust, the hangars are as I left them in June of 2008. The ships and assets gathered in the first few years of play are still intact, and mostly relevant. (What am I going to do with 12 core probe scanner blueprint originals?)

The new character generator is just a couple of days away, and after playing with it on Singularity, I do think the face of New Eden is going change dramatically this summer. In fact, over time I think we're going to end up with something of a split society - the spaceship folks, and the station folks (and then eventually the DUST folks.) It is exciting to think about the vast complexity and opportunity that's available.

-AK

The Recruiting Challenge

For some reason, recruiting in EVE Online seems to be particularly challenging. Maybe I'm setting the sights of the corporation too high, but I'd like a crew of dedicated, consistent, mature players who are willing to help the corporation.

What I tend to struggle with as a CEO is how to grow a corporate culture that encourages the members to work closely together. Part of this may be that Portsmouth Defense Industries is my second corporation, created after nearly a year running. One of the biggest differences is that new players really need each other - their characters aren't very skilled, and New Eden can be a dangerous place. In marked contrast, the pilots who were newbies last year are now flying highly-specialized and deadly ships, know their way around the universe, and can make a reasonable stream of income flying solo.

So, what is it about a corporation that will both help the newcomer and provide value to the experienced pilot? My guess - a common goal. With the first corporation I ran, we had a common goal from Day 1: To build a starbase in 0.0 on our own merits. That worked wonders for focusing our activities. Perhaps the challenge now is not in recruiting, but in providing an experience that both new and old pilots will find engaging.

Corporations as Communities

Running a corporation in EVE means you're in charge (more or less) of a self-contained community within the larger nation of the game. The CEO is responsible for defining the rules of the community, why it exists, and what differentiates it from every other corporation out there. In a world with a limited player population and low exit barriers (24 hours and a player can be on to their next corporation, see ya!), encouraging people to become and remain members of a corporation can be very challenging.

This is especially true when a corporation first gets started. Unless you've got an already-strong network of pilots willing to join you, finding new pilots is hard. Corporations started by new players have (arguably) the least to offer new members. Limited experience, limited assets, and limited skill points mean that a new CEO may have to recruit exclusively from the newer players.

If your goal is to start a new corporation, decide early what kind of corporation you want it to be, and then join a corporation like that. The "Recruitment" channel in game is a neverending series of advertisements for possible employers, so it should be fairly straightforward to find one that meets your needs. In this case, your goal is to learn how to run a corporation. Join a corporation, learn what you can, what makes sense, what doesn't. Is occasional piracy acceptable, or will it get you expelled? Can you see your new corporation getting war-decced by a hostile corporation? How does it get handled? Smack Talk in EVE can get you killed, or griefed to the point of having to start a new character. PvP in EVE is often NONCONSENSUAL (or as some say, it *is* consensual - you agree to it when you log in).

It is possible to just "start a corporation", but it comes with its own set of risks unless you've got some close friends willing to share the ride.

Tips for being a CEO in EVE

The wife-aggro blog had a great post last week about being effective as a guild leader in WoW. I got to thinking about it, then started drafting a companion blog for EVE CEOs. It's about 12 pages long so far, I think. May have to post it in a few sections. I'm even planning to include a guide for corporate charter development, although it may be a separate entry.

Why Corporations Need Directors

It's a simple answer, really. Unless you're independently wealthy and/or have *zero* out of game life, it's not possible to be online running the corporation all the time. For any corporation that is planning to grow beyond the initial few pilots that founded it, a strong group of leaders is absolutely critical.

Directors perform the following critical roles:

• They're online when you're not
  
• They can recruit new talent
• They act as a reality check for your more insane ideas
• They provide ideas for how to run the corp
• They've got the rights to keep things moving when you're not around:
• Vacations
• Work day
• Sleep
• Other (yeah, I know, this is a heresy) hobbies
• Family
• Natural disasters (my community got hit with a tornado, was out of power for a few days)
• They provide motivation when you're burnt or lacking motivation yourself
• They expand your network of in-game contacts, especially older players (note: players, not characters. With account trading on the rise, we're seeing more high-sp characters with new player owners - not so valuable.)

There's a darker side to having directors, of course. At least, there's a potential for some serious down side, but not markedly more than the tales of dishonest CEOs or other long-term corporation members. The downside is that directors, because they have access to everything in the corporation, can shut a corporation down if they turn rogue.

My answer? Recruit very carefully, and don't forget that EvE can be a harsh instructor. As recent events (as of this writing) have shown, even long-term in-game friends can turn out to be untrustworthy.

Corporate Ennui

Is it ennui, or just a momentary lapse of energy? Got the word yesterday that a key member of the corporation is thinking about moving back to a former corporation. The member in question is primarily a mission runner, and is in a different time-zone than a lot of the players. It will be a real kick in the teeth if they (the player in question has multiple accounts) leave, both because he's a skilled pilot, and because he's a cool guy.

The other thing I've been noticing, now that I'm on my second corporation, is the difference in the feel of this experience versus my first time through as a CEO. The first corporation, Portsmouth Shipyards, got its start because the CEO and directors of the corporation I was in at the time disappeared for a few weeks. The gang of new players (me included) just recently recruited to the corporation felt abandoned, and we wanted the ability to chart our own course. After hemming for a few days, we opted to start a new corporation. Five of us got together, and as the character with the most skills in corporation management, I got the post of CEO, and the other 4 took directorships.

It was a very exciting time, and we were all just getting into the game, with so many paths ahead of us. For nearly a year (actually just a couple weeks shy) we stuck together, recruiting new players, never getting much over 30 characters in size (some alts there in the mix). During that time we built battleships, got war-decced, did huge mining ops, partnered with a 0.0 alliance for access to their space, and eventually joined a 0.0 alliance on our own merits.

After a while living with the realities of life in 0.0, I came to realize that it wasn't a play style that fits my schedule. I don't have unbroken hours to spend on hunting enemies, or coordinating system-wide mining operations, or deploying POS infrastructures. This was a semi-difficult decision, and it meant leaving the corporation, as we had several Starbases deployed. Also, some of the other players wanted to stretch out to other things EvE has to offer - some went to piracy, some stayed in 0.0, some opted to create a newer, smaller corporation.

Contrast that to this new corporation that I've started. A few of the old band have joined up, along with some newer players. Now that I've "been there done that", and am experimenting with advanced content (such as invention), the pull of mining ops isn't so thrilling. Grinding missions for standing with research agents is time-consuming, and my skills are focused in small-ship combat, so standings increases are slow.

Also, the old corporation had a full 5 directors (including myself) acting as checks and balances, and providing recruiting and management. Perhaps I need to promote a few more folks to director, to start recruiting in other time zones.