This is the first post in a three part series where I will discuss some hurdles regarding recruiting new players into corporations, suggest some changes and lastly try do work around these problems until such changes occur. Also: sorry for the wall of text.

Recruitment Inhibitors.

Something has been bugging me for quite some time. The corporation which I’ve always been a part of – The Knights of Nii – started as an open door corporation. Anyone could join, even I. For a long time we aspired to be that way. But as the corporations assets have increased and since our home and hearts is in Wormhole space some game mechanics really impedes recruitment.

Every time we discuss bringing new members into the wormhole where we live the same discussion come up. How do we ensure that the new member does not steal all our ships, fitting modules, POS fuel etc? There are other things too. Like that we would like to keep some corporation bookmarks away from new players. This could be bookmarks to other holes for instance.

The security in regard to Ship Maintenance Arrays (SMA) are digital. Either you have access and can remove anything and everything from them or you have zero access. The Corporate Hangars Array (CHA) is more secure having seven individual compartments allowing for a number of security settings. No rights, view contents, drop items and take items.

To alleviate these problems CCP in June 2013 introduced the Personal Hangar Array (PHA). This gives every corporation member her own storage area. It’s not a huge volume, but it does allow for every member to store some stuff. There is no room for ships and large amounts of ore, fuel or Planetary Interaction materials. There are however still no Personal Ship Maintenance Array. Even at the time the PHA was introduced I wondered why the SMA was left out. Since the CHA at least has some possibility of security the need for a more secure SMA seemed a lot higher to me. It still does.

There are ways of addressing these shortcomings. You can give the members no access, forcing them to store their modules in their ships and their ships inside the POS shields. They can drop own containers within the shields. Or you could have several SMA’s barring the new and/or yet fully trusted members from accessing the rest of the corps ships. The problem remains though. Unless you place an SMA for every new member there can still be theft within the corporation and since there is no log of who took what finding the thief is impossible.

I love that Eve is a harsh game and would not have it any other way. But it would be nice to be able to recruit players without having to risk billions of ISK. The current state of the corporation mechanics makes paranoia, mistrust and caution the norm. Giving people a break and reaching out are frowned upon. New players have a hard time getting into corporations. Corporations we all know most of them desperately need to experience the game fully and to keep them in the game. Often new players only experience with corporations is the business end of ammunition instead of an outstretched hand. Yeah, I know I’m often guilty of handing out ammunition, but you all get the idea. It’s a vicious circle.

Enablers. A fuzzy word with a lot of potential. Potentially.

Eve Online’s Executive Producer, CCP Seagull has on several occasions spoken of Enablers. Last I heard it was on the Crozzing Zebras Podcast which I highly recommend you to take a listen to. As I understand it CCP Seagulls definition of an Enabler is someone that does things that others need done in order to focus on playing the game. Someone that builds the foundation that everything stands on. The examples of such enabling actions I have makes me think ‘corporation and alliance upper management’ tools. I’m not aware of CCP Seagull giving an example of a person that is such an Enabler. Would Mangala of Red vs Blue fame be an Enabler? He arranges RvB Ganked nights where a lot of players fleet up and go roaming space for fights and giggles. How about a CEO that plans a roam, or a mining operation? How about the scout that maps out the wormhole chain for the nights operation? The scout makes copies and distributes bookmarks, researches the locals in the neighboring wormholes, scans down sigs and so on. The more I think of it the more people I do see as Enablers.

Perhaps my definition of ‘Enablers’ differs substantially from CCP Seagulls. I don’t know. I can not find enough details what an Enabler is exactly. Her occasional vagueness is the only negative thing I have to say about CCP Seagull. I have complete confidence in her. And in her defense I must point out that she addresses her vagueness, albeit in a roundabout way in the podcast linked above.

Inhibitors? Enablers? WTF?

So how do the recruitment inhibitors and Enablers tie into each other? Good question! I’ve played Eve for a couple of years now. I have had the opportunity of playing with a lot of people that are very competent and willing to share their knowledge. I’d like to keep the privilege of being enabled that way.

But I also would like to enable others. Preferably new players that want to live in wormhole space. Enable them to learn exploration, scanning, running Sleeper sites and hunt other players. But with the pretty much nonexistent security in regards SMA’s especially and the functional but clunky corporation security in general I find the risk high, and minimizing these risks a lot of work. It’s too much of a risk giving new and potentially thieving members the opportunity to steal billions worth of ships.

Wrap-up and next posts.

I have given a lot of thought to what would be required for the Knights of Nii to have that open door we used to have. In the next post I will discuss these thoughts. I will suggest some additions and changes to mechanics. Suggestions that I feel would really help corporations Enabling new players, without theft being such an issue. Please feel free to leave comments or contact me in-game or on Twitter where I am @Akely.

The third post in this series will discuss workarounds. I will do my best to figure out how to within the current iteration of the game solve the problems I’ve listed. So again, feel free to give feedback.

Now bring me a shrubbery!