The problem as i see it is that EVE has become to predictable. In eight years you'll have used up most of the players wanting to play eve in a long term commited way.

I have played EVE for a long time off and on, I have started many new accounts skilled them, then got bored again and left only to return some months later to start all over again. I have to say with each incarnation the game has had less and less appeal for me. The thought of joining a proper player corp is far less appealing as I have kind of been there and done that. So I use EVE just to fill some time between my fave TV shows.

It is just a question of how much you want to commit to a game, may be the player base is of a more fly by night nature now.

Its difficult to recruit if your corp has nothing distinct or attractive that would make people want to join.

"hey guys we're just a friendly bunch of players who do things sometimes" isn't going to cut it when there's a thousand other corps out there who say exactly the same.

Eve has grown quite a lot in the past 5 years, and the number of corps and alliances have grown exponentially, where there are litterly thousands of them and hundreds of alliances. There are so many corps/alliances doing the same thing, that to be honest even offering 0.0 space, even free ships doesnt work. It seems the the only stuff people are mainly interested in is 0.0 sov, however not just any 0.0 sov holder, you have to be a blot on the influence map! If you are not on there then you not really considered. The recruitment forums and channels are so saturated that in fact unless your like above then in order to get a decent corp together its nigh on impossible. You can dress up your recruitment posts, give the world, make in niche, dont matter. As the word says you cant even give it away.
Even complete noobies are drawn in by either Eve Uni or Goons.
The ingame recruitment thingy is just a waste of time, wonder if anyone has ever really effectively recruited from it.
Has it just now become for the normal players, corps are just based on a few friends, is that tune CCP rings about making megacorps in the trailers, not really true! anymore and infact opportunities are in fact limited not limitless.

You have to realize that Goons are a meta-gaming organization. They have presence in a variety of games which makes them attractive in Eve to people who already play other games with them or are aware of their existence from elsewhere. There are other nefarious factors involved in that as well but I won't go into them here.

Eve-University has the "learning" market cornered. Name is everything. They're highly organized and have been around forever.

As for the rest of us: Well, recruiting is difficult and mostly ineffective. However, I have had a few successes when recruiting although I would certainly categorize recruitment as mostly pointless if your intent is to post an ad or post in recruitment chat and expect results. If that is your intent then you are doomed for failure. Recruiting in Eve is like establishing relationships in RL. You can't say "Hey, we're a great bunch of people" and expect anything to happen. You have to establish a contact, maintain that contact and then maybe reap rewards sometime later. Basically, if you're not committed to the idea of maintaining an interest in people you meet, perhaps over a period of years, then you will never establish yourself and you'd be better off joining someone else's corporation. You have to network. Wait for opportunities. Recognize opportunities. And capitalize on opportunities. Eventually you'll reach a point of critical mass and things will actually work for you.

As far as having something "Unique" to offer as stated by our Goon friend in his reply: there is nothing to be offered that is unique except for RL financial incentive which is strictly verboten. But, that never stopped the Goons.

Interesting post m8, I have to admit, I dont enjoy eve as much as used to, mainly because of the points you stated. its not exciting anymore. Been there done that.

The ingame recruitment thingy is just a waste of time, wonder if anyone has ever really effectively recruited from it.
Has it just now become for the normal players, corps are just based on a few friends, is that tune CCP rings about making megacorps in the trailers, not really true! anymore and infact opportunities are in fact limited not limitless.

The ingame recruitment thingy is just a waste of time, wonder if anyone has ever really effectively recruited from it.

You are trying to be lazy about recruiting. To recruit you must be proactive and you must be unique and distinct and it has to be something people want to join you for. Maybe you are a corp specialized in small gang fast pvp with a kb to back it up, maybe you are specialists in black ops faggotry, maybe your corp does hull tanking bs low sec gate camps.
People will simply not join just another OMG CAREBEAR corp, or OMG FAIL PVP LOOK AT US WARDECCING HISEC BEARS corp, you must have a reputation that either you build up or the corp does, find or make friends as well to join you.

My corp doesn't seem to have an issue recruiting even though we aren't a big null alliance, our reputation though kinda changes that :P

Ugg so sick of the "waaahhh eve is boring"... if your a vet and eve is boring do something different! WTF yes 8 years of carebearing is boring DUH... If you get tired of 0.0 corp, then go WH, if you get tired of WH go gank highsec miners, join a pirate corp, join a wh corp...

DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

The people and corps in eve that survive are the ones that come up with things that make them different and unique...

PL has there insanely good fleet warfare,
Raiden has there supercap armadas
Eve University has the training
RvB has the highsec wardec fighting

There are a few big WH corps as well though i cant remember them...

Eve is only boring if u make it boring, as its an open ended game its a SANDBOX, some people make badass castles and some people just take a bucket house that's boring as ****....

NO THE INGAME RECRUITING TOOL IS NOT GOING TO GET YOU 50-100 members! What will you ask? Active recruiters out there trolling the highsec grounds and talking to possible pvpers or miners to look to recruit people, thats why proper corps have actual recruiters to do the leg work.

Theres a tree view somewhere of the like 50+ careers in eve, you dont have to do 1-2 for 8 years, hell switch professions every month if you want!

Oh and you've been to 0.0 and been bored in a nullsec corp? How about this start a new corp, get together some capital and decent pilots, move them to NPC 0.0 get a foothold, eventually roll an alliance, then make a landgrab for a less wanted system, pull in some secondary corps for pvp support and indy support... now your managing 500-1000 people in multiple corps ... grow and expand... This is the kind of stuff that will draw peoples attention.....

NOT "Mining/Missioning/PVP/PVE/Incursion oriented corp, recruiting now!" ... Dear god who joins that crap.

I think you missed the whole point completely. Everyone else however didnt..

I am not missing the point, I am seeing what everyone else is too lazy to see between the lines. And that is you and many other fail corporations are too lazy to be unique, too lazy to be proactive, you just want a sense of power by running a corp.

..... Even complete noobies are drawn in by either Eve Uni ...... .

Strange that every other post, agrees. Peoplea re not lazy at all or unique. The simple fact is there are thousands more corps doing exactly the same thing! You can offer everything and anything, so does everyone else. The simple fact is most people are only drawn to 0.0 sov alliances, which most space holding. Why because its safe and offers lots of carebearing opportunites too, even hardcore pvpers want that too. I remember when my corp was in an alliance, we owned a large region of 0.0 space and i had people falling over to join us. I mean we could pick and choose we had 150 - 30+mill sp guys in a matter of weeks no problem. As soon as we lost that space, and its happens now as much, people leave and go to another 0.0 sov holding alliance. I mean now its worse, as soon as a 0.0 sov alliance loses space they actually disband!..thats a simple fact...

Strange that every other post, agrees. Peoplea re not lazy at all or unique. The simple fact is there are thousands more corps doing exactly the same thing! You can offer everything and anything, so does everyone else. The simple fact is most people are only drawn to 0.0 sov alliances, which most space holding. Why because its safe and offers lots of carebearing opportunites too, even hardcore pvpers want that too. I remember when my corp was in an alliance, we owned a large region of 0.0 space and i had people falling over to join us. I mean we could pick and choose we had 150 - 30+mill sp guys in a matter of weeks no problem. As soon as we lost that space, and its happens now as much, people leave and go to another 0.0 sov holding alliance. I mean now its worse, as soon as a 0.0 sov alliance loses space they actually disband!..thats a simple fact...

If everyone wants to be in charge of the kitchen the soup will burn ...

If the masses of "my corp is recruiting" people joined up, they'd have an AWESOME corp ... but everyone wants their own little band, too many chiefs not enough indians man.

You're an idiot, you don't understand... yes lots of corps in eve do the same thing, yes lots of people want 0.0 sov


If i ever rejoin a 0.0 sov, i don't want to join a renter alliance, i laugh at all these people who go "WE NEED 0.0 PILOTS FOR OUR 0.0 PVP CORPS" to which i then read "Shadow of xxdeathxx"

To create a reputation you can do the same thing over and over again, but you gotta do it to the right people.. e.g. when the late great imperial 0rder was alliance, AQUILA INC. was literally their main threat next to Controlled chaos and Territorial claim Unit.

Why? because we came out of nowhere and opened ****...

Point i'm getting at is that you don't NEED sov, you just need a reputation in what you do, and to build that, you gotta **** those off who have a reputation.