Jaison Savrin wrote:Contrary to what alot of the people in this thread are saying Eve didn't stick for me until I got to a point that I could solo L4s. It wasn't because of the L4s themselves, I do enjoy them, but because at around that level of skill points is when you really start to feel flexible in ship choices and play styles. That is how it felt to me.
I think a lot of keeping new players in a corp or in Eve in general is just to interact with them. Whether you're PvPing, PVEing, Mining, Exploring, etc. You need to make them feel like they have something to contribute. Give them a Dessie to come pop frigates in your L4, give them an Industrial to haul your minerals, give them a fast frigate to tackle or even just distract people in PvP, or any number of other things. These things aren't necessarily vital but when you feel useful it is only natural to want to know how you can be more useful. After they have a taste for something you can help them figure out how to reach their goals. Plus there are some very useful things that don't take much training and will always be useful.
Edit: Also, when it comes to PvP you have to make sure that losing ships is fun on some level; even a good laugh. If you yell and scream and curse and throw hissy fits every time something doesn't go your way you'll probably put off a lot of people very quickly. If I had been put right into PvP with someone like that I would have never stayed with Eve. Honestly, I am not a PvP type anyway but luckily my intro to PvP was with a group of people who just wanted to have fun and kill time. While I still don't PvP voluntarily very often I also do not connect negative emotions to it immediately. That helped me immensely when it came to sticking with Eve.
Well this is so obviously true that I should restate it in my various essays about the subject:
Ignoring these new people the way so many organizations do by policy is a fantastic way to lose out on some of the best members they'll ever have and all you had to do is talk to these people. Oh, don't be dense guys. The people we are talking about will teach themselves almost everything anyway, once you provide them with a social milieu that provides them with the incentives to do so. This isn't a fraternity house on a college campus. We do not need to haze these people. The game will do that. We need to help them up that nearly vertical wall you have to climb just to get inside. Its not like the fun doesn't just begin once you have done that for them.