Space, reimbursement programs, and security do not keep
alliance members logging in and retain membership. Just look at Solar Fleet or –A–, which have
both lost all their space multiple times.
They survive as entities because of their culture.
What do I mean by culture?
I mean content. Eve is a game,
and an alliance is only as good as its ability to deliver meaningful content to
its membership. The larger an alliance
or corporation is, the more diverse its membership, and the more diverse
offerings it must provide.
How do you create culture?
Part of it rests in how members treat each other, how leadership views
the members, how the members view the leadership, and what members can look
forward to on a daily basis when logging in.
Culture is much easier to destroy than to build, unfortunately.
But what sorts of things are responsible?
1) Abuse. Members have choices about what they do with
their free time. Eve is only one of
multiple games out there. Even within
Eve, many players have multiple characters in different corps. If you’re abusing your membership, they will
go somewhere else, either by leaving your corp or by simply not logging in and
participating. Generally, the ills of an
alliance are not the fault of membership.
If members aren’t participating, it’s because leadership isn’t creating
content that’s engaging. Ranting about
how terrible members are isn’t going to help the problem. In fact, it’s going to make it worse by
demonstrating how clueless leadership is.
Alliance forum trolls and angry corp channels will only push more people
away. Eve is a game; it’s not our real
lives. The same motivational principles
used in the military don’t work when you’re talking about space pixels and
immortal capsuleers.
2) Monolithic Content
Generation. I almost called this
“boredom”, but this description is more specific. If you are null-sec alliance, people expect
that sov warfare will be the most critical activity members should engage
in. That’s called being true to
type. But it can’t be the only content
you provide. If you want to keep members
engaged, you need to have a variety of activities. If you want only PvPers, you still need to
provide roaming gangs, wormhole infiltrations, high-sec ganking, pirate roams,
etc. Fleet-doctrine operations are not
sufficient. You need multiplicity, not
hegemony.
3) Time Zone Abuse. If all your deployments are made with one
time zone in mind, expect the other time zones to get the message that they
don’t matter. Your members have lots of
choices. All time zones draw at least
25,000 users every day; that’s a lot of content to be had. You need to have activity in all time
zones. An Aussie likely doesn’t care how
much activity your US TZ has, and vice versa.
You need to keep those time zones in mind, but they don’t. They’re interested in whether they’re getting
the most for their PLEX/subscription cost.
4) Lack of activity.
This could be a symptom of any of the others, but keep in mind that your
alliance is only as good as the activity over the past couple months. Most members chance corps every 6-9 months,
and they aren’t going to wait for, say, winter, for something to happen.
5) Schizophrenia. Constantly changing the purpose, rules, or
fleet doctrines of an alliance will only succeed in annoying your members and
eroding confidence in leadership. They
will give you the benefit of the doubt only so long as you don’t abuse it. A constant string of change will annoy them. New doctrines require time to train, and
while they’re training for your doctrine, they can’t train for what they want
to do. Changing the rules makes it
difficult to form strategies about how they’re going to play. Changing the purpose will make members fleet
quickly. Culture is built on
consistency.
6) Poor Leadership.
As I said, issue with participation is the fault of leadership. One Eve player is much like another (even
bitter vets). No alliance has any more
“better” PvPers than another. But,
alliances do have better/worse FC training programs, member engagement
programs, continuing education programs, varieties of content, and frequency of
leadership availability. Pilots are only
as good as the structure in which they operate.
Don’t believe me?
Look at Pandemic Legion, who a lot of folks consider to be the best in
the game. Have you ever seen them engage
in a fair fight, outmaneuver and out-fly their pilots, and emerge
victorious? No, they do drive-bys, hot
drops, and employ overwhelming force.
Their members are no better than any other pilot of similar skill and length
of game tenure. What they do have is an
amazing leadership-guided network of contacts, spies, and resources that help
them be at the worse place for one set of pilots one moment, then half-way
across the galaxy to be at the worst place for another set of pilots the
next. This is engaging content for their
members, and keeps them motivated.
The Romans weren’t inherently better or worse than anyone
else. Structure and leadership set the
Romans apart by breeding discipline, confidence, and investment in the Roman
way of life.
So, How Do You Fix
It?
Poll your members, listen to what their concerns are. Recognize that the fault inherently lies with
you – either in your individual actions or in not providing them the content
they want. Treat them with respect. Don’t harrangue them; set clear expectations
with a warning system, then kick them once they exhaust the warnings (and be
sure to reset the level of “warning” they’re on after so much time). Let the system punish for you. Don’t lose your temper, ever. Be dispassionate in punishment. When you set up a structure that others buy
into, you gain the justification for holding them accountable. That way, you can focus on praising exemplars
of your ideal alliance member, not punishing those that go awry. Ultimately, the goal is to give them the
content they want insofar as your core purpose can be maintained. Without them, after all, you don’t have a
leadership role, only a private corporation.
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