Me

Me

Saturday, October 9, 2010

We're doing great, but we can always do better

The UNI has been in existence for years, helping new students learn the ropes and guide them towards their future homes in EVE.  We've constantly evolved our services and structure to better suit students, and will continue to make changes as necessary.

During my tenure,  we've drastically increased skillbooks and items available to students, and added several ways for students to acquire bigger ships at discounted costs.  We've restructured the ILN into BGs to help PVP oriented characters.  We've ravamped recruiting to help streamline the process and make it both more uniform and secure.  Our chatchannels were redone to help assist people who drop during wartime and create a larger E-UNI community.  W-space and low-sec ops give much more small gang opportunities that we had previously, and our wiki has helped centralize information for our students.

How would you like to see the UNI change in the future,, and how can you help make that change happen?

8 comments:

  1. Don't forget revamping the Mentor program. I hear it's taken off pretty well. I'd say I'm quite happy with the way things are in the Uni. The structure in place has promoted an environment of community and education. I think with the war before Grunts., making reasons for director actions plain and public?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I for one would love to see more people staying in the Uni for a longer term. I have seen the Uni population going up and down quite some times (and I am not that long within the Uni). When the populations goes down, activities as well as the combat ability of the uni goes down pretty hard too. Usually the most advanced players leave for greener grass, which is has quite an effect on the topics taught as well as the fun from fleet activities.
    So I would like the Uni to provide a better climate for intermediate players to stay. Imho one would need to increase the activities these people would like to know more of. So I am a big fan of more advanced stuff like advanced combat activities (RRBS, recon stuff, hotdrops, POS assaults) to provide the ground for players to stay.
    I do know in the past that lead to some elitism within some of the more advanced groups and a lot of players do not want to be restricted by Uni rules but I think there is a solution to most problems and imho that should be one of the main goals the Uni should try to reach. The basic stuff is pretty much very well covered with not that much room to improvement.
    Giving the more advanced players some kind of purpose to fullfill is the best way to keep them. so far the organazitaion of the ILN into the battlegroups is a great step to keep quite some players and giving them responsibilites.
    I hope there would be a way to keep some advanced groups within the Uni like in wormholes, lowsec and such.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Frood, I don't think the Uni needs to concentrate on that. It's a neutral and educational organization. The natural way of things makes more experienced players leave looking for new experiences. I think that's okay, you don't always need to be everything for everybody.

    That said, I imagine a low-nullsec corp formed by Uni graduates could end up being quite powerful. I'm new here so I don't know if they tried that before :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Actually, take a look at The Graduates. http://tgrads.com/
    They are where alot of E Uni grads go when they want to try null sec.
    Frood did mention something I think would be good again. I know Division 6 was the Uni's try at WH space, but reinstating something like that again would be good for education as well as for profit. James Arget has the idea to make "field trips" with a POS for a weekend or two, holding classes and making ISK. I'd love to see that embraced by the Uni.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Terje, I think the Uni can be a neutral and educational organization and teaching advanced stuff at the same time. A lot of stuff in Eve you do not learn by listening to classes but to try it yourself. I mean it is Eve University (not Eve High) and as long as the basic newbie training does not get neglected it is ok to teach more than the basic. Even more so when the advanced content affects the new players by giving them more options and more teachers as well. I did not say that the Uni shall go out and conquer some 0.0 but I would love to see more lowsec/0.0 group explorations, WH stuff and maybe more.

    ReplyDelete
  6. We're working on some things that may be a great benefit for both new and old students. Stay tuned (maybe later this week or next week...possibly longer) for more info.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sorry to comment so late in the game but I've been mulling over your post. Things E-Uni should do:

    1. Pimp the E-Uni blogs on the front page of the wiki. There is a lot of great information here and on some of the other Uni blogs and I think it would be a great thing to see more of this. (Yes I realize this is totally self serving and I just don't care.)

    2. Camp outs where Unistas go to low-sec, w-space, 0.0 and hang out for a few days to get the "being there" experience.

    3. Maybe add more meta activities that people can participate in. I for one would love to see a Eve University College of History or something similar.

    Hey, a guy can dream right?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Personally, one of the bits of reading material that intrigued me the most about E-Uni was learning about Division 6. I think that, with Incursion on the way, working on a similar setup could be interesting - having a subsection of the Uni devoted to studying the new mechanics present in the game, gaining experience with them, and then helping teach them to the rest of the University. It could be something to consider for every time a huge, potentially game-changing patch rolls around. :)

    ReplyDelete