Fleets and corporate activity

     I've run various weekly fleets for a few years now, even before trying to move the corporation I'm in to a more nomadic existence. I had always assumed that running regular fleets would help keep people interested in logging in to do things in corp, however after a few years I am no longer certain this is the case.

     Running regular formal and scheduled fleets does get people online and active but in many cases it's just for those fleets and then they hop offline again or return to playing on an alt. The ability to just drop off a jump clone and hop on at a certain time does not do much to encourage people to be online at other times. This isn't a complaint towards that sort of thing but more an observation in how running a certain kind of fleet does not necessarily increase corporate activity outside fleet times. I had assumed it would but over time I think it's fair to say I was wrong in that regard.

     Is it perhaps the approach to running fleets that is part of my problem. Running all the fleets in a formal manner means that everyone knows when and where they are and as such they don't need to be online the rest of the time. What I have begun to wonder is if having the bulk of the fleets be less formal and more spontaneous might help keep people online and active. I'd like to imagine people asking if there was going to be a fleet and others asking what everyone felt like doing. However it's certainly possible that more spontaneous fleets will fail altogether, the activity will be sparse at least due to current low activity.

     All the same I intent to go forward with mixing scheduled formal fleets with more spontaneous fleets in the future. If nothing else I'd like to see if and how that changes the ways other members of the corporation and alliance join fleets. There are a few other potential issues that might be to blame for the failure of frequent fleets to drive activity in the corporation but that's another topic for some other post.

     To wrap things up for tonight I think I'll post a little screenshot in the defense of what I often describe as messing about. I often do exploration and stop by anomalies while going places and here's the nice reward I got for stopping by for a minute at of the most basic combat anomalies in the game a hideaway.