EVE New Citizens Q&A

corp = short for 'corporation', the "guilds" of eve.

Joining a proper corporation is a very good decision, and will increase the enjoyment you will get out of the game. However, as all things EvE, there's a catch (or 5)


Before joining any corp, there is a very important decision you must make: what do you want to do in the game ? For a guide that can help read this: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=80704
Now that you are informed, proceed to corp selection

The newbie channel and the recruiting one will be filled with helpful advice on what corps to join, but look out for a few things:


1. Try not to join corps that have more than a few % tax. There is little reason for that tax, other than to fill the pockets of the ceo. Is a classic scam of 'invite 100 newbies and be amazed at how fast the isk rolls in!'
Yes, even in so called 'pvp corps' that supposedly use the tax money to refund ships that blow up ... most of the time things are not as they would seem. A scenario that can happen is CEO and a few friends get ship reimbursed while the newbies are busily missioning and ratting to fill up the corp coffers.
- 'Missioning' corps with 10% TAX? haha, nice try... I haven't met in 4 years time any non scam 'pure missioning with 10% tax' corps
and yes, the tax comes from money that should roll into your pocket (i.e. you kill something, you should get 100 000 isk for it at zero tax, but 10 000 isk goes to corp and you are left with 90 000 isk due to 10% corp tax).

While there are corps that legitimately have a use for high corp tax, chances are that you, as a newbie, won't be in one of them for a while, till you get a few million skill points in the relevant areas.

2. Corps in 0.0 or moving to 0.0 (replace 0.0 with 'lowsec' as needed). As a newbie player you don't have any business being in 0.0. While it's a great place to be, most enjoyment out of 0.0 happens when you get a few million skillpoints in combat relevant areas . Hold on 0.0 corps for now and get the feel of the game in a safer environment.
* Some 0.0 corps use newbie players for tackle (i.e. catching and stopping enemy ships from escaping). This is a good introduction to 0.0 for new players, however getting into decent/active 0.0 corps is tough.

3. Mining corps, while most mining is boring and solo adventure, newb friendly mining corps are a good option for a first corp. Often these corps have no strings/scams attached and are good starting places.
But do think long and hard before investing heavily into mining, too much mining is a good way to quit the game in a hurry ...

4. PvP corps ... stay out of them for now, with the exception of RvB and EvE university. Those 2 are a good place for newbies that will teach you something usefull.
Eve Uni website: http://www.eveuniversity.org/
RvB website: http://rvbeve.com/forums/index.php?/index
out of the 2, eve uni will also teach lots of stuff for many other professions, not only pvp

5. Recruiting scams:
a) "Oh,my corp is awesome, we are (far away location), bring your ships. Oh it won't take long, I have a hauling ship, just trade/contract (item exchange)/contract (courier without collateral) your ships to the hauler and he'll carry them for you".
???
Thanx for the free ships....!
hahahahahahahahah

how to avoid: courier contract but with enough collateral to cover the entire contents (ship+modules).Don't accept 'but I don't have enough isk to cover the collateral', this reeks of scam. Also set the autopilot destination to the indicated place, if there are any orange or red 'hops' on the way then the scam probability skyrockets...

b) "Sure, you can join, we will require a security deposit of "xx million isk""
????
Thanks for the free isk...!
hahahahahahahahahah

how to avoid: get the xxx out of there, this is always a scam
c) "we live in lowsec, come on in, appl yin our home station""oh, we accidentally shot you as you jumped the gate"
????
Thanks for the target practice ...!
hahahaahahahaha

how to avoid: don't join lowsec/0.0 till you are older (think 10 million skilpoints in combat areas). And when going to 0.0/lowsec do it in a throw away ship cheap ship with unimplanted clone. Stay in throw away ships until you are satisfied with the corp.

6. Low player number corps. While I understand that all corps must start somwere, don't join corps with less than 50-70 members. Reasons:
* low activity
* no 'support' for newbies (a 15 man corp with 10 newbies, and 3 alts is going nowere, fast)
* prime target for war declarations
* often are 'we do everything' corps ...which means 'we do nothing while we let the corp tax roll in'

well, good luck on getting into good corps

and remember, it's NOT paranoia if they are REALLY out there to scam/kill/extort/exploit you!


________________________________
Edit:

Oh my .. such passion in this thread...

I stand by my advice in this OP, I don't care if some one thinks my throw-away forum alt in a untraceable newbie corp is a troll or think that I didn't play since 2008 or so (Post on your main or GTFO! .. yeah, rite, nice try...).

What I described are situations that can arise, new players SHOULD be aware of the underbelly of EvE (in-game scamming is legal in EvE, yes, you red it correctly. GM's won't help you on getting your stuff/isk back, it's gone into antoher player's pockets forever). I understand some players are irked by the exposure of the dirt and are a bit ****hurt, they'll have to deal with it.

That being said, yes, there are good corps out there,many of them in fact. But if you think something is off, either in the corp you just joined, or in the corp you plan to join ...ask questions, observe, and judge for yourself.

There are some good tips. However I feel you are overly critical of smaller corps. Also, you can pvp from day one, if that is your thing, joining a mining corp just because you are new, if you do not want to mine, seems pretty pointless.

IMO the best corps are the ones made up of a loose affiliate of players flying under one banner. There's no tax, no POS, and a vary vague doctrine. Just do whatever you want and if you need help pop a question in your channel. Its too easy to screw someone over for it to be any different...

"1. Do not join corps that have more than a few % tax. There is little reason for that tax, other than to fill the pockets of the ceo."

You really think those free ships/modules materialize out of the air?

"I haven't met in 4 years time any non scam 'pure missioning with 10% tax' corps"

Don't lie.

"2. Corps in 0.0 or moving to 0.0 (replace 0.0 with 'lowsec' as needed). As a newbie player you don't have any business being in 0.0. "
Really? Tell it to our newbie members who regularly visit 0.0 in their fresh cruisers or even a pack of destroyers and rat there. Not even going to say that they normally reside in lowsec.

"3. Mining corps, while most mining is boring and solo adventure, newb friendly mining corps are a good option for a first corp"
Pure mining highsec corps are helpless against highsec wardeccers. Typical experience of a newb in highsec would be "omg we can't even dock out, CEO do something!"

"4. PvP corps ... stay out of them for now"
Because you will *gasp* lose some ships, which is too traumatizing? While earning lots of money from PI/ratting/plexing?

"5. Recruiting scams:
....
how to avoid: don't join lowsec/0.0 till you are older"
No. Avoid scam by using a brain and don't give your ships or money out of your hands. Jesuschrist.

"6. Low player number corps."
Strange, we had support for newbies from the beginning, when we were like five newbies lost in lowsec.


You heard lots of stories about something you didnt really experience, yet you are trying to "guide" new players. Please return back to your missions and mining in NPC corp.

This is pretty much 100% bad advice.

I haven't seen such awful advice put in so many words in a long time.




Plenty of corps have very legitimate uses for the ISK. While my own corp functions more on donations than taxes (as our members don't do very many taxable things), we run tournaments (whose prizes come out of the corp wallet) and stock free ships for our members. I'm sure we aren't the only one.

The lesson is to make sure your money is going somewhere useful...But for many corps to do something useful they need money.



Tons of people jump right into 0.0 and love it. Living in hisec will not teach you to survive in nullsec. The only thing waiting will do is encourage you to fly more expensive ships when you're learning.




If you like mining, join a mining corp. Mining is also a good way to jump into the Industry side of the game, which is a bit more dynamic.




My own corp takes newbies, often no more than days old, and they never seem to have bad experiences. There are plenty of PVP corps that are run by competent people.




All corps start somewhere. This is terrible advice except for the fact that you ~should~ be aware of "low activity" and make sure that the leadership of the corp is capable of making sure that doesn't happen. If not, you can always leave.

Comming from a carebear who is in a NPC corp

hahaha

You almost had me

I've seen countless statements of this sort in these forums.

How the hell can anyone make such a sweeping claim regarding all other players?

Someone please tell me how they can know what will increase my enjoyment of this game while knowing absolutely nothing about me beyond the fact that I have an EVE account.

How do you figure that? Sounds like the most relevant advice imaginable to me.

So you stay in your npc corp and you want to claim SOV....oh wait.

So you stay in your npc corp and want to do some nice gate camping/roaming...oh wait (yes I know it's possible but be realistic how often do you see an npc roam going around - and throw away cyno scouts don't count)

As said: eve can be done solo. But a majority of the stuff is much more fun/accessible when you're part of a group.

What makes you think any of that would increase my enjoyment of the game? As I said, nobody in EVE knows anything about me and therefore can't claim that either those things or corp membership would increase my enjoyment of the game.

You're making the arrogant assumption that just because something is necessary for your enjoyment of the game then it must be the same for everyone else.

Please define what this "majority" consists of and how you can know that I would enjoy it, whether in a corp or not.