EVE New Citizens Q&A

The main reason to join a corporation is that EVE is a multiplayer game, and all the most fun content is for groups of people. You can PvP together, mine together, whatever - work towards common goals. It is fun just to be part of something with a community of people.

The benefits and responsibilities vary widely from one corporation to the next. That is something you want to ask when you have a specific corporation in mind.

Benefits may include access to POS services, co-operative industry, access to fleets (via the Fleet Finder), a Ship Replacement Program (SRP), corp-restricted contracting, intel on Alliance ops, etc. Responsibilities could include fueling POS, admission to fleets (or commanding them), not being a ****head (very important), train skills for ship doctrines, recruitment efforts, etc.

As so often in this game it depends on the corp and its leadership. Generally of course there is expectation that you won't blag everything about the corp to someone else or steal its entire stockpile of capital ships. But really as a basic member there is little responsibilities.

If you come in to do a job like a POS technician there is the expectation that you will do your job. In this case make sure your corp's tower is kept fuelled.

Nope. It facilitates all that you say in the rest of your post but it is not of itself a reason for joining a corp.

And gives them the opportunity to obtain equally terrible advice from misguided corpmates.

EVE is a sandbox. The only content is player generated. It is much easier to create and find content with friends.

Fun in EVE comes from interacting with other players, both friends and enemies. It is almost more about the meta game than the actual game of shooting spaceships.

A corporation can also help to educate, and support you in EVE. Of course there are good corps and bad ones, so don't feel you have to stay in a bad one.

Solo you will find EVE a very boring place, and likely cancel your subscription in short order.

Tau, you give an enormous amount of helpful information in this forum and I make a point of reading what you have to say about anything that interests me, so I'm very surprised to see you post this.

How do you know what another person will or will not find boring?

I've been playing for just over two years and have never been in a player corp other than EACS and yet I find EVE anything but boring. I have repeatedly compared the pros and cons of corp membership and can't find anything on the pro side that would outweigh the cons.

But that's just my take on the game - everyone is an individual and will react in their own unique way. Just as in RL, some will find working with others in a group enhances their experience while others, like me, would find it difficult to imagine a worse nightmare.

If, as a very experienced player, you tell a newbie categorically that being in a corp is the only way to enjoy EVE you're not doing him any favours. Suppose he joins a corp but finds that he doesn't like the experience. If he takes your word as gospel he may take the view that if that's the best the game has to offer then he may as well leave, when in fact if he stayed on he may find that he enjoys the solo experience. How does that help either him or the game as a whole?

The OP has asked about the benefits of corp membership - please by all means tell him what you perceive them to be, but don't tell him what he will or will not think.

One man's major advantage is the next man's major disadvantage.

Yeaaahh once you get past your first 90 days, corp or no corp you will stay around if you like the game. You can join a corp on day one and just as well quit the game by your 90'th day. I can play-in/run guilds/corps and I can play soloish, just depends on the person. Sandbox games, you will see lots of people not heavily involved in guilds, or in small guilds, or just solo. It's the progression theme park games that you usually can't enjoy the game at level 98+etc unless you join some mega-guild that does all their grind-fest dailies to get the next glimpse of the pink flying glittery unicorn with a glowy rainbows trailing out of it's rear-end.

Just under 2 months for me and I'm rapidly finding myself falling into this category. It seems pretty obvious how a large corp benefits by recruiting new members but the actual benefit to the individual player is something that still continues to elude me.

In fact I think its possible to argue that membership in a large corp is actually a moderate risk and a minor irritation what with the extra commitments, rules to follow, surrender of your API key and constant war decs. All this in exchange for what exactly?..... beats me.

I have joined a tiny - nothing required - corp for the tax benefits and I think that's about as far as I'm going to go until I can see an obvious benefit in joining a large corp that clearly outweighs the many cons.

I have a feeling though that you and I are in the minority on this so his advice was probably suitable for the vast majority of EVE players.