EVE New Citizens Q&A

It is not necessary to join a player corp, but for most people it is preferable to do so. You can stay in an NPC corp as long as you want, but in doing so you miss out on the joys of being part of a team, community interaction, fleet PvP, shared goals, and advice from experienced players (the older players in NPC corps tend to be risk averse morons).

In the long run, playing the game just to pile up SP and imaginary assets isn't a sustainable lifestyle. You may be having fun now, but pretty soon you will likely either find better goals to chase after or quit from boredom.

Also, you seem to have gotten a false impression of the level of risk from gankers or wardeccers from reading these forums. The loudest voices in here tend to be the older carebears who finally get ganked after years of feeling safe, then inevitably come to the forums to rage about how gankers are out of control and ruining the game for newbies. These people are just butt-mad and can be ignored. Gankers and war deccers usually go after high value targets and older players. Sometimes newbies get blown up as collateral damage or because the real targets are all cowering in station, but it is rare for highsec PvPers to actively target new players (and usually they get banned for it).

What constitutes a new player for these bans? I find it hard to believe CCP have a line in the sand and are watching to see if someone newer than say 2 months gets ganked so they can bring down the banhammer?

It's not strictly necessary but it is strongly recommended. Being in a player corp in and of itself is not the most important thing, though. The important part is working with other people. That is required to get to the core of what Eve is. You can solo all you want, and don't have to leave NPC corps, but if you eschew player interaction you're not playing Eve.

Also yes, working with others (in your corp or not) is a very good way to get a foot in the door to lowsec and nullsec.

Haed. I do disagree partially.

Even when in a NPC corp you can still be part of a team, a community or do fleet PvP. You just have to find the community that does it. If you look at the public roams of Redemption Road, up until last week we were all in our own corps and alliances yet we had a great community working closely together and even ran in the NEO (Go Freeloaders). Now a good portion decided to join under an alliance banner. But a NPC person can just aswel be part of the community as anybody else.

Same goes for experienced players teaching new players. Plenty of vets willing to help you around, no matter what ticker is attached to you. EVE Tutors is a great example of that.


This doesnt change that I do agree that a corp can definately be a very good start for a new player and can definately hdlp them further. But not being in one does not limit you in the things I listed above.

I would emphasize this, which the others have already said: Eve is a very poor solo game, and staying in an NPC corporation does, in general, favour solo play.

Joining a player run corporation is simply your ticket to a community and a context in this sprawling digital universe of ours. You'll find a place, and a purpose, and get away from the idea that playing Eve is about gathering isk and assets. Joining a BAD player run corporation can, however, threaten your continued play, so be careful and do due diligence. Don't rush into things, and do check the player corporations out so that they actually do what they say they do.

That said, there are exceptions to solo-favouring NPC corps, but it's a bit of a luck of the draw to end up in one of them. When you register, you don't know which NPC corporations to select in character creation.

For instance, I know for a fact that the Gallente starter corporation Center for Advanced Studies makes a point to “do things” together. But CAS is a bit special, and most NPC corps are merely chat-rooms for players who do things on their own.

There are just as many disadvantages as there are advantages of joining a corp. While there is lots of harping on the "eve is social" theme, you can live a very satisfying EVE life without a corp.

The upsides are all pretty obvious, help, training, camraderie. If you want to do PvP as your main thing, you pretty much have to join a corp. However, the kind of PvP will dictate who you will have to join to do that sort of PvP. Small losec pirate corps are not going to be doing large scale fleet warfare and, vice versa, giant coalition member alliances are unlikely to be doing small gang in losec. Other obvious benefits include having backup and muscle, extra resources, and help with your own projects (assuming you can talk people into it).

There are also lots of downsides. Most corporations are dictatorships. The bigger the corp, the bigger the contingent of annoying and/or jerky people. Required ops and CTAs (call to arms), alarm clock ops, and that sort of thing are par for the course with most sov holding alliances. Requirements to be on Mumble/TS/Vent are common and annoying (I don't understand the point of being in a channel with 100 people all talking over each other or just one guy dominating the talk time over the other 99). And so on.

I've done (and do) a mix of things. I play lone wolf with one group of alts. My other group belongs to a large PvP corporation. I keep them the two groups scrupulously separate (most corps don't want you running around with unaccounted for alts, partly for spying, but also because you're not spending every waking moment with them). When I'm tired of listening to morons, racists, and trolls or I'm tired of being told what to do when all I want is to drink a beer and screw around with some idea, I log off the PvP guys and have fun on my lone wolves.

For me, I just don't like the idea of being a slave or a plebian while I'm playing a game. I've got plenty of people telling me what to do in real life. At least those people are giving me a paycheck or sleeping with me.

There are such things. Self motivated players who make a point of putting themselves out there and participating can do pretty well in an NPC corp or in their own one man corp. At the moment I'm in a corp with myself, a few alts and some inactive guys, and I am having a blast wardeccing everybody and occasionally bumping a miner or two. I'll probably join a real corp again soon. I actually tried to rejoin Brave Newbies last week and got rejected, believe it or not, so now I'm not sure where I'll end up.

Anyway, the point is that you can participate in a lot of good content without a good corp, but being in a good corp greatly facilitates group activities, especially for newbies who don't yet know what sorts of public fleets, etc, are out there.

The rules are purposely vague to allow CCP to interpret them as necessary on a case by case basis.

The rules for rookie systems (the SoE arc is also considered to be in rookie systems) are clear though:

GM Homonoia wrote:

I shall make this real simple: Do not mess with rookies in rookie systems in any way. They are still trying to figure out how to read the overview and how to right click; messing with them at that point in their career is something for bullies who have something to compensate for and only dare to pick on the smallest, weakest boy in kindergarten.

I expect that an account under 30 days is a rookie, but there are no hard rules that I know of.

CCP does not take bans lightly, and they always allow an appeal.

For your question about joining a corporation..
This is a list over advantages and disadvantages with your options, and it might help you find out what you want to do from here.

For the rookie system rules...
Unless someone reports you, or a CCP employee is actually in the system seeing what is happening i doubt you will see any consequences from it. But since there are often older players around that inform new players about these rules chances are high you would get reported so to be safe, dont do it.

I personally am quite the introvert, and as I'm currently playing without any contact with another person I'm finding it difficult, lonely and sometimes frustrating, so I'm working towards applying for EVE University soon.

It's hard for me to make friends in EVE but hopefully they will come so I can once again enjoy the benefits.