EVE New Citizens Q&A

Corporations looking for newbies and scouting them? Sounds great, but... Whenever some unknown to me guy is asking about my future plans and tries to recruit me, my red "warning" diode lits up. There are so many scammers and you can't trust anybody. Does he really want me to join his corp? Or maybe he wants to pull informations about my current corp? Or he will recruit me and gank my transport ship hauling my (junky) stuff? Or maybe there's a scam mechanism I don't know about yet? So, it's always sketchy for me.
If you want to draw newbies attention, create an informative web page and hang around starter systems. I did an experiment once. I took Myrmidon (one of the nicest looking ships in EVE) and gone to my starter system, where I still drop by from time to time. I found some guy on a belt, drilling asteroids and convo him. We talked about EVE, activities, I answered his numerous questions etc. He liked my Myrmidon very much, so "big, pretty ship" strategy worked out very well. After 15 minutes or so of chatting I recommneded him joining an academy (EVE University). He added me to his contacts I added him and we parted our ways. Two days later I'm checking up on him - he joined a training corp. 15 minutes of chatting, giving tips and tricks conviced him to trust me and use my advises in practice. Try this out. Find some rookie player, convo him and talk to him. Answer his questions, talk about EVE etc. You will find out about his playstyle, is he doing well in game or not, is he going to drop out soon or continues to play and most importantly - is he a quick learner. Then you can offer him joining your corp. Don't be too expressive about your corporation. Give him a link where he can find all the informations.

P.S. I repeated this experiment in my "regular" ship (destroyer) and it was much less effective. Rookies like big ships. I'll try it again in Dominix and we'll see if big-but-not-so-nice-looking ship works.

Active advertising to newbies can work, but it can sound desperate of you. As above, if you get the attention of a newbie, be helpful and friendly, and perhaps at the end of your conversation, invite him to your corp's public channel. There is no obligation there, but it can make him feel like he's part of a community, and makes him that much more likely to join later.

My corp recruits newbies as well as vets, so maybe I could offer some general advice. We don't do active recruitment (go around and say "who wants to join Rifterlings?!") but rather let people come to us, and try to attract attention by being highly visible, active, and doing cool things. We have a great website, with all of the things a good corp needs, an active killboard, and an in-game recruitment ad up. We also try to be friendly and give tips to newbies we encounter.

Sorry I can't offer advice from the perspective of a newbie. When I was new, my work was pretty cut-out for me as I already knew people in game.

Confirmed. Also if I didn't blow my own horn about the web design, who would?

Edit: There is also a different Rifter on every page! And the killboard features Rifters killing an Erebus! We are so pro!

I should update the pictures, though, as they are pre-Crucible. Perhaps once Minmatar is V3'd.

I've had the greatest success finding newbies interested in PvP by shooting them. Not even kidding. If you kill a newbie who wants to PvP, and he is good enough to stick around and chat about the fight, chances are he's a pretty cool person.

I don't know how to find others, though. Recruitment chat channel?

Two words --> Jump Clone.

How is using a jumpclone soloing.

Jumpclones are widely used in corps actually as they are easy relocating of stuff and nobody wants to PvP in their +4's so they have a PvP clone for it.

There are corporations for people mostly soloing in hisec. Basically you do what you want and when you get in trouble on some hard mission, you can always ask for help people you know and can trust. You don't need FC for that.
On the other hand, it's difficult to learn fleet discipline not flying in one. If you are doing what FC is telling you to do, then there is no reason for yelling and FC (or WC or SC) knows who has experience in fleet roaming and who hasn't. But gaining more skills before that is a good idea. Unless of course flying in a fleet does not interest you.


Here is another good thing about corporations - you can create your implant-free jump clone and use it for activities where you can be podded at any time. It is worth to mention when someone is looking for new members. And yes, I know you can do that also when you fly solo, but it needs long time of standing grind. One corporation is offering jump clones to anyone, regardless of standing... Forgot their name...
I'm with you on this one. Flying with a mentor is something many new players want and corporations should offer. It makes new players better and corps get more experienced members over time.

The FC part was mostly humour. On the corp backup, I don't really see the point in leaving the NPC corp for a player owned corp when someone only wants a bunch of mates to come back him up on some missions and solo otherwise. I do that in IAC already.


I got confused with med clones and jump clones long ago and didn't really look into it again until now.


I even had another idea some time ago while reading the thread to improve NPE.
When a noob gets podded in low or null, I can bet you that he'll have a lot of fun if the guy popping him convo and offers him a cheap t1 frig duel together while explaining his mistakes, heck, even giving him a cheapo kill for the lulz, but I'm afraid that wouldn't be a very popular idea.

I could never trust anyone from NPC corp. They risk nothing. For example, you call for help, somebody fleets with you and warps in. When you are busy killing last rats, he steals the most expensive loot or mission goal (for da lulz) and runs away. In POC he can be canned for that or you can legally shoot him (without CONCORD intervention).


I'm sure it's true, but to be honest, I never met players like that in lowsec. I was always outgunned (2 Drakes or 150km arty Tempest against one noob frigate? Jeez guys...) and there was always only smacktalk and offends on local (let's call it Psychological Warfare or just Douchebaggery). Maybe someday...

First things first, I'll never say it's useless to join a corp.

Now, there is a "when" and a "how".
Right now, a new player can enlist to a corp out of the blue on his first day. I know there are corps that take on new players, how many have legitimate intents on educating them, that remains to be discussed. Of course there are legit ones.
However, there is the trust factor, joining a corp doesn't make all members trustable, C&P is full of stories about that. it's part of the game, but then again, trust can be granted with reason to NPC corp members just like POC. Of course I wouldn't trust any random NPC corp member, but I've come to grant a certain amount of trust to a few as friendship grew.
Yes Xerces, it's a delusional idea, I remember a guy chasing me in lowsec as soon as I entered the system in my lol-fitted arbitrator (which is still a lol-fit). My heart skipped a beat when his drake appeared in my overview, but returned to normal when I checked my cloak and the distance he was at. Said he wanted to show me something, yeah right.
Jump clone aside, Velicitia, I'm sure there's roles to be granted to a low SP player in corps, but like many things in Eve, it always depends.
It depends on the corp, the new player and other external factors even. In my particular case, I have a goal and know the requirements to enter the kind of corps I'm looking for, so I quietly skill up, runnings anoms, exploring sigs, grinding a tiny bit of standing with missions meanwhile. I can't speak for all, just myself. I could indeed join a corp in the meantime, but at the moment, I know I have no constraints, while I might have some if I joined a corp and maybe some I wouldn't feel comfy with. Result might be my ejection if I don't leave first and an employment history with a hiccup bothering me.

-- snip, long post --