Joining a corporation in EVE Online is very similiar to applying for a job in real life. Accepting an offer of employment and showing up for the first day is also comparable to its real life counterpart. This is a story of my first day "on the job" in EVE Online as a member of Ars Caelestis corporation (refered to as a "corp" from this point on).
Accepting the Offer
Ethic of Kill Ten Rats vouched for me to be admitted into Ars Caelestis and the AC folks were glad to accept me. It was in a bit of a hurry up as there was a convoy heading out to 0.0 space to deliver folks to the Huzzah federations station.
Now there is thousands of systems in EVE Online and unfortunately 0.0 space is labeled with all sorts of number and letter combinations. I would love to tell you where I journeyed to and from, but alas I cannot. What I can tell you is that I'm located in Catch region... whereever that is! Haha...
With the offer accepted to join I parted ways with any gear I wouldn't be able to carry with me. This was afterall going to be a long trip out to the middle of nowhere. After selling off my idustrial ship and all its equipment I was left with just my little Tristan frigate. I undocked and caught up with Ethic a few systems away.
Setting up the Convoy
Now I don't want to pretend like I understand half of what was being done to set up this convoy. I warped to Ethic and we started a few jumps behind the main force. Ethic was able to get us back in line with the others and before long there was 30 of us waiting around in space to journey out to 0.0 space.
Learning the Basics
As we waited around for the convoy to get organized Ethic took me through some of the basics. It was very "real world" like in the fact that Ethic was just handing me gobs of information (in the form of bookmarks) that I would need to survive in the corp's region of space. On top of this there was the briefing that the convoy leader was kind enough to give to all the people joining that explained the basics of such things as aligning stargates, setting targets, adding the correct waypoints, and the basics of combat target calling.
Overall I was very impressed with the leadership. I wish I could pull names out, but just learning the basics was keeping me plenty of busy.
A Safe Journey
The high point of the journey was when one of our scouts called out a 12 ship formation at the next gate over ventrilo, but unfortunately it was only in jest. It did get the blood flowing for me though as I anticipated my first EVE Online PvP encounter. While it would of been fun to get into a battle I know I was ill equipped in a very weak ship.
The trip was long, but with all the stopping and aligning required you stay quite busy. There is still plenty of time to chat away in various chat channels so it was a rather enjoyable experience. Without friends though I could see myself getting bored on future trips.
Moving On
From here on out it is just more skill training for me. There is really nothing I can do in 0.0 space, but I now have a jump clone installed for future quick traveling. The next goal is to get back up into empire (0.5 - 1.0 security space) to continue learning the game along with raking in cash.
The future looks bright for me in EVE Online! Now check out the Arsclan forum discussion here.