EVE Evolved: Joining the Massively Mob
At the end of last week's article on preparing for EVE Online's Incursion expansion, I mentioned that part of our expansion preparation here at Massively would involve opening a Massively corporation in the game. This is something I've always wanted to do but haven't had the time to properly launch. I've been running the Pillowsoft corporation in EVE for the past six years or so, during which time the corp has been involved in almost every major game expansion. In two and a half years of the EVE Evolved column, I've had countless readers ask to join my corporation and have had to turn them all down.
With Incursion rapidly approaching and Pillowsoft's latest wormhole expedition coming to an end, we now have the perfect opportunity to start a proper Massively corporation. In addition to providing financial help and some solid guidance to newer EVE players, the corp will be running frequent contests and event nights for any readers who want to participate. If you don't want to leave your current corporation but still want to hang out with other Massively readers and take part in our contests and events, don't worry. We also have an option just for you!
In this week's EVE Evolved, I introduce the EVE Online Massively Mob and explain how you can get involved.
Benefits of the Massively Mob
The primary goals of the Massively Mob are to give readers a place to congregate and play together, to provide a financial safety net for members, to help out readers with advice and information, and to organise frequent contests and event nights. The financial safety net includes access to a stockpile of pre-insured and sometimes pre-fitted frigates, destroyers and cruisers. If at any time you want a ship from the pile, you can have it for absolutely nothing in return. Change the fitting if you like and keep the ship in your own hanger -- there's really no need to ever return it. Even if you plan to just head out into the unknown to get some PvP experience and expect to be blown up within minutes, I would definitely encourage members to take a corp ship.
The corp ships are there to let players explore what EVE has to offer without the fear of losing a ship and having to buy a new one. Similarly, a stockpile of common but cheap modules will be available to help players fit out their ships. The only request I would have is that corp members try not to abuse this service and try not to get too many corp ships blown up. The corp stockpiles are partly funded by the 10% corporation tax, but most of the ISK comes from my own wallet. Also, please don't insure the ships yourself or repackage them. The ships will be pre-insured by the corporation, so we recoup much of the ship's cost when it's destroyed. On request, the corp can also supply members with access to some blueprints for manufacturing. More information about event nights and contests will be posted in the corp mail in-game once we see how many people want to join the corp.
How to get involved
To join the Massively channel, click the speech bubble icon at the top-right of your chat window, type in Massively and hit the join button. The channel's message of the day contains a convenient link to the Massively Mob corporation's information page. From there, you can click the "apply to join" button at the bottom-right to submit your application. If you're currently in another player-run corporation, you'll need to remove your roles and wait for 24 hours before your application can be accepted.
The Massively Mob is currently based in Cat, a Gallente system with level 1, 2 and 3 Caldari and Gallente mission agents. There are also several Level 4 Gallente agents one jump away, which should turn out handy. Right next door is Villore, a decent market system that's also home to the faction warfare crowd. Before you join, it would be a good idea to check out the area and see if you like it there. Of course, there's no reason why you can't join and live elsewhere in EVE or run Amarr or Minmatar missions. If the corporation gets big enough, we may need to open several offices in several regions.
I'd like as many readers as possible to join the "Massively" channel in-game, whether you're interested in becoming part of the Massively Mob or you're just looking for some people to chat with. Thanks to the magic of EVE Voice, the channel also doubles as a voice communication channel. Announcements on upcoming events and contests will be posted in the Massively channel's message of the day as well as the Massively Mob corporate mail.
Security
As I mentioned before, I've been running a corporation in EVE for over six years now. In that time, we've been a little mining and mission-running corp in low-security space, an anti-pirate corp defending the universe against the evil (and particularly stupid) pirate Ginger Magician, a major player in nullsec politics with the Interstellar Starbase Syndicate, a public PvP corp for the Gallente militia in faction warfare, head of a small alliance trying to make it in nullsec, and finally a small group of pioneering wormhole explorers. I've had my corp open to the public before, and it has seen its fair share of security threats and potential corporate thieves. To keep all members of the corp as safe as possible, I'm going to be implementing a few security procedures that we found worked well in the past.
We cannot accept characters on trial accounts. Although recycling trial accounts or alts to infiltrate a corp or do other such nasty things is a bannable offense in EVE, we'd prefer to not have to get GMs to clean up a mess like that. Characters under 22 days old will be asked to inject a skill that cannot be trained on trial accounts and then provide a limited API key so that I can prove they're on a paid subscription.
If an applicant or corp member appears suspicious, I reserve the right to ask for his limited API key at any time. This can often be used to rule out obvious corporate infiltration. Don't worry, however, as most people will never be asked for this.
New corp members will join with "Junior Member" status. They will be able to see items in some of the corp hangers but won't be able to take them. If you can see something in the corp hanger, you're absolutely entitled to it and can get it by asking anyone who has the corp title "Full Member." You can see whether someone has this title by right clicking the player's name in chat and clicking "show info."
Once I see that a Junior Member is active and participating in corp activities, I will at my own discretion decide to promote him or her to a Full Member with hangar access. The probationary period before this happens will vary from player to player but should generally not last very long.
The total value of items kept in the hangar at any one time will be very low so that a potential thief could make off with only a very small amount of ISK. The hangars will be restocked periodically by Massively staff.
We ask that members please do not fly very expensive ships and setups that they can't afford to lose. Remember that mining and hauling are always a risk, even in high-security space. It is entirely possible that the corp could at some point become the target of suicide attacks, infiltration or even a war declaration, so please keep your own safety in mind and pay attention to important corp mails from Massively staff. We cannot be responsible for the safety of corp members, and we'd recommend keeping any industrial alt characters you have out of the corp itself.
Report any problems you encounter directly to me by sending an evemail to character Sarah Derell, the CEO of Massively Mob.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing how many people want to be a part of the Massively Mob and what we can do together as a group once Incursion hits. With Incursion and Incarna around the corner and a Massively corp now open for business, there could be exciting times ahead for us in EVE Online.
Brendan "Nyphur" Drain is an early veteran of EVE Online and writer of the weekly EVE Evolved column here at Massively. The column covers anything and everything relating to EVE Online, from in-depth guides to speculative opinion pieces. If you have an idea for a column or guide, or you just want to message him, send an email to brendan@massively.com.
