Note that there's a Don lurking in the back room of SAK's Todaki headquarters. A guy named Vuotikiura Ohko is supposedly our CEO, but I've never met him and I don't expect I will, but only because SAK, as a newbie corp, is run by NPCs (non-player characters).
It's a nice move on the part of CCP, the Icelandic company behind Eve, to stick new players in an NPC corp straight from the jump. As multiplayer as places like Eve and World of Warcraft are, they can still be confusing experiences for the solo newbie. And it's not just because you're still trying to figure out how to feed your pet. It's also due to all these strangers who are suddenly inviting you to join their guild.
As is alluded to in Ms. Genender's article in this issue, you'll want to be careful here. Some guilds are a better match than others, obviously. In Eve, new corp members are often required to spend hours mining ore for the greater good before they gain full membership and can go off and "get podded" at will.
That doesn't necessarily mean you've joined a crap corp, though. Like immigrants' associations, new entrants to the system are often asked to contribute to the organization's accounts before they can start reaping the benefits. That's because the benefits - to both the guildie and the guild - can be great. Free ships, free money, free loot: We mostly think of these things as guild perks that make our characters stronger, but in fact they boost the standings of everyone in the guild. The faster newbies level or the better able they are to complete missions (Eve, thankfully, doesn't have a level grind), the faster they're able to help with high-level quests or goals and start giving their own extra loot back to the people who follow. In a good guild, the rising tide lifts all the boats, just as it does in immigrants' associations.
Even in an NPC corp, this is true. SAK isn't just for newbs; we have our elder statesmen (and women) as well. Most of what I know about mission-running, standings, research and just plain old space sense I learned from a formidable capsuleer named Princess Buttercup. I always listen when she speaks. Ankanos, a gritty bounty hunter and ship manufacturer, has had much to teach me about outfitting ships and hunting down my foes.
There are other wise men and women as well. These are people who've been in SAK, a "newbie" corp, for up to two years. They command respect (just like the Don), and as far as I've been able to determine, they ask nothing in return. I pay them back by passing on their good advice to the people who've come along after me.
Newb corps account for only a small minority of MMOG guilds, of course. While more than 60 percent of World of Warcraft characters above level 1 are guilded, according to PlayOn's data, something like 90 percent above level 43 are in a guild. In Eve you're always in one corp or another, though there's no data on what proportion of players are in one of the NPC corps versus a player corp. (Nick, get on this!) There are raiding guilds, mining corps, guilds with just a few high-level friends, corps building outposts in the most dangerous regions of low-security space, explorers' guilds, pirates' guilds, you name it.
Another economic benefit of guilds and corps is that they allow access to parts of the game you just can't get near as a newb, parts that are usually the most profitable. The loot drops in Auberdine, Goldshire and other newb areas of World of Warcraft don't often make it to the auction house. And try getting your newb corp to run a year-long infiltration operation like the one that Guiding Hand Social Club recently pulled off in Eve (a coup that netted them $16,500 worth of another corp's goods). It just ain't gonna happen.
