Everybody's free to join a Corporation

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of 2013... Join a Corporation. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, joining a corporation would be it. The long term fun to be had by joining a corporation has been proved by scientists, Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice, now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your frigate. Never mind, you will not understand the power and beauty of a well-fit frigate until you're well into a terribly-fit battleship. But trust me, in 20 million skill points you'll look back at your Rifter and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility really lay before you and how fabulous it really was.

You are not as skilled as you imagine.

Don't worry about losing ships, or worry but know that worrying is as effective as trying to out mine a 10-Hulk mining bot operation in an Osprey.

The times you'll really lose ships are apt to be times that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you 4 jumps through a high-sec autopilot route.

Do one thing, every session, that scares you.

Align.

Don't be reckless with other people's ISK (and get caught), don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

D-Scan.

Don't waste your time with flavor of the months; sometimes you're ahead, most of the time you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with your own inability to specialize

Remember the times your fleet came out on top. Forget the times that you lost a faction fit ship. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old kill mails. Throw away your old loss mails.

Train AWU 5.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your character. The most interesting capsuleers I know didn't know at 2.2m SP what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40m SP characters I know still don't.

Upgrade your clone.

Be kind to your reputation... you'll miss it when it's gone.

Maybe you'll go to null sec, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll start a WH corp, and maybe you won't. Maybe you'll get scammed out of your first billion ISK, and maybe you'll do the funky-chicken-dance on comms when you get your first Titan KM. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody elses.

Enjoy your fits, use them every way you can, don't be afraid of them, or what other people think of them. Quite frankly they probably suck at fitting too.

PVP: Even if you have nowhere else to do it but RvB.

Read the right-click menu, even if you're sure what you want isn't there.

Do. Not. Read. The. EVE. Forums. They will only make you feel bitter.

Get to know your Corp mates. You'll never know when they'll awox you.

Be kind to your FC's. They're the best link to your PVP and the most likely to stick with you during a hot drop.

Understand friends come and go. But for for a special few you should hold on.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and time zones. For the more war decs you get, the more you'll need people to fleet up..

Live in New Caldari once, but leave before it makes you soft. Live in Low sec once, but leave before it makes you hard.

Roam.

Accept certain, inalienable truths:

Jita will scam.

FCs will welp fleets.

You too, will become a bitter vet. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when YOU were young:

People really doubled your isk.

FCs were capable.

and there were no spies.

There were always spies.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a sweet BPO collection, maybe you have a Trade alt, but you never know when either one might get robbed.

Don't mess too much with your remaps, or in two months you'll be stuck mapped CHA/INT/PER for the next year.

Be careful whose contracts you accept, but be patient with those who supply them. Contracts are a useful form of trade, and using them is a way of fishing the old crap out of the corporate hangar, dusting it off, lying about where you got it from and selling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on joining a corporation