EVE General Discussion

... 3 of the playable races were replaced with Elves, Orcs and Dwarves.

They just need to lower the learning curve more. And maybe make some flashy piece of crap ship and advertise it as a 'New player bonus"

The NPE is a good start, if they can make it easier for people to start more will become addicted like we all are.

This is not dumbing down EvE its just making the start easier, lets face it you still need spreadsheets for the game later on as well as EvEmon, battle clinic, etc..etc...

First things first.
There should be the possibility of risk and grief just as much as we currently have in space, for all the suggestions i make below.


EVE would have more subscribers if:

- Incarna actually has content and people to interact with, for both pvp and pve.

- Walk in your own ship, maybe even have cockpit view (while not changing currently playstyle).
invite people in your ship, take them out for a spin,...

- We could actually approach a planet by entering the atmosphere (similar to Evochron Mercenary).
And even have battles in the sky.

- Be able to land and explore, every planet having a different feel, unique in structure/atmosphere/design.
All while having things to do.
Deserts, oceanic (also able to submerge your ship), blade runner style cities, you name it.

- Having unknown space, beyond nullsec, even more dangerous and challenging, close to impossible to chart, making EVE feel that you can't possibly reach the end.


This probably would be a devs worst nightmare to implement, but i believe variety like that would attract more subscribers.

Now get cracking.

Every MMO that can't attract newplayers will eventually die
Biggest challenge for CCP is giving those newplayers a reason to stay with EVE, they are already taking the first hurdle by making the tutorials more accesiable to new players , but the next hurdle is not only CCP resposibility but needs us as older players and the rest of the eve community aswell , to give those new players a reason to stay beyond their initial 1month by giving them advice and sense of belonging to a community , no mtter what carreer they eventually choose in EVE
a sense of belonging a purpose and reason on what you are doing makes for so much better game play

Threads like these crack me up. The OP always makes the assumption that EVE needs a lot of new players.

Why? I do not assume EVE needs a lot of new players. EVE is already getting a lot of new players.

It is retention of those players that is the problem.

You are chasing the wrong story line.

I market mainly to new players and my market is very strong.
From my sales data I would guess I am marketing to about 1,500 new players/month.
A solid sign that we are gettng a steady stream of new players.
And I am only covering one small area of EVE and one NPC corp.
I live in a NPC corp and see new players on a daily basis, lots of new players.

Second, corps like red v blue and eve uni, where a large chunk of new players end up, show a constant line of new players signing up to join them. EVE has no problem recruiting new playes. It does so at a fairly good rate.

Let me say it again the problem is retention of new players.

CCP is addressing this retention problem with some of the latest changes to the game which include stuff like banning can flipping in starter systems. Up coming crime watch changes are designed with the idea of player retention.
Only CCP has the exit data on why players quit the game. Only CCP has the data on how many new players start vs how many leave.

It would be my guess that 80% of the new players that start quit within the first 3 months.

Maybe another 10% quit between 3 months and 6 months.

Another good chunk of players come and go in EVE on a regular basis.
They stop by to check out new changes to eve.

Then my last question is why do we want a lot more new players in EVE?
I am not so sure I want a lot more players. Lag is bad enough now.
The game seems to flow well enough at the current player level and it has supported CCP for 9 years so no reason to assume CCP needs more players or the game will die.

They would open the Eve Gate. Let us go fight the Chinese on the other end.

More in-game events, a more dynamic background and a properly balanced FW system.

I wrote a longish post, but the in-game browser ate it.

The biggest is the high death penaltys, slow pacing, non-consensual PvP, and lack of support for player PvE corps.

The first will get people to rage quit when you lose your ship to something beyond your control, the second drives you crazy with boredom eventually, third is about suicide ganking/ninja looting and how it completely voids the whole security rating system and lastly, no player PvE corps means no lasting community for those types of players.

I've been in an NPC corp since I was blown up right after undocking years ago after a long absence. I had just spent what money I had paying up insurance and refitting my ship. I had to move all my stuff because the system I was in was taken over by another corp. It was a long and tedius process that I will not repeat.

Yes, I know, "boohoo" whatever. I really do get it. You want free kills and loot. That's fine, EvE is definitely your game. But. I'm not a punch bag, and I don't appreciate being treated like one. So that means I'll continue to play solo and never really get involved in the community, so me and players like me will never have the community draw to keep us resubbing each month. When I get bored with the PvE again or another game comes out to draw my attention, I have nothing holding me to this game.

That's how I feel, you can feel differently and that is fine, but those are my reasons. :)

Edit:

Eve is the only game that I know that get slower, more tedious and more frustrating the "higher" you get. Look at the pace of firgate combat in levels ones through to level fours in battleships. It is also a world leader in annoying NPC opponents. (disruptions, scram, jamming, webbing)

I can't think of anything more fun than to sit around doing nothing in PvE encounters. It makes you feel really in control and powerful. /sarcasm :P

The one thing that EvE really has going for it is the choices. Ship fitting creates really meaningful choices in your gameplay that few other MMOs create. WoW now recently will have more of that style of choice with the new talent system and diablo 3 has it with the spell/rune system, but EvE has had it for years and it is top notch.

Anslo, you really got me with your anti-PVP trolling, should have looked at your KB :D

Good thread with many great ideas, due to lack of time I just liked them instead of commenting each individually. Adding my pipe dreams to splendid ideas like creative manufacturing and NPC AI revamp:

1. Customisable ship looks

This is a spaceship game. I'd love to have my ships unique. Adding more skins is a good step in the right direction, but in the end it would simply be super awesome to be able to build for example corp and alliance flagships that look unique. Add some very minor adjustments to their base stats, and suddenly spaceships jump up a level.

2. Quadriple the Art Dept size

Add new ship hulls, starting from T2 ships. Base the models on the T1 version, but they really need to look different. Reusing the same model with slight alteration to colour is just cheap. Add new ships, new station models, more NPC ships- yes, meaningless NPC ships travelling around Empire space, hanging around gates, docking and undocking. Asteroid mining stations, moon outposts, orbital structures, just flesh out the world more with gorgeous graphics. Introduce docking and capsule transition animations (optional, of course) and allow players to walk around the station hangars and admire the ships.

3. WiS

Yeah, it would work.

4. Make the world dynamic

My biggest wish. All resources should have depletion rates. People should need to move around in space and fight for diminishing resources. Heart of the empire should be mined out by now, not just until next downtime. Incursions need to spread from system to system until defeated.

Security status should be dynamic, dependant on both PVP and PVE actions.

Scrap the idiotic mission system, and replace it with dynamic events. Of course there can't be any stupid pirate bases in 1.0, even less 500 of the same pirate base in the same system. Tie pirate presence to dynamic events.

5. Revamp NPC corps.

Last but most important, current NPC corps are the single biggest reason why people quit EVE. All the fail advice, bad examples and negative attitudes caused by the evernoob career missioners HAS TO END NOW. These players ruin the game for new players by leading them into believing that a CNR in L4s is the ultimate end goal and that they instapop in lowsec. These people simply need to be isolated into their own corps, where they can't grief the rest of the EVE anymore. Introduce graduation mechanics and intermediate goals for new players, hire GMs/ISDs to manage the corps, do whatever is needed to contain and cure the cancer of EVE, the detrimental, hatred-filled Failbear.

Mining out resources being dynamic is already a function in EVE. Maybe just not dramatic enough to really notice it.
But if a roid gets mined out then after the next DT it comes back at a minium size. If it does not get mined out and survives to the next DT then it gets bigger. It will continue to do this over the next 5 or 6 DT's. If you constantly mine out a riod field that riod field will respawn but always at the minimum size. SO it is already a dynamic resource in effect. The scale of it is just small enough to not really notice it unless you take notes.

As to NPC corps I do not agree. But I have not had the opportunity to play in all of them. But the ones I do have experience with are not as you say they are. In fact the ones I have been in are run similar to eve uni. They are the reason I am still here otherwise I would have quit already myself. And they do run PvP ops regular into low and null sec and support the players with building things like jump clones and PvP ship loadouts etc. The NPC corps I have been in are very good experience for new players to the game. A great addition in fact. The game itself has a graduation feature mechanics built in to NPC corps like a player can not build a POS while in a NPC corp. As your toon grows in skill points the NPC corp becomes a burden after a while and the game mechanics itself force you out and into your own corp. A natural progression.

I wonder where your hatred of NPC corps comes from but I do see it all over the forums from other players as well. Then again I see hatered for eve uni all over the forums also. And both of these organizations are great for new player retention. So I most definately and emphatically do not agree with your position on NPC corps. I consider your view of NPC corps to be overly shortsighted.