EVE General Discussion

So, I got around to reading that article. What does this tell us that we didn't already know? I've tried eve four different times. The first time I subscribed for one month then quit when I didn't know what to do. The second time I did a bunch of pve in my drake and a couple of low sec roams with eve uni. After three months I got bored and quit again. The third time I played for only a month, did some incursions in my drake and quit again. This time I rolled an awox alt. Failed some awoxes, ganked some dudes, trolled the forums and I'm still around after 11 months.

What does this tell us? Not much really. I'd like to see some more emphasis on player conflict in the new player experience. For example the tutorials could send players on a distribution mission where they have to pick up items in a few different low sec systems, or the military could feed directly into faction warfare (with suitable warnings of course). One of my biggest pet peeves is that the tutorials don't teach the MWD+cloak trick. I'm not entirely sure how players are supposed to figure that out for themselves, and its one of the most important things for surviving gate camps. Some explanation of filters on the star map, and better fitting advice would also be useful.

EVE isn't more popular because it's a PvP game. Whether or not you 'improve' PvE or not does not change that gankers WILL find you and WILL kill you if they choose to do so, whether it's in high, low or nullsec.

EVE is a very harsh game. Behaviour that would get you banned in other games is completely okay here (scams, corp theft, etc). The effort required to even get into the game is fairly huge.

Pointing at PvE and saying 'this is the reason why EVE doesn't have a million billion subs' makes about as much sense as a strawberry dressing up as a cow in order to build a birdhouse out of discarded candy wrappers.

That one graph in the presentation doesn't say that 40% of new players will always do PvE and then leave because it's boring. It's saying that 40% of all new players have no clue what to do and do missions because they give a 'goal' to work towards handed to them by the game, which is exactly what EVE isn't about. The entire point of the slide and the presentation is to get new players away from PvE and get them involved with other players and the other activities they can do because that's what EVE is about.

There is no question that PvE needs a serious overhaul, however it's not the one single jesus feature you make it out to be - Far from it.

Niche.
Popular.

Pick one

The only risks to joining corps that are unique is that of hisec corps. In every other area of space your corpmate can kill you, kill, each other, kill blues, randoms on the gate with no omnipotent NPC space police to save them. Corps in lowsec, nullsec, and wormhole space deal with this every day. Some how they manage to take in newbies and grow. What makes hisec corps so special that they need some sort of extra protection beyond the huge protections over all other space they already have?



Already easily accomplished with a shared chat channel or even a rookie corp in an alliance.

I think there is some truth to what Zrookplay says, but I would be hesitant to agree with all of it. When I started playing Eve, I had never heard of it or its community. And I don't know a single person in real life who has ever heard of Eve; whenever I tell them I play it, they ask me what it is. I don't believe Eve's reach is as great as some people believe, which I imagine is why you find CCP advertising it on AdSense to this very day.

If you want to know why new player retention is so low, try to put yourself in their shoes. Try to forget everything you know about Eve and roll a new character and take him/her through the tutorials and the SoE arc. See what the interactions with others are like, try to apply to a corp. I think for many it's confusing and fairly lonely...and even if they are smart enough to seek out a corp, most corps are going to be very suspicious of them (I know I am when someone who has only been playing a few hours suddenly applies).

New players aren't useless; there is much they can do. Eve, for me, is sort of a progression of greater and greater content as you train your skills and learn its idiosyncrasies, but I think by the time you've played the game for a year, there's little you can't really do. Although I'm sure to a new player there is indeed a perception that they are at a big disadvantage to older players...and in some ways, they certainly are, just not in as many ways as they may themselves believe.

New players need people to reach out to them in helpful ways. Not scam them or cause them distress. They need time to acclimate to Eve. I think a lot of people forget this.

To add to my previous contribution: there is a little bit of shait to everyone (absolutely no exception) and Eve is a game for intellectuals... Intellectual shait is the stingiest so to speak. We aren't psychopaths or trolls really, we just give everything much thought (flaw? Maybe) and all of this (game, forums) is just a nice big chessboard, nothing more.

Heck, that's pretty much one of my only criteria for choosing an awox target. If I pretend to be a new player and the first damned thing these people tell me is that I need to mine for 2 months before I can start training to fly fun ships, then the claws come out.

So yeah, believe me, as someone who spends a LOT of time pretending to be a new player, people do say "you can't". A lot.

What I blame on the individual player:

Not every gamer likes to create their own content.

A lot of gamers are accustomed to immediate gratification; EvE requires a bit of patience. Hence, why new player retention is difficult to maintain.

Newer players are given too many options too soon in the game. They get overwhelmed and discouraged when they can not do everything a veteran player can.



What I blame on the community and CCP:

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This is, actually, I think a major problem. EVE is simply too old. One reason why this is a problem is that by now most people who might have wanted to try a spaceship game have already tried EVE, and most of them didn't like it - and most of them are probably going to play Star Citizen or Elite: Dangerous.

Another reason is that a lot of people play videogames in general to get away from people. MMOs for a while were an exception to this rule, but these days, they're following suit. MMOs are solo games that just have other people as wallpaper.

MMOs were initially popular because playing with people over the interwebs was a new, exciting thing. But over the years, and especially with the subscription model leading to hamster wheels for the easily-addicted Achiever mentality, the necessary balance between social players, PvP-ers, PvE-ers, etc., in a true virtual world, that was canvassed by Bartle in his famous article, based on his experience gleaned from the early MUD/MOO scene, has been lost. Not in a game like EVE, but in most MMOs, and new players usually come to EVE from other MMOs, where they are used to collecting shinies and "progressing" mostly solo.

It's kind of sad, but I think the genre as a whole is ******. The social aspect that defined it has been lost, irretrievably so, I think. My first MMO was City of Heroes, and it was a hugely social game, people chatted away merrily in PUGs, in zone chat, everywhere. People explained missions to strangers they'd just met in a PUG, and newbies listened and asked questions. PUGs used to last all evening, dropping and picking up members as they went.

You didn't have to be in a "guild" to have a social gaming experience - imagine that!

Nowadays, any MMO you play just has grimly silent people going about their business. PUGs are fleeting things, they hardly ever stick together for more than one mission or quest. Even if you initiate chat, only a few old lags will respond, and there's a bittersweet nostalgia.

EVE is a dinosaur from a lost era, whose hindbrain has yet to catch up with its forebrain's realization that it's already a dead dinosaur walking.

Well, it's not as bad as all that, I suppose - I'm sure EVE will keep going for ages still, and I'm sure there will be other niche games for those who like being in a virtual environment and interacting with other players (both PvE and PvP oriented). But the heyday is over. You can only lose your virginity once, and you can only be tremendously excited by the "gee isn't this great, playing with other people!!!" in the first MMO you play if it has that feature. MMOs nowadays, hardly have it at all.

As a new EVE player, it's not the lack or low-level of PvE content that rebuke me the most (wich is actually not why I want to play).

It's rather some aspects of the gameplay (I took a look at the PI stuff...OMG) and the seriously weak customization of the interface/commands.

Maybe I didnt find them yet , but shortcuts for quick location bookmarks, target cycling, target of target, 5 tabs limit in overview/spreadshit and so on.

Yes, I played WoW (and EQ, GW, GW2 and so on - I see it seems to be a major default ) but I had these basics fighting tools available.

After what 11 years ?, I expected something a bit less clumsy in the department of spaceships pewpew (not to mention the nice crosses everywhere, looks like Elite but with a nice galaxy background...)

The game is harsh and unforgiving and I love that (I started MMOs on the Zek servers for those old enough to remember).
But I also can see the more "soft" players not liking to have the PvP enforced on them - no save spot after undocking.
I deal with that, not sure about other new players used to have at least some sort of safety in other games (even on PvP servers) .
I mean High-sec means nothing except maybe not being podkilled, but again I'm ok with it, the x% leaving maybe not.

I may be wrong but I think the usual pyramidal progression is reversed ; as in the longer you play the more you can do - the so called high-end content ; vs in the other games where the "end-game" would be one zone to farm and/or one ranked game to win and thats a big a plus for me.

Eventually, I will do my homework (when i'm done with the couple hundreds pages to learn the basics) and search for a "newbie friendly" fighting corp...in 2 months when i get a couple millions SP , and can provide a clean API and my passport ; because well I could be a thief (as advertised in the teaser !) ; and see first-hand how the SP really makes that little difference...
Because as it is, and it may very well be on me, I feel that I could just log in 2 min every couple days, or weeks , to queue basics skills for 2 months and not loose much - well certainly not the 5 seconds fights or less with 2 or more vs 1.

And I feel I'm lucky cause an RL friend, who happens to be a vet, came back to the game and is somehow coaching me - cant imagine what it is to be really unknowing in this game...