EVE General Discussion

please explain what you're insinuating by that question, npc corp poster steppa musana

Um...

I will not defend James 315 - he is more than capable do do that himself - but I will say that many here are quite happy to have this empirical data conclusively establishing that "griefing" of new players (<15 days) is not hurting player retention. For years, many have be saying that it is a major problem that new players are griefed out of the game, despite that fact that any ganker could tell you that this is not the case. Not only is ganking is so rare now (see: CCP Quant's presentation for real data on this) in general that you have to be incredibly unlucky to even run into a ganker, true new players are not at all an attractive target as they lack assets. Yet you had people coming here claiming that ganking was ruining Eve and new players need more safety to have a chance to get into the game.

CCP Rise has looked at the data and conclusively put the final nail into this complaint. Ganking does not hurt true new player retention - if anything it helps it by getting players to engage with the sandbox. That is not intellectually dishonest at all. CCP is very keen on having players stay in the game beyond the trial period, and ganking is not a negative factor for why players don't continue with the game.

This argument is exactly why we need a rational examination of the data. Your anecdotes, even if true, do not come anywhere close to telling the whole story. CCP is trying to increase player retention (and ultimately profits), not make carebears stay with the game. James 315 himself may cause a dozen people to quit with his antics, but if he also causes two dozen to join/stay, then that is a net benefit for the game.

I will admit this data does not address that issue, but that is not what CCP Rise was most concerned about. Getting players "over the hump" and into the game is a different issue than whether six months down the road some carebear realizes that this is not the game they want to play for whatever reason. It is of much greater concern for the NPE that a potential long-term customer who could be a good fit for the type of game Eve is quits before they can even get into the game, than if some player realizes a competitive sandbox game is not for them after they learn how to play. The first can be fixed simply by changing the NPE, the second cannot be fixed without changing the very core of the game CCP is selling.

Eve is not a game for everyone. Making the NPE as accessible to new players to properly showcase the sandbox that New Eden is of paramount importance to get more new players into the game. CCP Rise has conclusively shown that ganking not only doesn't hurt, but actually helps get players into the game. This is just what the data says no matter what you or anyone else believes.

As for highsec carebears, they have to remember they are playing a game built on the idea of "griefing" by a bunch of "griefers". If they choose to quit when they run into their first bit of adversity and suffer a gank loss or a wardec, well then perhaps they are not just the type that enjoys competitive sandbox game play and I am not sure CCP can or should do anything to keep that sort of player. That however is an issue separate from the effect of ganking on the NPE.

It is probably unwise to conflate ganking and wardecs, their effects are very different, as is the scale of their application. Despite the superficial result of both activities resulting in waking up in your med clone. One causes short term discomfort, the other can be an effective ban on play for a week or more for smaller/social/newbro corps who have neither the agency or fiances to deal with the situation.

Imagine a game mechanic that each week rolls a dice for a 1 in 10 chance of banning your corp from logging in for a week or auto disbands the corp, I defy anyone to find fun or content in that.

Unfortunately the data seems rather narrowly focused on ganking with no mention of the cancelled account's wardec status. I am coming to agree with Nevyn Auscent that the data provided is rather useless in the context of retention. At best, a well meaning but flawed data study, at worst a distraction and PR exercise.

Consider wardecs more like Afk cloakies, it is not the action itself that harms, it is the threat of action. Only one member of NewBro Corp needs to die to a WT, cry in corpchat and rage quit to spook his corpies.

Yes in real terms maybe 13% die legally (though I am unsure which if any, other means of legal death are included in that 13%). The death of that 13% reaches out and touches another X% of newbros.

Now maybe some of the corp man up, maybe some of them log out for the storm, some of them simply do not bother coming back. Anecdotal as it is, in my experience, if this is repeated, the corp eventually dies or players leave.

While true, all of it will continue to fall on deaf ears. We aren't arguing facts (well, half of us are lol), we're arguing worldviews, and worldviews never change because they come from a pretty deep place in people.The people discounting completely what Rise has said are people who need to believe in victimization, and that such victimization is real enough to push people out of this game.. Without that vicimtization, without the 'poor new player beset upon by the claws of griefer injustice that cannot survive without the slefless advocacy of the GDFPJ (General Discussion forum posters for Justice), what would they believe in?

The hypocrisy of the matter is if what Rise said was slanted in the other direction (ie "we don't know for exact sure, but it looks like ganking new players pushes people out of the game and is bad") these exact same skeptics would instead don robes of purity and proclaim their enduring Loyalty to the Royal and Holy House of Rise, hallowed be thine neckbearded face lol (Just kidding Rise, love the beard bro, don't ever change ).

The real truth is that Rise's information points to the fact that it isn't victimization that leads to losing people who try the game, it's other factors, like perhaps too much safety. It also indicates that new players do't need the help of these self appointed advocates.
Rise's information also suggests that our ganking bros are too nice and need to get on the ball, because if they don't gank more noobs it means they don't love EVE enough to want people to keep playing.

Now (for our justice seeking skeptic bros) stick that in your justice pipe and smoke it.

Not saying you are wrong as I don't have any data to know whether that is true, but are you saying that a high percentage of new players are dueled out of the game in their first 15 days?

We know from CCP's data that 50% of players leave in the first month.

Are you suggesting that this is because they a dueled and killed (within that 13% of losses) and therefore leave the game, when CCP have said that people in that group have a higher rate of retention than people who don't die in pvp?

Am I understanding that correctly?

Seems like clutching at straws, but that's just speculation on my part. I can't deny it's a possibility, just doesn't seem logical based on what has been said by CCP.

So what are you basing that on?

You're just way too nice :) But as to the above question, the answer is usually "nothing of importance".

That's another one of those ironies, it's the "Evidence Requirement Imbalance" that is present in most discussions between people. In other words, people don't need a lot of (or ANY) evidence to form an opinion about something, but if you challenge that opinion they require Supreme Court level documentation and even then they won't change their opinion lol (the opinion tends to gets stronger in the face of counter evidence).

So here you have a situation where people say "I know people who were griefed out of the game!" and expanding that to mean that gankers run new players away, then you have a Developer with miles and miles more information saying "for the 10s of thousands of characters we examined, there is no proof of that", and the end result is this thread lol.

When I talk about certain game imbalances some of the exact same people have told me that "well, CCP knows best". It seems that for some people, CCP knowing best is mighty conditional upon whether CCP agrees with them or not

It's almost 2am and I am guessing that my comprehension skills have deserted me, because that makes no sense to me.

So far I haven't even seen 1 hole in Rise's stats for what he actually used them for, not what many people seem to imagine they can be used for.

But, that post seems like a sign I need to go to bed. I'm normally ok with comprehension. Now I'm not so sure.

Fixed your meaning there.