EVE New Citizens Q&A

K so I did some quick testing on the opportunities on SiSI and over all experience is that the whole thing is just too random to be followed in a precise pattern which is what most people expect from a tutorial.

Though my first problem on SiSi was that the system had absolutely 0 rats on the belts it was a 1.0 sec but still very weird so perhaps a SiSi issue, anyway had I been a new player I would had been so terribly lost with that one that it isn't even funny.
As a vet though I knew immediately where and how I'm supposed to find a red X to shoot and even that my standard rookie ship would had likely been creamed at the belt with it's single civilian gun and no other fittings ...

However the opportunity assumes that a new player knows all this and gives you no hints at all on where to find that red X not does it hint that you might want to make sure that you actually survive that encounter, unless dying pointlessly in **** fit rookie ship is the goal of the opportunity in question.

Anyway above describes the fundamental problems with the current iteration of opportunities which is how to teach searching information to people who don't even realise that they don't have all the necessary information to succeed in the given task when the actual thing they are getting tasks from is supposed to give them all that information.

So while searching the rats I also 'triggered' two other opportunities of warping and approaching something which where in very frightening 'jack in the box' -like fashion making you first think of 'oh my god did just I f*cked up something major' and then realising that oh it was some random 'mission flag'.

So yeah if you want to keep teaching new players in this fashion you might want to consider the approach of extremely intrusive 'boxes' on screen that scream 'over here stupid' such as when looking for a star gate in 'star gate travel opportunity' it would be surrounded by a huge 'square' with an arrow pointing to it saying "a star gate" followed by another 'square' on screen highlighting "jump" button.

You know like they do on most 3D-art program tutorials since eve UI seems to be modelled after those according to some anecdotal newbie references.

Here's my feedback as a new player who has now experienced both the Tutorial system, where Aura chimes in to give information at relevant moments, and then afterwards (a few days later after creating a second character) I also experienced the Opportunities system:

The Tutorial system is very helpful and well-designed.

The Opportunities system is completely useless. I mean it. I convinced two of my friends to create trial accounts thinking they'd have the same Tutorial I did. They both quit playing within two days and I can guarantee you that the Opportunities system had a lot to do with why they quit.

So, in a nutshell, if you want to lose potential new players, you go ahead and stick with the Opportunities system. If you'd rather recruit new players, scrap the worthless Opportunities system and bring back the much more useful Tutorials.

It's really that simple. Hopefully, management in your organization is wise enough to cut your losses.

heres my idea: first of all, when a newbie finished his/her char, and find him/herself on the station, aura have to tell them to start *) skilling! give them iskies, and tell them to buy this skill, buy it from this station, or in system and go dock up there, then skill that book. dont give them skillbooks as a reward, give them iskies to buy them. teach them how to use the ui, and make a better default overview... make videos to teach them about dscan, baiting, station games, tell them to use active tanked ab frigs fpr lvl 1-2 missions, to tank their miner ship, what is ganking... the thing is, the newbies can feel like "god, i have no idea what to do, mostly because i dont know what i can do, what i should do, and how to do it, *)." this is why cant keep the newbies in eve. my newbies always enjoyed the 101 pvp exercises they got, and its pretty useful, even for a pve pilot. and it can be scripted :P if the mission would have some vids, it could be a pvp exercise mission, with a friendly npc. really, it seems, ccp dont *) the newbies, and without ppl who cares, im sure, 80% of them would be out of eve in a week. if the ccp guys have no ide what kind of vids are needed, check the youtube. they even could be immerse, like sitting in a room as a pupil among others, and watcing and listening auras show ... the starter missions are silly, the newbies still know almost nothing about eve, when they finish them... need advices? get on to the rookie help, and look for the older players. ask them what the newbies needs are. im sure they gonna have far better ideas than *) new silly starter missions...

*) *Snip* Please refrain from using profanity. ISD Ezwal.

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Why would you ever want to orbit an asteroid?

When I joined my first mining fleet years ago, people asked me why I not simply would take a belt in my miners range and hold, align to get out and mine that way. Simple answer; I never knew then that you could mine without orbiting ;). Now I wonder why you would ever want to orbit an asteroid, besides maybe being bumped?

This is pretty much how I see it, being a newbie myself. I got to experience both the old Tutorial and this new Opportunities system ... and I just don't know what the developers are thinking by putting out such an inferior replacement to the old system. They'd be much better off keeping the old system but adding to it some hugely important information that's conspicuously absent (such as how freakishly easy it is to destroy Faction Standings by running Security Missions before you even realize what's happening).

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that they're actually trying to reduce their subscriber numbers. I mean, is there a single new player out there that's told them that Opportunities were more helpful than the old system?

Reading the Dev Blog it looks like some time and effort went into designing the opportunities system but unfortunately it is completely useless. If it takes too much time to improve it, put the old tutorial back in until this system can be re-worked.

I am an experienced WoW raider and have played countless MMOs (hello Meridian 59!). More importantly, I also played EVE as a PvEr for a couple of years around a decade ago and have a vague memory of how things worked. I’m not saying this for E-peen points, I’ve been around the MMO block and have even played EVE a while back. Even I got lost in the opportunities system. Quick thoughts below:

- It seems that opportunities is really an achievement system. Reason for this change may have been that as EVE is a sandbox, the tutorial should be more 'sandboxy' to match. I respectfully completely disagree with this. As EVE is a sandbox where you can do anything, the tutorial needs to be highly structured. The new system does not hold the players hand enough.

- The player should know at all times what steps they should take to complete an opportunity. There should be no scope for a player to ‘get lost’. Case in point, I was asked to fit something into my low slot. I had no low slot item in my inventory. Having played EVE, I knew I could buy one but I was reluctant to. Did I miss something in previous tutorial missions? Do they seriously expect me to know of my own volition to go to the market to buy a random low slot item or start blowing up some NPCs until one drops?

- For the love of god, suggest things! I don’t know how but, for example, give the player 4 or 5 fittings and then maybe a dialog box can pop up with comments on a fit (ahhh..I see you are trying to shield and armour tank, generally players would advise against this). Otherwise I’m stuck with a whole load of icons with random numbers with no explanation what anything does.

- All new players should follow a highly structured basic tutorial that covers all the basics required if they want to PvE/PvP, haul, manufacture etc. The tutorial can then branch out into a number of different trees depending on what area a player wants to focus on. Each branch should be itself highly structured. Older players can return to a different tutorial branch if they choose to change focus. I don’t know how this can be implemented but this to me would provide for a better learning experience.

- Some missions should be engineered to fail. Get your hauler wrecked. Get ganked by an NPC (pretending to be another player). All other missions should not really be failable. I was asked to go do Career Agent mission. I selected a L1 Security Mission – flew there in my training ship and got vaporized. I personally had no issue with this, but it may be quite demoralising to new players.

- You really need to assume that new EVE players know nothing. I was lucky that once I decided opportunities was useless I just stopped with it altogether and found a corporation to join to get me back up to speed. Unless you tell them in-game, assume new players do not know Eve-Uni or the other training corps, assume they do not scour Youtube or the official forums for training information/videos and assume they are not going to ask.

Just my 2 cents.

I'm helping a friend to get into the game. So I did the "tutorials"...
My experience with these "oppertunities":

My fiend (first time EVE player) was really confused after about 10 minutes, as the oppertunities just said things like "buy something, somewhere" without any sense at all....

So for example, he came to the blueprint thing and this happend:
- He searched the market for any blueprint he could afford - and found the civilan shield booster one.
- Bought it 10 jumps away from the rookie system.
- Wasted 10 minutes to move there just to get an error message, that he needs a skill for it.
- Asked me what a skill is and where he can get it.

So the "tutorials" doesnt explain anything - its just a list of basic things which players can do in this game. No explanaiton at all.

So for this particular player, I had to guide him through the entire carrer stuff or else we would've quit the game after 30 minutes.
Its just no help at all (sorry to say that, but the first turorials from 2006 were far better than this. At least they guided the players through the basic things)

Please bring back the turorials and remove the oppertunities (or keep them as a "progression bar", because they are not more than that)

This.

So I decided to give Eve another try. (Three or four years ago, I played Eve for a couple weeks.) Starting a new character, I experienced the new Opportunities system, which went along okay until I was told to Sell and then Buy something on the open market.

Looking into my Item Hanger, I discovered one Civilian Armor Repairer (CAR) and one blueprint for the same. Being wise, I decided to sell the CAR, not the blueprint. I put it up for auction at the recommended price of 249 gold (1g = 1 ISK), telling myself I would just turn around and buy it back, thus satisfying the Opportunity.

Oops! A standing buy order (yes there was one: apparently CARs are highly prized items, especially in newbie areas) snatched up my CAR right away. Unfortunately, there were only 2 CARs being sold, both for 500,000g. So instead of being out 249g to satisfy the Opportunity, I was out a CAR plus however much I paid for 1 unit of ammunition, which satisfied the buy requirement. Probably that was way overpriced too, but never mind.

Having had my fill of the Opportunity system, I decided to try some missions. A story mission was available, but I figured I should hone some skills first, so I took a regular level 1 mission instead. After defeating the 2 rookie pirates and 1 not-so-rookie pirate, I fled the scene, hoping to regenerate my shields and (somehow) repair my armor damage before tackling the last pirate. This would have been fine, except that I fled to the nearby “abandoned” space station, where 4 pirates quickly dropped me down into my pod.

No problem. Back at the training station, I hopped into a brand new ship (free of charge!), went out, and capped the last bad guy. Unfortunately, he had a CAR (watching it in action made me truly jealous), and by the time I finally finished him off, I was down to 50% armor. A bit of mining quickly gained me the materials necessary to build a CAR of my own, but: I lacked the necessary Industry skill, which (like so many things in this newbie sector) was selling well above what I could afford to pay.

So now I face a dilemma. Do I shift my base of operations to Dodixie (it’s only 8 jumps away!!!), so as to have access to a non-beginner market, where at least some of the items aren’t there to scam newbies? If I do that, my fear is that the beginner story missions won’t be available, and I’ll be forced to turn around and do another 8 jumps once I have either Industry or the much-longed-for CAR.

The other option: strip my trusty blaster and my mining laser off my damaged ship. Detonate the ship. Then claim a brand new one that (theoretically) will also come with a blaster, whereby I will double my firepower, thus making up (somewhat) for not having an armor repair module. Is that cheating? Will I be banned for gaming the system? (<- I’m trying for sarcasm.)

Buyer beware: I get that. It’s kind of hard, though, when the beginner tutorial (call it what you will) sets you up to get screwed over. Couldn’t they at least have the Buy step come before the Sell? Then I could have bought 1 round of .45 hollow point, sold it back, thus leaving me with a CAR (which I could then fit into a slot on my ship, satisfying step 2 of a later Opportunity!).

FWIW, I just did 3 of the career missions. Discovery missions, I think. Anyway, they were wonderful, and basically identical to the Surviving Eve videos from Eve University/Seamus D., so I never felt too lost. Free skill books, a free ship (!). Nice.