EVE General Discussion

'll come right out and say it: The New Tutorial revamp is still coming up rather short. The following post will illustrate why this is a truth, how it was tested, and (hopefully) a way on how to fix this problem that is dampening the growth of our game and community. But first, some background. (If you don't want to read the text, skip to the bullets)


Four days ago, I convinced my childhood friend to give EVE Online a try. We had grown up together, played the same games, went to the same school and parties; eventually we grew up and apart. He got married, I went into the Army ( then got married), He had a kid, and then I had a kid, so on and so forth. Keeping in touch was never really an issue, however, Eventually the phone calls died away as they naturally do. We all have busy lives after all. Along with the phone calls though, and sadly, his brother passed away and left him in a bad state. Out of the blue, I received a phone call from his wife with the news. I immediately called him to offer my condolences and catch up on the last few years of life. Eventually the conversation drifted to video games and how he wanted to get back into "WoW". Well, stifling a chuckle and realizing he was still in a vulnerable state, I began to tell him about EVE online. He had heard of the game, but only from the peripherals. The stories I had mentioned intrigued him, so he was receptive when I sent him the buddy program invitation. The next day, when the wives were satisfied and the children were in bed, we fired up the game and met in high sec.

I let Funkydil Mikakka (Believe it or not, the first part of that horrendous name has some sentimental value) try the tutorial out for an hour. Funky, being an original Ultima Online pioneer and veteran of just about every MMO out there, I assumed his experience coupled with the tutorial revamp would be enough to get him to commit. A half an hour into the session I get a text message from him: "This is stupid, I'm in the middle of no where, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, I want to punch the screen."


I text him back and tell him to accept the fleet invitation and I walk him through getting up on EVE voice (yes, pilots do use EVE voice) and proceed to talk him off of the ledge. The following were lessons learned from the Tutorial based on a member that I can only assume is the TARGET MARKET that CCP is trying to penetrate (30 year old intelligent male, wife, kids, established job, avid video game player and si-fi fan; slightly nerdy).

1. The tutorial does fail to de-program new players, or in economist speak, break a new player from an anchor. A new player does not mean that they are entirely new to the video game world, Si-FI, or even MMOs. It does mean that they are coming into the game with what behavioral economists label an anchor. The anchor they bring into the game could be World of Warcraft, or Ultima Online, or Hello Kitty online. It doesn't matter really, but they come into the game with an anchor to compare EVE Online too. They also arrive in EVE Online with some assumptions about the genre; after all, many of us have been playing online games since Dark Fall Online (TEN!) or Meridian 59, or even DWANGO if you lived in the Dallas area in the early 90's. The assumptions could include the apprehension about attributes and how they affect the performance in game. The association of ships and modules with green, blue, and purple gear and the risk aversion of losing such gear in a universe where anything goes. The bottom line is that Funky was confused during character creation, confused with the UI, and confused with the structure of missions. So confused, he was ready to give up an quit.


Solution: The EVE target market consists of new players with anchors to previously played games. To use an example that Dan Ariely used in the book "Predictably Irrational" Star Bucks was successful of breaking a customers anchor to the $1 cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee by creating an atmosphere of an upscale, world cafe, unlike any Donut Shop on the corner. Starbucks changed the drink sizes from mall, medium, and large and created different sizes: tall, venti, grande, etc; essentially the same volume as a Dunkin Donuts coffee. Because we are human, we could drop our anchor to the $1 coffee and pay $3.50 for the same size at Star Bucks, feel good about it, and set a new anchor; all because Star Bucks created an "experience". Like Star Bucks breaking the $1 coffee anchor, The EVE tutorial needs to break a new players experience from that anchor, and the only way to do that is to create an experience so enticing, and so engaging, that a new player will forget about the WoW interface, or the Guild War statistics, and be immersed in a world unlike anything they had ever experienced. A fleet battle for instance...

Let's be honest, there's no way to make a tutorial that can even begin to get someone up the learning cliff that is EVE. All you can hope to do is show them around the interface a little so they can navigate in space and press a few buttons. Beyond that, you're looking at an endless tutorial that no one will ever complete... At some point you need to operate with a group of people to help you learn.

Thank goodness for groups like Goons and TEST who do such good work teaching new players the ropes!

Our upcoming laser show....and the battle...

On a more serious note: well put!

Vex you and your yuppie swill, long live the $1 cup of blue collar coffee and a $2 bear claw to go with it. No offense but it's folks like OP with their talk of de-programming and economics that kind of turn me OFF of EVE, as if this whole game were just some economist training sim and the scifi universe is simply a means to an end. I enjoy EVE because it provides a vast universe to be explored and experienced with others from all over the planet, not to tally up my billable hours on a spreadsheet that shows some isk/hr ratio. People who bring "wall street speak" into the equation leave a real sour taste.

As for the tutorials, yea they do kind of leave one hanging sometimes, but I think that in itself, that kind of problem solving, is part of EVE.

The tutorials should introduce people into being BAD guys,
but they don't have to be if they don't want to ...

I recall one such mission in the tutorial that sent me up against a lone pirate who gave the choice of fighting or joining him... I totally kicked his arse

Would even get started. Just stay away.

Ouch. I'm not an economist, but I have to use some economist language to convey a point.

I'll just leave this here

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1805932#post1805932

What I recommend is that the tutorial be broken from the linear style and made into just as free form as the game is. Each button on the neocom and 'E' Menu should have a right click option that gives you a drop down that let you pick form a series of video tutorials related to that object.

For instance, the Market window could have video a tutorial about using the market interface itself and setting up filters, another about the economy as a whole.

The Sci and Indy window can have a video about understanding the functions you have available like manufacture, research and invention, talk about the filters and the difference between public and private facilities

The wallet can have a video about what each column means and pointing out the [r] in journal entries and telling them what it means.

The overview can certainly use a tutorial of its own, not much to explain here.... hehe

The fitting screen can have one too.

Character sheet certainly can use one for much more than just training skills

Each of these interface tutorials can then have special generic topic and career tutorials, the market, wallet and character sheet can talk about markeetering, the fitting window and character sheet can talk about combat, the corp window can talk about wars and POSes

Turn the entire interface itself into a wiki that links back to itself an explains everything

The only standlone tutorials that should be shown to you right off the bat are ones about using camera, navigating ship around, and especially a mention of the menu icon, that thing at the top left of many windows that looks like stacked bars.

Even the chat channels window should have its own tutorial, point out the font size changers, the display modes, the ability to join voice and reload MOTDs and of course how to join channels. And the chat window tutorial could be a perfect segway into part of the community aspect.