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Getting More Players Through Their First Two Months

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Tao Dolcino
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#121 - 2012-10-31 08:14:57 UTC
Riot Girl wrote:
Holy One wrote:
There was literally nothing happening I could participate in and nobody to form a bond with. Thats your fatal flaw right there

There are some very good training corps in high-sec who recruit new players and teach them a lot about the game. Perhaps new players should be placed into these corps instead of NPC corps from the moment they start playing.


Theorically i would agree, but then there could be all sorts of abuses there...

I think that the solution is :
1) Give more and better tutorials, especially on aspects of EVE the actual tutorials don't cover (pvp, overview, directionnal scanner, make safe spots, flying in fleet, how to use the map, the market, how to concretly make a life with industry, exploration, etc...).
2) Open more activities to the new players while they wait for their core skills to be trained. The first month is fine as new player because all is new, but then, the few next ones are DEADLY if you have not had the luck to find a corpo which will help you to have fun, because you are stucked to repeat the same tasks while waiting for your core skills to train passively.
3) There's something ridiculous in the way the skills are set for now if you think a bit. Let's take an example we often see :
You can rush to battleship level 2-3 in no time, but you can't use your battleship for months because all the skills you need to run it correctly will take ages. We are walking on the head here : Battleship should be a sort of end game from the new player's perspective. You should be able to reach it when you have trained your core skills, not before, and in the other hand the core skills should take less time, opening more possibilities earlier.
I think that CCP should rework on the prerequired skills to find a more logical way to train skills for the new players. Think of what they need in which order.
And please don't answer me 'certificates' grrr, what a bad joke ! Certificates are nothing at all. Nothing. The proof : you can spend all your player's life in EVE without ever opening the certificates' tab. You won't even notice it. Why ? Because it does nothing ! Certificates are the 'walk in station' of the skills ! (don't get me wrong, i'd surely enjoy a fully implemented walk is station Blink )


As has so perfectly written Holy One in this thread :
Holy One wrote:
"Hi! Welcome to Eve Online, here's what you want to do, here's what we're going to let you do in 27 days 6 hrs and 10 mins. Go **** yourself!"


That, a player who has already built something in EVE, who has already a life there, can accept to endure. But for a new player, it has the following result : subscription cancelled. Because what the hell will he/she do during this time ? Walk in station ? P
Riot Girl
You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack
#122 - 2012-10-31 08:21:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Riot Girl
Tao Dolcino wrote:
Theorically i would agree, but then there could be all sorts of abuses there...

Yeah, it was just a suggestion, not a finalised idea. Measures would have to be put into place for the training corps, maybe having to take on a 'semi-NPC' status with certain restrictions. It would be bit too complicated to discuss in detail in this thread and I'm not sure if it would be practical.

Oh god.
Dasola
New Edens Freeports
#123 - 2012-10-31 10:41:36 UTC
Holy One wrote:
Allow people to buy characters pre-trained with core skills for plex or isk. Most serious new players do this anyway cos lol18 months of training and effectively not playing the game appeals only to spergers. CCP should just man up and provide a way for hundreds of thousands more people to enjoy and grow this game instead of playing the another-alt-vicar bs game.


But they are, its called character bazaar P Plex and isk is usefull payment method on there often. Just becouse new player dosent realise he/she could buy one ready trained, is not CCP´s fault.

We are Minmatar, Our ship are made of scraps, but look what our scraps can do...
Tahn Goldenmane
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#124 - 2012-10-31 11:23:55 UTC
CCP Sisyphus wrote:
Thanks for the feedback - all this is VERY interesting for me :)

Keep the experiences with new players flowing. I especially want to hear from less experienced players (few months) as to what were the bits that caused greatest frustration..


I started in late August. I played though the player tutorials and said to myself, this is neat, I can do whatever I want. So I decided to become an 'industrialist' and build stuff. I like crafting in most games so this fit. I researched around and quickly determined the best way to 'compete' here is to make ammo and rigs. I also determined pretty quickly that you really needed to be able to search the bpo's I had been buying to be able to effectively compete on pricing and make money. This is where I ran smack dab into the hard stop... I looked for research slots for ME in the station I was home in... Nothing for weeks. I changed the view to look for any open slots in the entire REGION... nothing for over a week, mostly in lowsec if at all. I even went to a couple of other regions and the story was much the same. I'm sorry but this is completely and totally going to stop cold any possibility for any budding industrialist/scientist. Sure you MIGHT be able to find contracts with some researched bpo's out there but for the most part you have to do it yourself since it is such a small market. The only other way is to have a POS (lol) for a new player to be expected to have to get a pos w/in a week or two of playing the game to actually be able to do anything is pretty bad.

As many others have said, it's just not possible to compete against 80% + of the people in the game. It's like taking a rusty sword in EQ1 and expecting to go up against some level 90... just not going to work out well for you. There needs to be some mechanic/systems where players can fight against each other in somewhat equal footing. You have Aliens in lore... have some race of them be highly advanced enough to 'take over' player's ships and have those players fight against each other in belts/systems based on how skilled the pilots are with 'weight classes' of ships. Break it down to squad level fights and work your way up from there. Toss in some actual objectives ala capture the flag, hold the station, king of the hill or any of the other zillion trops...

Lastly, revamp the war mechanic. Give the 'wars' an actual end. If someone dec's you and you 'beat' them in 'score' of ships and isk then they shouldn't be able to dec you again for a month or something. Give the wars some actual 'objectives' to meet instead of a mechanic that let's bully/griefiers who want to pick on 'low level' players because they are bored. If the 'low level' players out number the high level guys and manage to 'beat' them in isk destroyed because they used numbers then let those players get back to their normal business. Tie this into DUST and have the wars have objectives between the two games and you have a way of getting things REALLY interesting.
Riot Girl
You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack
#125 - 2012-10-31 11:41:52 UTC
Tahn Goldenmane wrote:
You have Aliens in lore... have some race of them be highly advanced enough to 'take over' player's ships and have those players fight against each other in belts/systems based on how skilled the pilots are with 'weight classes' of ships. Break it down to squad level fights and work your way up from there. Toss in some actual objectives ala capture the flag, hold the station, king of the hill or any of the other zillion trops...

I don't even know what to say...

Quote:
Give the wars some actual 'objectives

The objectives are decided by the players. If you aren't satisfied with the objectives your corp leader gives you, FC your own fleet and do something imaginative.

Oh god.
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#126 - 2012-10-31 12:19:51 UTC
Tahn Goldenmane wrote:
CCP Sisyphus wrote:
Thanks for the feedback - all this is VERY interesting for me :)

Keep the experiences with new players flowing. I especially want to hear from less experienced players (few months) as to what were the bits that caused greatest frustration..


I started in late August. I played though the player tutorials and said to myself, this is neat, I can do whatever I want. So I decided to become an 'industrialist' and build stuff. I like crafting in most games so this fit. I researched around and quickly determined the best way to 'compete' here is to make ammo and rigs. I also determined pretty quickly that you really needed to be able to search the bpo's I had been buying to be able to effectively compete on pricing and make money. This is where I ran smack dab into the hard stop... I looked for research slots for ME in the station I was home in... Nothing for weeks. I changed the view to look for any open slots in the entire REGION... nothing for over a week, mostly in lowsec if at all. I even went to a couple of other regions and the story was much the same. I'm sorry but this is completely and totally going to stop cold any possibility for any budding industrialist/scientist. Sure you MIGHT be able to find contracts with some researched bpo's out there but for the most part you have to do it yourself since it is such a small market. The only other way is to have a POS (lol) for a new player to be expected to have to get a pos w/in a week or two of playing the game to actually be able to do anything is pretty bad.

As many others have said, it's just not possible to compete against 80% + of the people in the game. It's like taking a rusty sword in EQ1 and expecting to go up against some level 90... just not going to work out well for you. There needs to be some mechanic/systems where players can fight against each other in somewhat equal footing. You have Aliens in lore... have some race of them be highly advanced enough to 'take over' player's ships and have those players fight against each other in belts/systems based on how skilled the pilots are with 'weight classes' of ships. Break it down to squad level fights and work your way up from there. Toss in some actual objectives ala capture the flag, hold the station, king of the hill or any of the other zillion trops...

Lastly, revamp the war mechanic. Give the 'wars' an actual end. If someone dec's you and you 'beat' them in 'score' of ships and isk then they shouldn't be able to dec you again for a month or something. Give the wars some actual 'objectives' to meet instead of a mechanic that let's bully/griefiers who want to pick on 'low level' players because they are bored. If the 'low level' players out number the high level guys and manage to 'beat' them in isk destroyed because they used numbers then let those players get back to their normal business. Tie this into DUST and have the wars have objectives between the two games and you have a way of getting things REALLY interesting.


Yeah, its pretty grim for the starting industrialist. I don't know of any way to make significant money for--what?--the first four months. It gets worse when you consider how many people are selling stuff in hi sec for less than they'd get for the raw materials to make the stuff. The only answer I'd have for the blueprints dilemma is to get yourself into a player corp and gain the access of the POS.

Your recommendations for the war mechanics are interesting but I'm not a pvper so I really can't say except that the pvp guys really should be able to have their wars as they see fit and not according to some "gamelike" mechanic but if its an option and not the only way to wage a war what's not to love?

I've been chewing on this for almost three years. There's no way I can see to get beyond the underlying problem while keeping the game itself intact except beating my tin drum here in the forums.

It is entirely appropriate that a character in such a long term game have a long start up time but just about all the stuff that can be done to get past that is stuff that players have to provide. See what I mean? If the question of expanding the player base was primarily stuff CCP could simply hire someone to do, we'd have my twice as big New Eden inside of a year. They can do more advertising of course but there are only so many people who are going to walk through the door and not run away screaming in fear for their immortal souls. Its up to us to make sure they hear the siren song of both new friends AND building an interstellar empire, not the yammering of their sense of self preservation. But most corps and alliances ignore incoming players as a matter of policy. Most of those probably have good reason. But what about the ones who don't have good reason? What about the corps and alliances that are just missing out?

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#127 - 2012-10-31 12:28:59 UTC
Tao Dolcino wrote:
Riot Girl wrote:
Holy One wrote:
There was literally nothing happening I could participate in and nobody to form a bond with. Thats your fatal flaw right there

There are some very good training corps in high-sec who recruit new players and teach them a lot about the game. Perhaps new players should be placed into these corps instead of NPC corps from the moment they start playing.


Theorically i would agree, but then there could be all sorts of abuses there...

I think that the solution is :
1) Give more and better tutorials, especially on aspects of EVE the actual tutorials don't cover (pvp, overview, directionnal scanner, make safe spots, flying in fleet, how to use the map, the market, how to concretly make a life with industry, exploration, etc...).
2) Open more activities to the new players while they wait for their core skills to be trained. The first month is fine as new player because all is new, but then, the few next ones are DEADLY if you have not had the luck to find a corpo which will help you to have fun, because you are stucked to repeat the same tasks while waiting for your core skills to train passively.
3) There's something ridiculous in the way the skills are set for now if you think a bit. Let's take an example we often see :
You can rush to battleship level 2-3 in no time, but you can't use your battleship for months because all the skills you need to run it correctly will take ages. We are walking on the head here : Battleship should be a sort of end game from the new player's perspective. You should be able to reach it when you have trained your core skills, not before, and in the other hand the core skills should take less time, opening more possibilities earlier.
I think that CCP should rework on the prerequired skills to find a more logical way to train skills for the new players. Think of what they need in which order.
And please don't answer me 'certificates' grrr, what a bad joke ! Certificates are nothing at all. Nothing. The proof : you can spend all your player's life in EVE without ever opening the certificates' tab. You won't even notice it. Why ? Because it does nothing ! Certificates are the 'walk in station' of the skills ! (don't get me wrong, i'd surely enjoy a fully implemented walk is station Blink )


As has so perfectly written Holy One in this thread :
Holy One wrote:
"Hi! Welcome to Eve Online, here's what you want to do, here's what we're going to let you do in 27 days 6 hrs and 10 mins. Go **** yourself!"


That, a player who has already built something in EVE, who has already a life there, can accept to endure. But for a new player, it has the following result : subscription cancelled. Because what the hell will he/she do during this time ? Walk in station ? P



Exactly how I would put it! Minus-uh-maybe a page or two.

Your point 2) Yeah, that second through fourth or fifth month is what I'm writing about and what I'd be so very happy to see lots more training corps fighting us for those people........!

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#128 - 2012-10-31 12:30:31 UTC
Dasola wrote:
Holy One wrote:
Allow people to buy characters pre-trained with core skills for plex or isk. Most serious new players do this anyway cos lol18 months of training and effectively not playing the game appeals only to spergers. CCP should just man up and provide a way for hundreds of thousands more people to enjoy and grow this game instead of playing the another-alt-vicar bs game.


But they are, its called character bazaar P Plex and isk is usefull payment method on there often. Just becouse new player dosent realise he/she could buy one ready trained, is not CCP´s fault.


This is a good point. I think a link to the character bazaar in our corp bulletins with an explanation is a very good idea.

Thanks.

P

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Herr Hammer Draken
#129 - 2012-10-31 12:38:55 UTC
Praxis Astra wrote:
Tahn Goldenmane wrote:
CCP Sisyphus wrote:
Thanks for the feedback - all this is VERY interesting for me :)

Keep the experiences with new players flowing. I especially want to hear from less experienced players (few months) as to what were the bits that caused greatest frustration..


As many others have said, it's just not possible to compete against 80% + of the people in the game. It's like taking a rusty sword in EQ1 and expecting to go up against some level 90... just not going to work out well for you. There needs to be some mechanic/systems where players can fight against each other in somewhat equal footing. You have Aliens in lore... have some race of them be highly advanced enough to 'take over' player's ships and have those players fight against each other in belts/systems based on how skilled the pilots are with 'weight classes' of ships. Break it down to squad level fights and work your way up from there. Toss in some actual objectives ala capture the flag, hold the station, king of the hill or any of the other zillion trops...

Lastly, revamp the war mechanic. Give the 'wars' an actual end. If someone dec's you and you 'beat' them in 'score' of ships and isk then they shouldn't be able to dec you again for a month or something. Give the wars some actual 'objectives' to meet instead of a mechanic that let's bully/griefiers who want to pick on 'low level' players because they are bored. If the 'low level' players out number the high level guys and manage to 'beat' them in isk destroyed because they used numbers then let those players get back to their normal business. Tie this into DUST and have the wars have objectives between the two games and you have a way of getting things REALLY interesting.


Yeah, its pretty grim for the starting industrialist. I don't know of any way to make significant money for--what?--the first four months. It gets worse when you consider how many people are selling stuff in hi sec for less than they'd get for the raw materials to make the stuff. The only answer I'd have for the blueprints dilemma is to get yourself into a player corp and gain the access of the POS.

Your recommendations for the war mechanics are interesting but I'm not a pvper so I really can't say except that the pvp guys really should be able to have their wars as they see fit and not according to some "gamelike" mechanic but if its an option and not the only way to wage a war what's not to love?

I've been chewing on this for almost three years. There's no way I can see to get beyond the underlying problem while keeping the game itself intact except beating my tin drum here in the forums.

It is entirely appropriate that a character in such a long term game have a long start up time but just about all the stuff that can be done to get past that is stuff that players have to provide. See what I mean? If the question of expanding the player base was primarily stuff CCP could simply hire someone to do, we'd have my twice as big New Eden inside of a year. They can do more advertising of course but there are only so many people who are going to walk through the door and not run away screaming in fear for their immortal souls. Its up to us to make sure they hear the siren song of both new friends AND building an interstellar empire, not the yammering of their sense of self preservation. But most corps and alliances ignore incoming players as a matter of policy. Most of those probably have good reason. But what about the ones who don't have good reason? What about the corps and alliances that are just missing out?


I can respond to a lot of this as a new player because I just went through all of this myself.
If you research the game how to play eve as an industrialist you quickly become aware of everything stated above plus the need to have established a good status ranking with one or more corps along with a jump clone.

So yes its going to take 2 months or so to cook those first 5 BPO's. You also have to spend some 2 months training skills for building things and some 2 months doing missions to build up relations with corps. It all really does dove tail together so your first BPO's are ready to go about when your skills and station relations are ready to go. Your money for those first 2 months comes from missions. Then translates into industry as your business gets its footing in place.

Its sorta like building a RL business from the ground up. I do not think it is meant to be easy. The game has to present some barrier to entry otherwise everybody would do it. Also the budding industrialist can partake of trading for income during those first 2 months. Trading also helps identify what sells and where for a profit. I for one would not want it to get easier. It is doable as it is and profitable.

Herr Hammer Draken "The Amarr Prophet"
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#130 - 2012-10-31 12:41:34 UTC
Holy One wrote:
Riot Girl wrote:
CCP Sisyphus wrote:
Thanks for the feedback - all this is VERY interesting for me :)

Keep the experiences with new players flowing. I especially want to hear from less experienced players (few months) as to what were the bits that caused greatest frustration..


Level 4 frigate skills to train cruisers. New players who are running missions will be ready to start level 2 missions on about their second or third day of playing.


"Hi! Welcome to Eve Online, here's what you want to do, here's what we're going to let you do in 27 days 6 hrs and 10 mins. Go **** yourself!"

Every new player should spend their first month in eve worrying about social aspects and exploring the niches instead of worrying about fittings, isk and replacement rifters. Thats one of the reasons why SA is so successful with retention. They remove all that hassle and let players get out to null on day 2 and start participating.

My advice to CCP? Consolidate all racial t1 frigates in to one skill. Consolidate all racial t1 turrets in to 1 skill. Consolidate all racial cruisers in to one skill. Consolidate navigation and drone skills. Go back to giving players basic drone and fitting skills from day one. Provide say 250-500k sp already allocated in core areas pertaining to common frigate fittings and applications. Give the 100% skill boost back. Have tutorial agents provide free and t1 fitted replacement frigates to those who choose war academy career paths. Along with suggestions on tackling, understanding transversal and angular velocity, sig blooms and fall off. Give them missions that show how effective combined fire is, tutor them in the basics of swarming and alpha and the real threat posed by ECM. Give them the idea they can band together in a wolf pack and bring down stuff.

Stop punishing people for pvping in low sec ie get rid of the sec status system that forces people to grind horrible pve to pvp. Sort out jump clone timers. Get rid of the punitive and stupid clone upgrading system. And now the biggie: get an official kill board, EveMon and EFT integrated in to your game or officially support and push these essential 3rd party applications.

Provide a reason for new players to co-operate in a safe environment: make level 1 and 2 missions intelligent enough to know when groups have entered and adapt accordingly the rewards and the risk. The relationships casually formed on day 1 in eve can last forever and thats the whole IDEA of this mmo right? Make high sec safe and reduce it in size.

So much could be done. Personally I would remove all skills training requirements for t1 frigates and industrials. Entirely. T2 modules and weapons systems obv would remain the same.

The first thing I did when I joined Eve in hour one day one was realize I couldn't fly anything and nobody was interested in talking to me or working with me, and there was no reason to even want to do so. There was literally nothing happening I could participate in and nobody to form a bond with. Thats your fatal flaw right there. Its not like you need to be a genius to know that this game is a sum total of the social ties you build and is literally horribly boring and empty without them. Address this and you'll start to attract more normally adjusted people that want to generate content and be sociable and less isolationist pve grinding spergers.


Well. I'm going to have to read that at least one more time. No wonder so many people are referring back to this post. There are a lot of ideas here that I don't even know how to assess in terms of game mechanics but that I'm finding really provocative anyway. And I'd be the first to agree that many of the activities available are pretty tedious on their own merits but somehow (like mining, how did I ever wind up wanting to mine I'm asking my self how many millions of SP later....) when you do them as part of a team they become interesting even urgent.

More in answer to your post after I think about it some more.

P

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Warde Guildencrantz
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#131 - 2012-10-31 14:32:29 UTC
Holy One wrote:
Warde Guildencrantz wrote:
The reason 8/10 people leave in the first month is because they are too cheap to pay for an account after their trial ends.

Holy One wrote:


look at why you have so many pointless core skills which could be consolidated or reduced in rating to enable faster spec'ing for t2 frigates and t1 cruisers.

right now its almost FOUR MONTHS IN +4'S to even get in to a useful t2 frigate.


Yes, because a condor/slasher/executioner/atron with a T1 MWD and T1 disruptor isn't useful right!?!? You don't need to be in a T2 ship to contribute to a fleet you just need to choose a role that doesn't involve dealing DPS or tanking. Namely ewar support, which takes a miniscule amount of time to get into. If you want to do solo stuff, join RvB and fight other newbies that you can find.

Nano ships work too, it takes 3 hours from your character's creation to be able to use T2 nanos.


correct. they're utterly useless. except for making pounces for the fleet. the lack of mwd bloom bonus makes them utterly useless for tackling anything. perhaps in 2003 when tundragon played eve.. as for rvb. lol. thats just station games and spergers.


3 hour player with a point and an MWD better than nothing

TunDraGon ~ Low sec piracy since 2003 ~ Youtube ~ Join Us
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#132 - 2012-11-02 10:41:14 UTC
Roime wrote:
Revamp the NPC starter corps and we're good.





OK. How would that be done?

P

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#133 - 2012-11-02 10:42:53 UTC
Holy One wrote:
Riot Girl wrote:
CCP Sisyphus wrote:
Thanks for the feedback - all this is VERY interesting for me :)

Keep the experiences with new players flowing. I especially want to hear from less experienced players (few months) as to what were the bits that caused greatest frustration..


Level 4 frigate skills to train cruisers. New players who are running missions will be ready to start level 2 missions on about their second or third day of playing.


"Hi! Welcome to Eve Online, here's what you want to do, here's what we're going to let you do in 27 days 6 hrs and 10 mins. Go **** yourself!"

Every new player should spend their first month in eve worrying about social aspects and exploring the niches instead of worrying about fittings, isk and replacement rifters. Thats one of the reasons why SA is so successful with retention. They remove all that hassle and let players get out to null on day 2 and start participating.

My advice to CCP? Consolidate all racial t1 frigates in to one skill. Consolidate all racial t1 turrets in to 1 skill. Consolidate all racial cruisers in to one skill. Consolidate navigation and drone skills. Go back to giving players basic drone and fitting skills from day one. Provide say 250-500k sp already allocated in core areas pertaining to common frigate fittings and applications. Give the 100% skill boost back. Have tutorial agents provide free and t1 fitted replacement frigates to those who choose war academy career paths. Along with suggestions on tackling, understanding transversal and angular velocity, sig blooms and fall off. Give them missions that show how effective combined fire is, tutor them in the basics of swarming and alpha and the real threat posed by ECM. Give them the idea they can band together in a wolf pack and bring down stuff.

Stop punishing people for pvping in low sec ie get rid of the sec status system that forces people to grind horrible pve to pvp. Sort out jump clone timers. Get rid of the punitive and stupid clone upgrading system. And now the biggie: get an official kill board, EveMon and EFT integrated in to your game or officially support and push these essential 3rd party applications.

Provide a reason for new players to co-operate in a safe environment: make level 1 and 2 missions intelligent enough to know when groups have entered and adapt accordingly the rewards and the risk. The relationships casually formed on day 1 in eve can last forever and thats the whole IDEA of this mmo right? Make high sec safe and reduce it in size.

So much could be done. Personally I would remove all skills training requirements for t1 frigates and industrials. Entirely. T2 modules and weapons systems obv would remain the same.

The first thing I did when I joined Eve in hour one day one was realize I couldn't fly anything and nobody was interested in talking to me or working with me, and there was no reason to even want to do so. There was literally nothing happening I could participate in and nobody to form a bond with. Thats your fatal flaw right there. Its not like you need to be a genius to know that this game is a sum total of the social ties you build and is literally horribly boring and empty without them. Address this and you'll start to attract more normally adjusted people that want to generate content and be sociable and less isolationist pve grinding spergers.


OK. Still mining the gold outta this post.

That last paragraph. Yeah. That one. Its pretty bad in those newbie systems. I go there and try to banter and say hi but those fellas don't seem to even have their local chat open. I've tried spamming emails and spamming invites to our public chat channel. The public chat invites work pretty well. Still. Nobody seems to have much to say other than the experienced players. Was it so intimidating? I don't remember. The newbie help channel was great. And there were people in the NPC corp. I've always felt that automatic membership in the NPC corp was a very good idea.

Holy One: Wasn't the newbie help channel of any use to you? The folks in your NPC corp? No recruiters?

I also remember looking carefully at the offices in the system I started in. That's how I picked my very first PC corp.

What I'd like to see in the newbie systems is lots of very large corps recruiting. These tiny one man shows are probably the worst kind of corps we can possibly have recruiting brand new players. Almost always there's not enough activity. Not enough social input. These tiny corps become dead ends when their founders are inactive. If you don't have the use of a voice server, if not your own, your corp is probably worse than useless as regards the flow of new players into the game regardless of its other virtues.

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#134 - 2012-11-09 10:39:31 UTC
And here's hoping you are having a wonderful day in New Eden and are not being evacuated or crushed or being called bad names.

Big smile

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Xpaulusx
Naari LLC
#135 - 2012-11-09 11:58:11 UTC
Holy One wrote:
Allow people to buy characters pre-trained with core skills for plex or isk. Most serious new players do this anyway cos lol18 months of training and effectively not playing the game appeals only to spergers. CCP should just man up and provide a way for hundreds of thousands more people to enjoy and grow this game instead of playing the another-alt-vicar bs game.

Actually an excellant idea but lets go a step further and just let new accounts start off with 2 mill sp and have toons with 5 mill sp availible to buy.

......................................................
Val'Dore
PlanetCorp InterStellar
#136 - 2012-11-09 12:05:51 UTC
High Sec is actually part of the problem. Most people find anything you can do in high sec boring, but the fear of low sec is ground into your from day one in the noob corps. The old timers in there do more harm than good. And telling people to stay away from low sec only keeps them bored with the game. If EvE flung you into the Abyss from day one, we'd have more 'actual' players. The only thing we would really lose are the thousands of farmer, botter, and lazy high sec alts.

Star Jump Drive A new way to traverse the galaxy.

I invented Tiericide
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#137 - 2012-11-09 12:10:49 UTC
Val'Dore wrote:
The only thing we would really lose are the thousands of farmer, botter, and lazy high sec alts.


… and the people who weren't born to PvP, and the people who just want to play "shoot the red crosses" while chatting with friends, and the people who take a bit longer to figure out the silly controls, and the people who take longer to find friends, and …

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Brooks Puuntai
Solar Nexus.
#138 - 2012-11-09 12:20:38 UTC
Relaying on player corps to make up for CCPs lacking on NPE, is not the way to go. Especially considering how terrible the corp system actually is, so corps have to take extra measures when recruiting, which usually drive away players.

To help fix NPE:

-Modify player creation. Go back to having race, bloodline, and starting career actually matter. Not with attributes but with starting skills.

-Increase starting SP for new players to 1m-2m spread among core skills and skills pertaining to career choice.

-Instance NPE. For the first 30 days(or so) have new players in a region that is divided similar to the rest of Eve. Allow new players to experience the different areas on a somewhat even playing field. However do so that whatever happens in this new area doesn't carry over once you leave, or allow "outside" interference. In short give new players the ability to experience/understand/adapt to things like PvP with other newbies.

-For the love of god improve the corp/alliance management system. Make it so player corps are actually worth joining for new players instead of trying to force it. Also improve the recruitment side, which luckily CCP has done a little bit of recently.


CCP's Motto: If it isn't broken, break it. If it is broken, ignore it. Improving NPE / Dynamic New Eden
Archdaimon
Merchants of the Golden Goose
#139 - 2012-11-09 12:51:15 UTC
Best way to keep players in EVE is to get them out of Hi-Sec.

Wormholes have the best accoustics. It's known. - Sing it for me -
Kurt Saken
Star Cluster Wanderer
#140 - 2012-11-09 13:17:54 UTC
Archdaimon wrote:
Best way to keep players in EVE is to get them out of Hi-Sec.


As a new player, i agree. I don't mind being blown up by the typical -10 pirate with some years put on this game in a Tengu or a BS. I don't like it, but i accept it because i want to grow in skill and experience, but if you simply don't want to shoot others, there is no need to go to low sec at all since you can make money in high sec without trouble.

People don't want to be the free food of veteran PVPers, and this is understandable.