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Reviewing the EVE NPE

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Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#1 - 2013-01-20 23:49:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Dersen Lowery
Or, The Adventures of Ima Testingalt, Minmatar Capsuleer

After noticing some strange things in the NPE as I broke in a new character, I ran a trial character through the Minmatar NPE and took notes, appended below. The NPE has been greatly improved since I first went through it, but it still needs a lot of love, and I feel that it should be a significant priority.

Things to consider:

1) I deliberately skipped the "Further Reading" in favor of trusting what was presented in the tutorials directly.

2) The notes are (generally) taken from the perspective of someone who doesn't know or understand anything yet. Because of this and point 1, not every question or objection I raise is necessarily a problem to fix. If the answer to a particular objection is that "you should read the documentation; it's recommended for a reason, " I'm cool with that. I just want that to be a deliberate decision rather than happenstance or oversight.

3) Over all, the tutorial only provides the most minimal coverage of the sort of things that new players need a good start with, such as ship fitting, and it's inconsistent in a lot of places. It also provides bad, or questionable, or incomplete, or redundant advice. Some passages in the text clearly show their age, e.g., salvaging being a recent introduction.

4) It would be nice to have better-designed arcs to illustrate tanking, fitting generally, how to fit and use tackle, and so forth. There is hardly any acknowledgement of what certificates call the "core" skills. Also, the tutorial section on logistics needs a buff, as logistics is a frigate thing now.

5) Please consider handing out the ships that are specialized for a given task at the beginning of the relevant tutorial mission arc, not the end, so that they're actually useful and the player gets comfortable fitting and using them.

6) Instead of the current haphazard delivery of basic skillbooks, please consider having Aura "prepare" the capsuleer for various careers in advance, and hand out the relevant skillbooks at that time so the player has an opportunity to train for one while running another. The scanning tutorial in particular would go a lot better in a scanning frigate with Astrometrics at 3 or 4. Mission agents should hand out rewards, not basic needs. Done right, this would obviate the need for civilian modules completely.

7) Finish integrating certificates into the tutorial and the game. I've found them quite useful, although there are gaps, but right now they're tacked on haphazardly. In particular, the ability to drag certificates onto the training queue--at least the Basic ones--would be incredibly handy.

EDIT: It occurs to me that I missed something:

8) The new tracking features built into the Selected Item and Directional Scan windows are awesome, but new players are never introduced to either. The tutorials should introduce them and show how they can be used together.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#2 - 2013-01-20 23:50:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Dersen Lowery
Day 1

If the goal of the clothing is to convey seriousness, why does the character creator allow caricature? Also, what is it with the t-shirt that has design that looks like a huge, erect phallus?

If you quit immediately after loading (and loading... and loading... and loading...) the CQ for the first time, and come back in, you get a free rookie ship from Pend Insurance in compensation for the recent loss of the spacecraft you never owned.

01: Introduction: In your own time

  • The green text looks like hyperlinks. It's very hard not to click them. The actual hyperlinks have terrible, picket-fence kerning for some reason.
  • Please consider upgrading Rookie Help to something less awful. Even Corp chat is better.
  • I'm supposed to click on Aura to start a conversation. Aura-the-agent is located directly behind Aura-the-tutor. Yes, the tutorial window can be moved, but it’s still annoying.


Agent Mission: Covering the Basics

  • Nit: In 06: Ship Movement, Boarding a ship in space, the example overview snippet has a "Targeted Acceleration Gate," but the actual overview shows an "Acceleration Gate (Precise)." I will never see either again, so why not just an “Acceleration Gate?”
  • 06: Ship Movement: Piloting your ship and approaching an object in space: Any reason not to add that using Open Cargo on diamonds (cargo containers) and wrecks will automatically Approach them?


Agent Mission: Combat Basics

  • Room 1: Tutorial Fuel Depot is the first targetable object of interest that does not appear on the overview in its default configuration. No explanation is given.
  • Running the Shield Booster: Aura tells you to rep up to full, but it's nearly impossible to tell 99% from 100% without using the mouse-over. No indication is given that mousing over the shield/armor/hull bars will tell you if they're fully repaired. Also, no indication given that active defenses can be run at the same time as guns.
  • Skill Training Completed during mission. Aura gets around to that later, but an acknowledgement of the red-letter warning would be nice. Red letters usually mean something bad just happened, or the player just did something wrong.
  • 16: Mission 2 Completed: Replacing your old repair module with a much better one: Fitting the Small Shield Booster I causes the Capacitor text to turn from a cheerful green "Stable" to a warning red "Depletes in 00:00:18." No acknowledgement is made of how this is not an error, or what it means. Even a simple "don't worry about that now" would help.
  • 17: Queueing Skills: Starting to train your frigate skills: Example shows Amarr Frigate. I chose Minmatar? Where is Amarr Frigate?
  • 17: Queueing Skills: Learning how to queue up additional skills: Aura says to "Right-click the same skill again and select Train After Current Queue." The actual right-click option is Add to Queue (Level 4).
  • 18: Interstellar Travel: Setting a destination to another star system: The example system is Shesha, in Amarr space. It's a long way from Ryddinjorn. Echoing the actual destination system of (e.g.) Arlek would be a nice bit of polish.


19: Inside the Academy 

  • Retrieving the mission objective from the Academy Office appears to assume that the capsuleer already knows that Open Cargo automatically approaches the selected cargo container.
  • Wallet flashed, because bounties on the two tutorial rats were just paid. The flashing behavior, and the wallet, are unacknowledged and unexplained.
  • 19: Inside the Academy: Ordering the camera to focus on other objects in space: I know this is a bigger problem than the tutorial, but it's very hard to get a sense of scale with "Look at." The only hint that a ship is large is that you have to pull the camera back from battleships and industrials. Even a little rubber-banded popup that had long axis and tonnage would help.
  • 19: Inside the Academy: Using Show Info to find more information: I am intrigued to find out that the Stabber is "one of few[sic] Minmatar vessels that have reached popularity outside Minmatar space."
  • 20: The Mission Journal: Setting a destination from the mission journal: The station name in the example is not the one in the Journal. Aura says to right-click the system name, but it's actually a station name.


Moving Onwards

  • 21: Further Training: Learning about Career Path agents: There is a duplicated paragraph about the career training agents between Aura-as-helper and Aura-as-Agent.
  • 22: Long-Distance Travel: Setting a destination and undocking: The screenshot shows a station in Amarr space, not the station the pilot will be going to.
  • 22: Long-Distance Travel: Using the autopilot to fly your ship automatically: Is this a behavior that anyone actually wants to encourage? Should it be considered a basic feature now that Warp to 0 and Jump are available, and given the greatly increased risk of traveling under autopilot?
  • 24: Career Agents: Docking at your destination and completing your mission: Aura had helpfully clarified that courier missions can be completed remotely. Why is she now telling me that "[n]ormally you can't contact agents remotely, but because you have an open mission with me I'll appear here for now[?]" That's true, taken at face value, but confusing in context. Maybe the whole mechanism is confusing?
  • Aura courteously pops the career agent window for me, and it looks good, but I’m calling it a night.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#3 - 2013-01-20 23:50:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Dersen Lowery
Day 2

  • 24: Career Agents: Learning about Career missions: Aura says that I should now see a new window detailing the various courses on offer, but that was last session. The client didn't remember it was open between sessions, so now it isn't and Aura is misinforming me. There's no obvious way to reopen the window.
  • The Military agent’s up top, so I’ll do that one first. I wonder why the mission is called "Cash Flow for Capsuleers?"


Cash Flow for Capsuleers (1 of 10)

  • Why is the agent impatient with me when I leave his window up and undock? I'm on my way!
  • Orbiting Effectively: Weapon Information: It's nice that I can show info, select the attributes tab, and "make a note" of my weapon's optimal range, but why not mention the spiffy new popup that appears when you hover over the weapon?
  • Aura is telling me to set my orbit to the the range closest to my weapon's optimal range, so I can see how much more damage the weapon does. I have a 125mm Autocannon. Its optimal range is 400m, but the minimum orbit is 500m, and I'm not going to reasonably get closer than about 1200m because I don't know about prop mods and I can't use them anyway. Autocannon users expect to fight in falloff; the Minmatar training script should acknowledge that.
  • Hey, look at all these asteroids. They aren't on my overview by default, so I can't tell them from the other background objects. That must be where the cash flow is. It would have been nice to know that I'd have been better off running the industry career near the bottom to get the Venture I haven't heard of. I lose out on millions of ISK if I just follow the instructions and turn this in, although I don't know that because I'm a newbie.


Making Mountains of Molehills (1 of 10): Because I'm not actually a newbie.

  • Aura tells me that mining is one of the most lucrative careers a pilot can choose, and that Arkonor is the most valuable mineral in existence. The market is a fickle thing; it’s probably best to stick to rarity and leave value out of any static description.
  • Mining: Jetcan mining: Aura is sweetly telling me that I can mine into a jet can and then come back and get the ore in an industrial ship. Too bad I'm on a trial account. Also, the warning that any player can take the contents of a jet can at any time is… broadly true, sort of, except when it isn't. It's somewhat complicated by the latest expansion. Not that I know that, of course. Aura just basically told me that I can steal other people's ore at any time. What happens if I try that?
  • Insuring Your Ship: The Insurance Window: Why does it say I have to select a ship when I press Insure? There's only one ship there! Selecting it is needless make-work.


Back to Cash Flow for Capsuleers (1 of 10)

  • Docking in station gives me an inventory window called "Active Ship," with my ore bay selected because that's what I had open in space. The Item Hangar isn't in the tree, so I open the Inventory to get another window. I drag the ore from the Ore Hold to the Item Hangar, and… nothing happens?! (n.b.:This worked the next time I logged in.)
  • I didn't have the time or patience to mine the mission out completely in my barely-fit and barely-skilled Venture, and my standings and refining skills are pathetic, but the wallet sits at nearly 2.9M. Not bad cash flow for this capsuleer, if someone who's run the tutorials recently lets you in on the right order to do things.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#4 - 2013-01-20 23:50:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Dersen Lowery
Day 3

Cash Flow for Capsuleers (2 of 10)

  • Guns and Ammo: Introduction: "Most likely, the weapon you have been using so far requires no ammunition." Actually, the weapon I've been using is the one I've been given, a 125mm autocannon, and the ammo I've been using is the ammo I've been given, EMP S. I don't know about civilian guns because I've never seen one. Nevertheless, the second 125mm autocannon that I’m gifted with rounds my Reaper out nicely.


Cash Flow for Capsuleers (3 of 10)

  • Stasis Webifiers: Equip the Module: I've opened the fitting service from the station services panel several times now. Maybe it would be worth pointing out right-click -> fit to active ship? Especially since my active ship is a failboat with half of its slots empty? Also, I can always right click the item and select show info from the contextual menu, or I can just hover the mouse over the module. 
  • Come to mommy, Dense Veldspar! Wallet up to 6.7M ISK, and all I'm doing is filling the in-station buy orders at 7% below regional price. You're welcome, Mr. Market PVPer.


Cash Flow for Capsuleers (4 of 10)

  • Shield Tanking: Fitting and preparing: Why on Embod does Aura want me to fit a Civilian Shield Booster, after she so proudly gifted me with the "military grade" Shield Booster I that I'm still using? Now I have two of the stupid things.
  • Shield Tanking: Regenerating Shield: Why does she want me to notice how fast the shield regenerates now, when she showed me that near the very beginning, after I blew up the Tutorial Fuel Depot?
  • The text that appears after I complete the mission says, "Maybe try fitting that afterburner I gave you? It might be helpful next time you need to make a quick escape." Um, no?


Cash Flow for Capsuleers (5 of 10)

  • Afterburners: Functionality: Thanks for telling me about capacitor, Aura. This should really be a tutorial dedicated to the capacitor that pops up as soon as a “military grade” module takes you out of cap stability. It could mention the various ways to boost cap, or the Energy Management and Energy Grid Upgrades skills. Then the afterburner functionality tutorial could mention the Fuel Conservation skill.


Day 4
Cash Flow for Capsuleers (5 of 10)

  • Hey, I can join pirate factions? Cool! How do I do that?


Cash Flow for Capsuleers (6 of 10)

  • The agent is telling me that I shouldn't go to low sec because everyone will shoot me, and I should stay on the side of the law, in high sec. Right from the horse’s mouth.
  • Acceleration gates: Introduction... Wait, seriously? I guess she's finally introducing the concept of deadspace, but in that case, shouldn’t the tutorial be about deadspace?
  • Acceleration gates: Saddle up: What is "a void point of space," and what is a "warp-to list?" It's not my Overview, because I can't warp to everything on there, right? “Background star field” and “Overview” might be better, assuming you meant the Overview.
  • If you select Activate on the Acceleration Gate, then frantically (and successfully) stop your ship because you just realized that you're in your Venture, you get the Mission Rock soundtrack on your way back to the station. It continues once you're in station, too, and after you've switched to your Slasher, and in warp back to the gate.
  • Civilian Stasis Webifier seems to be bugged. It reported that I had to be within 10km of the target to activate it; I was within 5km of every target I tried. It worked for a bit, then stopped, then started again. I have no idea why. 
  • Coming back for the Pyroxeres (yay!) I note that all the dialogs and the Mission Rock are intact. Does that mean that I'm sending my Venture into danger?

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#5 - 2013-01-20 23:50:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Dersen Lowery
Day 5
Cash Flow for Capsuleers (7 of 10)

  • The agent is providing me with a Small Armor Repairer I, with no comment. I can't fit it.
  • Armor Tanking: Fitting and preparing: Aura is effectively telling me to dual-tank my ship, which is already shield tanked from the earlier tutorials. Worse, she thinks she gave me the Repair Systems skill in the "Crash Course," whatever that is, and she didn't: Up to this point, I've only learned about shield tanking, and all my skills are in shields. I haven't even heard of Hull Upgrades yet.
  • A positive note: As infuriating as the Large Collidable Object in this mission is, it teaches the inadequacy of using Approach and Orbit all the time in combat, and forces the pilot to watch where they're going and hone their manual piloting skills.

Cash Flow for Capsuleers (8 of 10)

  • Overview Settings: Appearance: Aura should also explain how the order of things in the Appearance tab is important, and how the order can be changed by dragging and dropping.
  • I'd really like further reading on the significance of the columns in the column tab, since few newbies will intuit the need for one of the four "velocity" options, let alone the reasons to prefer one over the other, and when.
  • The misc tab has been expanded to include "brackets and targets," but Aura only mentions the "move broadcasts to top" option. This part of the tutorial should be expanded on.
  • The resort took my ship into armor! I wish Aura had given me the Repair System skill, so I could use that repairer.
  • I got a Certificate! What's that? Clicking on the little box opens Aura's ten screen spiel about Certificates, which is fine, but wouldn't this be a lot more useful to know before you've accidentally earned one? If not, is there a point to having it at all?
  • Certificates: Certificates (2 of 10): The helpful tooltip telling me to "Press here to access the certificates" occludes the "Open Certification Planner" button that Aura wants me to press.
  • Is there a reason I would not want to claim a certificate? I’m just wondering why there’s a button for it.
  • Certificates: Certificate planning window: Grammar and idiom errors: indicates its status, not it's status. Check, not checker.
  • Certificates: Certificate tree: Not all the starter professions have certificates as prerequisites, so they're not terribly good examples. Also, maybe mention the Core skills?
  • Hey, I got a hull repairer as a drop! I can *triple* active tank! I'll be invincible!


Cash Flow for Capsuleers (10 of 10)

  • Steon is a very patient and considerate pirate. He ejected his pod from the stasis tower and then just sat there waiting for me to kill him.


Making Mountains of Molehills (3 of 10)

  • Manufacturing: Building from a blueprint: "Before proceeding, relocate along with a blueprint and materials to a station with science and industry station services." First, the station in Embod has them, and Aura should probably either know that or tell you to check. Second, it's really fortunate that it does, because undocking with blueprints is not generally considered smart. Surely she means a BPC, whose loss is bad, but not so bad, but still.
  • The next page in the tutorial shows me the Science & Industry service in Station Services. Isn't that backward?
  • You have the right-click option of Reverse Engineering the Civilian Afterburner BPC. At last, the secrets of normals and plebes will be mine!
  • If there are a good 20 lines free, why do I have to pick one? Can the station not assign one? If they're all full, are there no queues in the far future?
  • I followed all of Aura's instructions, only to be told that I don't have a high enough level in Industry. That would be because I don't have it, and I didn't know that it existed. Could the nice agent give me the basic, cheap skill needed for the task, pretty please? Or is this a stealth way to get newbies using the market? Well, it's only a 10 minute wait.


Making Mountains of Molehilles (4 of 10)

  • Yay mining! I hop into my Venture, accept the mission, and… what's this? A Cargo Capacity Warning? Oh, honey, that 70m3 of ore isn't going into my cargo bay. I have an ore bay the size of a small office building.


Making Mountains of Molehills (8 of 10)

  • If I'm making a shuttle in station, for delivery in station, what does it matter that my active ship's cargo bay can't hold a shuttle? This seems like a simple check to add.
  • If there is only one manufacturing job owned by me, and it's ready, why do I have to explicitly select it for delivery? There is no ambiguity about which job I want delivered.
  • I accidentally tried to web an asteroid. I thought the green light thing was there so that I wouldn't have get the "Proceed with this dangerous act" dialog anymore. At least I have an option not to have it pop up again. Then again, I don’t know that, because the tutorial hasn’t mentioned what the green light is for.
  • Huh. If you say 'yes' to the dialog and web the asteroid, nothing happens.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#6 - 2013-01-20 23:50:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Dersen Lowery
Balancing the Books (5 of 10)

  • The agent and the objective both talk about destroying an outpost, but I was able to complete the mission merely by killing the one rat and hacking the container.
  • I'm being given an Overdrive Injector in case I autopilot… with my encrypted Angel Cartel plans in tow? I really don't see the value in stressing autopilot. It made more sense before warp to zero.


Balancing the Books (6 of 10)

  • After I've already bought modules, skill books and minerals in order to manufacture a Burst, Aura is finally telling me about the market. This should pop up when I open the market for the first time, or the first time a mission requires me to use the market (e.g., to build the Burst).


Day 6
On-Board Scanning

  • Finding Cosmic Anomalies: Accessing the On-Board Scanner: Aura has always provided little rubber-banded guides for things I should look at. Why not now? There's no indication of which "icon on [my] HUD" is the scanner. Nothing for the "Analyze" button, either.


An Introduction to Cosmic Signatures

  • Another Burst! My hangar is bursting with them! Why not a Probe?
  • Why is Mission Rock playing even after I turned this mission in?


Gravimetric Site Scanning

  • Ooh, another copy of the Survey skill book. Aura gave me one when she told me about salvaging.
  • Aura does not tell me the most important thing about moving scanning probes, that holding shift down while moving one moves the rest of them the same way, so that your carefully arranged formation holds. I can’t tell you how much agony that bit of information would have saved me when I really was a newbie.


Magnetometric Site Scanning

  • Another Civilian Salvager and another Civilian Analyzer for my collection.
  • Why does Aura want me to fit both onto my ship when the mission only requires one or the other?


Radar Site Scanning

  • Advanced Hacking: What is Hacking: Another Civilian Codebreaker for my collection.


Ladar Site Scanning

  • They give me a Probe just in time for the end of the scanning tutorial. Aura had me train Frigate 4 near the very beginning. That would make the bonuses on the Probe near-optimal, which would make the scanning experience significantly better for new players. Furthermore, Aura could take the opportunity to explain rigging *and* calibration by giving players the Jury Rigging skill and showing them how they can only fit two Gravity Capacitor Upgrades even with three available rig slots. It's wins all around!

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#7 - 2013-01-20 23:50:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Dersen Lowery
Day 7
Angel of Mercy

  • Mission Rock just doesn't stop, does it? I've completed the mission and reshipped, and I'm warping back to pick up the loot, and it only quits--ironically--when I activate the Acceleration Gate to get back in. Is there a toggle that isn't toggling?


Your Undivided Attention:

  • Warp Disruptors and Warp Scramblers: Aura doesn't mention that scramblers can shut off micro warp drives (she just says they're "more powerful"). This may because, to date, nobody has mentioned that they exist, but still it seems like an omission. Also, Micro Jump Drives, which have also never been mentioned (and that makes some sense, given that they’re battleship modules).
  • I like how just scrambling the pirate reduces them to jelly, and you complete the mission by letting him go. But it must be jalapeño jelly, because regardless of what he says, he's shooting at you the whole time. I suppose that part is true enough, except that the mission doesn't tell you that you got played. Nothing about fighting within scram or disruptor range, or getting out, or anything else.


A Friend in Need

  • Shield Transporters: Now might be a good time for Aura to mention that the Burst frigates I've been accumulating are bonused for logistics. Also, Minmatar Frigate 4.
  • The damaged vessel is an Opux Luxury Yacht. Woo. Where can I get one?
  • Shield transporters repair warp drives?
  • The "Logistics" explanation text at the bottom of the mission description should be updated. It says, "there is even a special type of ship engineered purely for the purpose of remote assistance. There are known as Logistics vessels, another Tech II cruiser hull variant[.]" The old tech one cruisers might not have been worth mentioning, but the new ones are, and so are the frigates--especially since every newbie running through the career agents will have two of them.


The Stand

  • The text under "Putting Your Ship on the Line" needs to be updated to reflect Crimewatch 2.0.
  • When I attempted to load 1 Phased Plasma S into three grouped guns, I got a dialog that talked about "partially loading" some guns, but in fact the single charge stayed in the cargo hold. If you try to load n*x ammo, where n is a number of grouped turrets greater than one, and x is less than the full amount the turrets can hold, the load will take ten seconds to fail, and the charges will be split into n piles in your cargo hold.
  • "Elite Federati" was all I could see on my overview, but, wait, the Opux is Gallente… shenanigans! Nice bit of story there, for those who notice. [EDIT: This mission could also be called, "Sensor Dampeners can ruin your whole day."]
  • Mission Rock followed me into station again, and remained after the completion of the mission.


Don't Look Back

  • "More about Afterburners" section: This introduces afterburners and MWDs. Retribution introduced MJDs, and the tutorial should probably mention those.
  • Why am I given the Small Projectile Turret skill book? I have that for free. How about Rockets, or Light Missiles, instead?


Weapon of Choice

  • Why am I being given a Civilian Gatling Autocannon this late in the tutorial? I started off with two 125mm Autocannons, and then was given an upgrade to a pair of 125mm Gatling Autocannons, which I've been firing happily from my Slasher. I have to use this thing, really?
  • Racial Weapon: Projectile Turrets: Weapons and Ammo: Aura, you already told me about damage types and optimal range and how to load ammo into turrets.
  • Racial Weapon: Projectile Turrets: Functionality: Again, I can right-click->Show Info->Attributes to get optimal range, but why would I when there's a perfectly good tooltip?
  • So I put the Civilian weapon on my Reaper and head out, and the fight is a painfully slow grind where the Gisti Hijacker can't get my shields below 50% and I can only break his shield boosts through Keep at Range->500m, which occasionally gets me into optimal range. It would have been much more satisfying to blow him out of the sky with my three 125mm Gats, but oh well.


The Pacifist

  • Is Spider Tanking still enough of a thing to warrant mention as a common fleet tactic? Sure, Slowcats, but isn't the logistics meta more widely used now in general? Might this be a good time for Aura to introduce the fleet UI, and broadcasts?
  • Mission Rap follows me back to station, and through the completion of the mission. It goes away when I undock.


Glue

  • I have a Stasis Webifier I, and I've been given the skillbook to use it. What do I want with a Civilian Stasis Webifier?
  • I can just web pirates and they'll stand down? I wonder why that didn't work in any of the previous missions where I used my web? Why doesn't anyone tell me that other capsuleers will just warp off? And if the pirate stands down, why does he keep shooting at me?


Miscellaneous

  • I forgot where the Overdrive Injector Systems were handed out, but wouldn't Nanofiber Internal Structures make more sense? OIS are niche. Not that it wasn’t fun to fly a dual-injected Slasher around.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Vera Algaert
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#8 - 2013-01-21 00:17:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Vera Algaert
very detailed write-up and I can confirm many of the observations from my own experience (rolled a new lat in December).

my recollection of the NPE in bullet points:
+ new UI (tooltips, ...) is great
+ ample rewards - you can afford to make some mistakes
+ getting shown all my race's subcaps as part of the tutorial was awesome
- some items were awarded without the skillbooks to use them - very frustrating
- some missions had not been updated (such as the one introducing ammo after you have been using weapons with ammo throughout the whole tutroial)
- at one point my amarr character was awarded a small energy turret skillbook - a skill that every amarr character has trained by default Shocked
- the explanation texts below mission descriptions often have little connection to the mission and a new player will usually lack the experience and context to understand them (I dimly recall one such text explaining the role of HICs...). Certainly well-intentioned but in practice just incomprehensible walls of text that get ignored.
- manufacturing times for the industry missions are very long, manufacturing lines in the newbie systems are clogged up (this being EVE probably by older players who want to sell overpriced mission objectives). I lost out on the time bonus for these missions through no fault of my own.
- some ISDs gave bad (borderline wrong) advice to new players in the help channel
- every second tutorial/career agent mission seems to link to Fitting ships at some point - I'd like to meet the person who learned how to fit ships effectively by reading that massive wall of text. My impression is that this wiki site is mostly a big "told you so" that can be linked to in case of failure but that nobody ever reads.

.
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#9 - 2013-01-21 05:17:05 UTC
I think this warrants leaving here as a sort of overall feedback kind of thread as this review of the NPE isn't really going to help a new player understand it any more nor is it from the POV of a true new player either.

I also applaud your efforts in documenting the whole process and the details within.

You kinda justify the reason why I need to make my walk-through video series for all the tutorials because so much of it is left out. Or better yet I should just make my own.

The Drake is a Lie
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#10 - 2013-01-21 05:26:01 UTC
Xercodo wrote:
I think this warrants leaving here as a sort of overall feedback kind of thread as this review of the NPE isn't really going to help a new player understand it any more nor is it from the POV of a true new player either.


Yeah, it's a lot harder to document the omissions from the point of view of a totally new player. Some of the objections are things I remember from when I was green, though.

Funny you should mention helping new players understand the NPE, because I have one of those projects in various pieces right now, building from the notes.

But yes, if I missed anything, or didn't emphasize something enough, please post! The NPE could be amazing. It should be amazing. Right now it looks like something that's been accreted piecemeal over years of time.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
ISD Suvetar
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#11 - 2013-01-21 11:18:50 UTC
Hey,

Thanks for taking the time to prepare this feedback, I've let my seniors at CCP know to have a read.

Thanks!

[b]ISD Suvetar Captain/Commando Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs) Interstellar Services Department[/b]
Turelus
Utassi Security
#12 - 2013-01-21 11:33:46 UTC
Great thread to read and nice feedback given :)

Turelus CEO Utassi Security
Pak Narhoo
Splinter Foundation
#13 - 2013-01-21 11:35:10 UTC

Lol yeah, I was planning the same with an alt which still hangs out in the first NPC corp and there are so many who need help and a few 'idiots' giving totally wrong answers I thought to go through the missions myself to better understand the questions from noobs.

Mind you this alt never has done *any* missions before. Day 2 in the missions I run into a concrete wall because the agent doesn't provide me with the civilian salvager and code breaker. And non are on contracts or on the market anywhere in 20 jumps I gave up.

"Excellence".

At least you think those at CCP involved in the new player experience would had run through them.
Brooks Puuntai
Solar Nexus.
#14 - 2013-01-21 11:40:45 UTC
Instance NPE!

E: Also good write up.

CCP's Motto: If it isn't broken, break it. If it is broken, ignore it. Improving NPE / Dynamic New Eden
Zerb Arus
WormSpaceWormS
#15 - 2013-01-21 11:44:12 UTC
I don't know if this is still in the game, but on some NPE mission where you have to approach something and then warp back to your station, you get stuck when the station is behind that object.
Your ship will wobble for quite a bit until it can finally enter warp.
At that point players I talked to didn't think "maybe I misunderstood the warp-mechanics" but rather "that's an awkward buggy game"

That is one of the reasons why eve is the only game I know that has video walkthroughs for the frickin tutorial!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGV38W9xNH4&feature=related#t=33m10
33m20

The fact that -unlike other games- eve has practically no opportunities for newer players to randomly meet someone IN SPACE and thus learn from or help players of similar age doesn't help either.
And no, rookie chat doesn't count.

Eve is -for the most part- a singleplayer-game.
Othran
Route One
#16 - 2013-01-21 12:17:42 UTC
You're spot on about the combat tutorial arcs. The second arc is frankly a series of "wtf are you telling me/giving me this now for?" moments. Needs a complete revamp so there's some logical progression rather than the current "random series of events" Smile
Othran
Route One
#17 - 2013-01-21 12:22:07 UTC
Pak Narhoo wrote:

Mind you this alt never has done *any* missions before. Day 2 in the missions I run into a concrete wall because the agent doesn't provide me with the civilian salvager and code breaker. And non are on contracts or on the market anywhere in 20 jumps I gave up.


That means you have actually started/completed that arc before - there's 12 agents who offer it so it could have been one of the others. I'm assuming you tried it in Amarr space as all the other regions usually have those items on-market within a few hops of the tutorial systems.
Pak Narhoo
Splinter Foundation
#18 - 2013-01-21 12:32:01 UTC
Othran wrote:
Pak Narhoo wrote:

Mind you this alt never has done *any* missions before. Day 2 in the missions I run into a concrete wall because the agent doesn't provide me with the civilian salvager and code breaker. And non are on contracts or on the market anywhere in 20 jumps I gave up.


That means you have actually started/completed that arc before - there's 12 agents who offer it so it could have been one of the others. I'm assuming you tried it in Amarr space as all the other regions usually have those items on-market within a few hops of the tutorial systems.


Yes, that was in Amarr.

But I'm sure I have never completed any* missions with it before,. This (alt) character is a pure trade alt which had zero standings to anyone.
Lacks even the most basic shooting skills. Oops
CCP Falcon
#19 - 2013-01-21 17:30:59 UTC
Awesome thread :D Cool

CCP Falcon || EVE Universe Community Manager || @CCP_Falcon

Happy Birthday To FAWLTY7! <3
Othran
Route One
#20 - 2013-01-21 17:42:20 UTC
Pak Narhoo wrote:

Yes, that was in Amarr.

But I'm sure I have never completed any* missions with it before,. This (alt) character is a pure trade alt which had zero standings to anyone.
Lacks even the most basic shooting skills. Oops


Maybe starting the tutorial arc (ie talking to first agent) causes subsequent agents (same arc, different location/faction) to omit the items.

I ran a whole load of tutorial arcs last summer to sort out my appalling Amarr standing so I've done them all. Every single tutorial arc from all available agents. The interesting thing was that in Amarr (all three tutorial systems) nobody seems to have exploited the options for enriching yourself by putting mission items/goals on the market. Everywhere else you could buy and complete mission without undocking (where mission allows). Not relevant to the NPE but interesting none the less.
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