These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

New player experience: veteran-led rookie corporations
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Nuneval
Lima Carrillo Research
#1 - 2013-02-07 02:17:46 UTC
As many of us might have heard repeatedly, EVE doesn't have a learning curve, but rather a learning cliff. Making a pair of new alts and helping out as best as I could in rookie chat reminded me how many different pieces need to click for a new player to feel comfortable enough in EVE to strike out on their own. Unlike other games where avatars are running around in skimpy loincloths from the starting zone, new players encounter spaceships and little picture frames in chat rooms. Without strong human contact, many new players might just give up on EVE as something that might be worth their time.

Idea overview: Player led corporations that rookies can automatically be placed in for player created content.

Details
1) Relatively experienced players can volunteer to lead small (~20-30 online, ~400 rookies) corporations that are sorted into various categories. (PvP, Trade, Mining, Missions, Industry, Exploration). These players can be carefully monitored to prevent griefing or rampant abuse of power, but are generally given a special chat color in Corp Chat and a few other powers (part 3).

2) At character creation, new players can choose to enroll into corporations much like they used to be able to pick "starter professions." They are by no means locked into these corporations, but this might be a significant step up from being lost in a sea of faces in current NPC corporations. Veterans can choose to opt out and be placed into an NPC corporation.

3) Once in a corporation, the rookies will have chat access to a few (~5-10) of the veteran volunteer leaders. They might feel much more comfortable asking questions in a quieter setting rather than a rapidly scrolling whirlwind of information. This might help significantly with the learning cliff, and boost conversion from trail accounts to 1-month or longer subscriptions.

4) Player guided rookie content. Veteran volunteer leaders can declare war (if in a PvP corp) against other "rookie PvP corps," thereby giving new players a Red v. Blue style fight without new players having to find out about it. There could be corp-specific missions to get X kills against enemy war targets that give new ships as rewards. For PvE combat corps, veterans can scan down special sites in starter systems that can be accessed only by groups of rookie frigates. For Industry corps, leaders can help with a Live Event style creation of content, perhaps by creating daily corporation missions to produce 500 Light Ion Blaster Is or for the production of 20 Kestrels in a week. This helps new players find direction, get their feet wet, and explore EVE with a social safety net. Mining corp leaders can teach their rookies which tissues are best for wiping away tears.

5) Linkage into a wider social world. If these corps prove useful to increasing new player engagement and recruitment, different corps of different types can be placed into alliances. One of the most beautiful things about EVE, in my eyes at least, is how amazingly connected all the systems are. If new players who love industry can see how their mining buddies are getting ganked by a war target or how their production fuels a major war effort, they might realize that EVE is more than just staring at a "corp jobs" screen or a spreadsheet. If PvP pilots get a glimpse of how pivotal their destruction of an enemy hauler full of high-end minerals is, they might realize that they don't need to be rewarded with purple armor items for PvP to be satisfying.

6) These corporations would have a special form of CONCORD protection. Details can be determined, but it should generally prevent veterans from making alts and killing same-corp rookies. /sarcasm: Perhaps something that can be rolled out with a dueling feature!

TLDR Summary: Let players volunteer to lead newbie corps as a cross between Live Event actors and ISD members. These can either be new corporations for specific parts of EVE such as PvP or Industry, or we can use existing ones
Astroniomix
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#2 - 2013-02-07 02:27:40 UTC
It's called E-Uni, and it's already a thing.
Kahega Amielden
Rifterlings
#3 - 2013-02-07 02:29:39 UTC
I don't get it.

What's wrong with just joining a normal corp? Mechanisms are already in place that allow newbies to contribute to pretty much any corp activity.
Nuneval
Lima Carrillo Research
#4 - 2013-02-07 02:54:21 UTC
Great questions!

1) E-Uni is an amazing corp, but even they can't handle the sheer volume of new players and still maintain a cohesive culture. The last time I saw rookie help, it had a few thousand players in it. Besides, nothing like E-Uni exists in other games or MMOs. How would most new players be expected to find out about it and make the leap to apply before they get bored?

2) Existing mechanics to join and contribute to corporations do exist, but how would a new player know that? In most other MMOs, the most a new player can do to help is kill mobs and pay a bit of tax to the guild. How many new players don't find a non-NPC corporation to call home in the first 14 days? The leap between NPC corp and a thriving player one can be vastly more difficult for a new player than we might expect.

Overall, an MMO thrives in part due to the feeling of community and part of something greater. The tutorial teaches how to play the basics of the game, but in many cases, the player contact will help rookies figure out the why. What would be more inspiring to a rookie?

a) Spawning in a little seed in a lonely station, undocking to see a few random names on a list, running around the emptiness of space, then peeking at the huge channel of strangers once in a while?

b) Spawning in a little seed in a lonely station, corp chat talking about topics that they're interested in. If they're in a PvP corp, the chat might be filled with a Q&A about different types of weapons and their uses. If they're in an industry corp, they might see a fellow rookie happy that they made their first million isk.

For most new players, it doesn't seem like they get as much social interaction as they would in some other games. EVE is, of course, unique, but making it easier/less effort for new players to land in a comfortably sized social group might help with retention and subscription.