EVE General Discussion

I'm a relatively new player myself. I made my first account five months ago. I want to thank for this topic. I find it to be more helpful to the new Eve players, and not only, than almost all the other topics in the EVE New Citizens Q&A combined. Why is that? On one hand, it is an insightful presentation on what Eve really is and on the other hand, it begs CCP to do the right thing for new players.

The most valuable lessons are the ones labeled with "you shouldn't do this". What is it?

The lesson that the new players can learn is that Eve is Eve (I know how it sounds, you don't need to comment on it), not another game they previously played and mastered in more or less a week.

I know most of you think Eve is harder than other games. I don't know if that is true or not. I don't have either the time, either the will, to try out all the games one can invent, but I don't find Eve to be hard at all. It is harsh, I can agree on that. You do something dumb and you will be punished in most cases. Anyway, once a player joins a decent corporation, Eve actually becomes almost a trivial game. What still holds true, even for a player in a top corporation, is this: don't do stupid things because you'll have to pay for them.

Therefore, Eve being Eve is the most valuable lesson of all. You can't come to Eve with the mindset you played other games and expect to work. It will not. The problem of the new players is that they don't know this. These other days, various Eve player run blogs discussed the topic of the new players for the "put a high number here" time. They suggested ways for CCP that could make Eve more accessible to new players. To my knowledge, they all followed the Eve is complex, and as such, it has a high learning curve, and … the usual "everybody knows that" line of thought.

I think that, with the exception of the five percent of psychopaths, all the others gamers are nerds deep inside them. The Eve is complex and, hence, this is the main reason why most people don't make it, sounds somewhat insulting. The main reason new players don't stick with Eve is that the new players experience is not, in most cases, Eve like.

On top of that, or maybe better said - part of that, are the tutorials. We all like pranks, well most of us anyway, but none of us likes to be the subject of a prank or do we? The new player's experience, for so many of them, feels exactly like this: a CCP prank. You have a WOW like tutorial: go there, do that, come back etc. and then the insertion happens to be in Eve. You fly your shiny battleship, you worked your ass for it for only you know how long and then "boom": Armageddon happens. Shortly after, once again - in most cases, the rage follows "What the hell was that? Hmm, is that possible? There was nothing like that in the tutorials! **** this ****! I'm out!" Replace the example above with anything you want that is unique to Eve. The essence of it remains. It feels like CCP made a prank on you. If CCP does want more players, it can start but not playing pranks: "CCP: Are you a new player? Great, take a WOW tutorial! Did you take it? Yes! Wonderful, go and play Eve now! You're ready! "

Nevertheless, there may be a good side to all this, at least for CCP. When one is willing to suck it up something like that, it is because he sees the other side as a friend and no harsh feelings persist. In Eve case, it may mean few, but long-term, loyal customers. It crossed my mind, that what I call the CCP prank is their way of choosing loyal customers over just customers. However, this doesn't change the fact: new player experience feels like a CCP prank.

Don't get me wrong, I don't ask for a different Eve. I'm just making a case for an honest introduction of the new players to Eve because it is what I think new player's experience lacks. By the way, this should be CCP's job, not EveUni's job, i.e. Eve like tutorials.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this, to troll it, whatever…, and - yes, like 99% of the Eve girls I'm not a girl. Thanks for reading.

edit: ccp not cpp, oops.


[Edit: Personal attacks removed, CCP Phantom]

Issue is: CCP can't make a tutorial that revolves around Player interaction. As you can't script it into a tutorial how a player reacts to another player.

I say...go back to the old tutorials: Here is your ship, here is the undock button...Go forth and multiply.

I doesn't give a false sense of security nor does it push anybody into any sort of mindset.

EDIT:

And the whole EVE-Uni part.

Another fine example of emergent gameplay where the players make the game and CCP just provides the tools to do it.

“PvE-based NPE does not prepare players for a PvP-centric universe”.

It used to, but then CCP banned PvP stuff directed at newbies in Rookie Systems.

So, yes, the OP is completely right about CCP playing pranks.

I'm a pretty new player myself so I have the Rookie Help channel open. It's nice for things like, "What does a blue container mean?" But 99% of the time, the reason a player can't get through the "Click this button to undock and then go here and click this button to board your rookie ship" tutorial or the career agents is because they just haven't read what CCP is telling them to do. Yes, the font is small. Yes, there's a lot of it. But it does explain to you what high sec and low sec and null sec mean and it tells you that even though NPCs won't shoot at your pod, other players will. The tutorial even warns you about the potential dangers of autopiloting. (I'm pretty sure I could have my entire apartment mopped, dusted, and vacuumed in the amount of time it took me to get to Arnon from Uitra, but I'm not autopiloting.)

I don't think it felt like being pranked at all. I think CCP is making an honest effort to make the game as accessible as possible to new players, but new players can't just skim the mission journals. You're right that the game really isn't that difficult, but I there is a complexity to it that doesn't exist in other MMOs.

I'm sure the tutorials can be improved upon, but I'm not sure how. So far, all I know is that I'm enjoying my very early PvE experiences in EVE, and I know that when it comes to a lot of things, I still have a lot to learn.

It's a buff the tutorials thread. Because the OP contends the tutorials are a joke which don't fully prepare new players for the harshness of EvE. The player in her link apparently didn't realize that starting a corp while new isn't a good idea cause wardecs.
But the tuts are not a prank . I can agree that maybe some more information could be incorporated minimizing experiences such as the one in the linked thread, but mistakes are usually the best teachers, providing perspective no tutorial could.
Having gained that perspective as well as some wisdom from veteran players on this forum, you have to decide if this game is your cup of tea. If it's not, don't complain on this forum. Just find another game.

Im pretty new aswell tbh an in all honesty im starting to bend towards "CCP dont have a clue what they want to do"

I luv the game an i will be sticking with it but the more i play the more it just seems well messed up.

Im wrong ofc i always am lol it just seems sometimes that they have had numerous ppl in charge at different times and they all had different visions of what the game should be and what im experiencing now is the result of that

You can't have EVE's enormous amount of content and expect a comprehensive tutorial. If you did have a tutorial covering everything that could possibly happen to you when you undock, new player retention would likely be a hundred times worse. Imagine listening to Aura's inane rambling for a few weeks every time you log in.

"Oh look, you've opened the "People and Places" window, let's spend an hour or twenty going over every conceivable use. Hey! You've opened the map window! Let's analyze EVERY filter in the star system view!"

The bare bones tutorial isn't a prank or a problem. Adding much more would make it an even longer tedious mess. This is a huge sandbox game, not a cell phone game you learn in 2 seconds.

Who are CPP ?

I do agree that the NPE could be tweaked some. Honestly maybe a big disclaimer saying that by undocking you consent to PVP interaction would be a good addition. At the very least it'd help with the confusion.