Assembly Hall

The just released CSM8 minutes have some fascinating stuff in them, but most of which as a relatively new player I am unqualified to even touch on.

However, one area I think I am qualified to comment on is the concept of the "Social Wall" that was discussed with Dr. EyjoG:

The basic idea is that new players coming into the game who do not discover the social aspects, or who do not engage with it, will quickly leave the game. Essentially, mining and shooting little red crosses or hauling stuff around gets boring, fast, in the absence of a social interaction to make it meaningful.

I can attest to that: I quickly figured out that mining in Hisec was pretty boring, hauling stuff only a bit less so, and ratting only a tiny bit less than that. My thought process was something like, "Wow, what a gorgeous, detailed interesting game"...but like a gorgeous wedding cake that taste bland and cardboard-y. I hadn't gotten to the tasty part, which was joining a corp, interacting with other players, and having "fun".

So, I think if I had not joined a player corp, I would have run smack into the Social Wall, and EVE would have remained a mildly interesting curiosity, but nothing more.


This brings us to the title of this post- overcoming that Social Wall. The minutes offered a suggestion of mentors, but I don't think that's going to be viable. Apparently, neither did the CSM/CCP.

Rather, I suggest a more radical solution- limit new players to 1 month of NPC corp membership. I think those who find EVE is totally unsuitable for them will not renew the subscription, whereas those who are at least somewhat engaged will, and at the end of their subscription they will be informed that the school (Republic University, War College, etc) has "graduated" them, and they have to get a job- a menu box containing a choice of interests (PvP, Exploration, Mining, Fleet ops, Salvage, PI) would then open up, and the characters would be transferred to a player corp which has agreed to accept new applicants from the system.

At that point, a degree of mentoring takes over- "Welcome to Acme Mining" messages and the opportunity for the corp members to mentor/train/woo their draftees. Corps who do well at it will thrive, those who don't will lose the character to other corps, or drive them from the game altogether (which, while unfortunate, is likely what will happen to people who don't overcome the social wall anyway).

For players who decide they need to be in an NPC corp due to wardecs and such- you can always go back to "graduate school" after, say 2-3 months in the game. Or, alternatively, join NPC corps that are not default new-player corps.


I realize this is a rather radical change, but I think it's worth considering.


The minutes also briefly touched on the issue of the gender disparity. I've given that a bit of thought, and while I don't have any really good answers, one thing I think needs to be considered is:"what are female players doing in the game?".

From my (admittedly limited) experience, it seems like the females tend to congregate in carebear corps- Salvaging, mining, hauling, PI as opposed to PvP corps. Marketing these activities might bear CCP some fruit. "Be an Elven Warrior Princess" seems to attract women to games like WoW, so "Be a Rich, Powerful, Femme Fatal Starship Pilot" might attract women to EVE.

Counter proposal.

How about instead of CCP using the stick to drive players where they want them to go, we let fellow players use the carrot.

How about a list of all new characters that CEO's and directors can access. That way we, the players, can reach out to these newbies before they ever strike that social wall.

Keep in mind I'm still a bit of a newbie myself and was fortunate that a veteran reached out to me and brought me into BNI, so this proposal may be riddled with holes, but from my perspective it seems like a good idea.

I would counter that the nature of games always force players to do something. The issue is how well, how subtly they do it, how extensively, and how the players react to it.

But, you have a point- I honestly do not know if this is something that's too over-the-top, or could be modified/nerfed in some way. I would think CCP would have to take a cold, hard look at their data and decide whether they don't have much to lose, in that players who don't get into corps early on will leave the game vs. too-much-stick-not-enough-carrot.

Also, I am coming at this from a non-MMO player's perspective. So I get that more veteran MMO players may have different opinions.

But, I don't see the boon for spies, so much. If you're a spy-paranoid corp, don't opt into accepting new players. Spies would be randomly dropped into one of several corps that meets whatever interest they clicked- so they'd probably be better off leaving right away and joining their target corp...which is basically the current status quo.

Suggestion No. 1: CEOs and directors can join NPC corporation channels.

Example: CEO of a PVP Corporation logs on, joins the Federation Navy Academy channel and starts chatting with potential recruits.

CCP would probably need to do some vetting of the corps that get access to newbie NPC corps to make sure they are newbie friendly corps. Instead of corps just inflating their member count for taxes, or corps that will take anyone but don't provide the help that new players need.

From the minutes: the most significant predictor of whether a new player was retained was
the activities she engaged in.





CSM 8 August 2013 Minutes

Dr. EyjoG said that the data wasn't able to prove that it was in fact a social wall; that
was the hypothesis and they were working on it.


The CSM clarified that engagement was measured by doing things in game, with
someone who only ever did missions being measured as less engaged than someone
who missioned, and had a trader character, and roamed on low-sec on another
character (or even the same one for all three), independent of how social either
character was.


Affinity and Rise noted that the recent study showed some very interesting and
counterintuitive results related to this issue -- preferred activities and sociality were not
correlated, and the most significant predictor of whether a new player was retained was
the activities she engaged in.

Affinity: "Novices that follow the 'traditional path' tend to churn out of the game. Those
that follow the PvE/Builder path retain at a higher rate. Players who go from Novice to
Aggressor (pure PvP) tend to filter out of the game."

A more likely example is a CEO of a Griefer Corp logs on, cons newbies into trusting them, deceives them, and then ruins the game for them.

Why?