EVE General Discussion

No, it applies equally to highsec. The only thing that's special about highsec is that aggression comes at a cost. At best, this allows you to gamble that people's miserliness will keep them from attacking you on sight, but that's not always a gamble that you'll win (especially not if you load the dice in the opponent's favour).

So does EVE: it explicitly prohibits harassment, and even non-harassing engagement with newbies are heavily frowned upon. It also offers a progression system that very quickly lets newbies become viable in a wide range of activities (including roflstomping older players).

That all depends on how they're doing it and with what. As for “honor”, if you want to play under such self-imposed restrictions, then by all means do, but don't expect anyone else to.

That's just it: people forcefully imposing themselves on them is the thing new players have to figure out above everything else. Once they get a handle on that, the rest is utterly trivial. Interacting with other players has also time and time again proven to be by far the best way for them to figure out what to do. Even something as simple as going out and getting blown up has a large chance of landing a new player with his first introduction into corp life and into the bigger experience that is EVE online. That is not to say that it must be mandatory, but it certainly isn't something they should be protected against at all costs because that would just be counter-productive.

Typical response from the precise subset of the game population that drive away so many new players.

I could try to explain to you that new players need a pretty decent base under them before introducing them to the tender mercies of the likes of the James crowd, or tippia, or goons, or any other bunch who enjoy hammering new players.

But it would fall on deaf ears. Your definition of sandbox means imposing your will and playstyle on anyone who wanders by, regardless how destructive that is to their playstyle, and consequences be damned, including your victim quitting Eve. In fact, many of these "elite" players revel in how many people they drive from the game.

We are also the handy ski-lift gondola that lets them skip to the top without having to struggle with crampons and camming devices.

…teaching players all the curious ins and outs of the game if they approach it with a curious mind rather than stubborn presumption. You're just to blinded by your paranoia (or whatever it is you suffer from) to notice what's actually happening, and instead of trying to find out, you fill in the vast yawning chasm of wilful ignorance with some pretty hilarious (and/or disturbing) figments of your own imagination.

In fact, none of us do either of those: we don't drive people from the game and we certainly don't revel in it. We rather prefer that new players learn how to play the game properly.

What drives new players away more than anything is when they have presumptions about how the game work and little to nothing is done to explain that those presumptions are actually incorrect, and when they are scared away from the critically important social elements of the game by players who keep lying to them about how supposedly horrible those elements are.

If you think goons deliberately target newbies, then you are grossly mistaken. We love new players.

We recognise that it's far better to leave them alone so they can spend time being coddled by hisec mechanics for a few years so they can grind their way into a blue moduled autism chariot. Then we shoot them. If that causes them to leave the game because they can't handle losses then :shrug:.

New players should get used to the idea that their ships will die. often. The tutorial does demonstrate this, but sometimes I think it doesn't really sink in for some people.

If someone decides that the proper response to not understanding a game is to try to ruin it for everyone, do you really think this is the kind of person the community should welcome and embrace?

There are a lot of people out there that do the things they can't do in real life. There are also a lot of really really nice people that will help you.

Oh and you do get to punish them in the long run :)

Not sure I get your point.
New player tries out game.
Doesn't understand, loses ships.
Community tells him to gtfo, nobody tries to teach or help him.
Newbie leaves.
We all pat each other on the back, we didn't want him anyway.

Newbie was trying to ruin the game for everyone?

That's right. OP probably made the wrong choices.

If you show the right attitude after getting ganked, you're likely to end up having some nice chats with those "evil" gankers. And newbies may get a hint or two on how to avoid further misfortune.

...giggles maniacally