EVE General Discussion

I see no problem here.

Oh, lookit! It's one of these threads that people disagree about stuff.

More accurately, retaining new players is simply not an, "At any cost" issue. If it's, "Keep Bob the consummate carebear," Vs. "Keep the soul of the game intact," Bob can take a hike. In the big picture, he is, in fact, a less important customer.

Why isn't eve more popular? Because its a hard game. Most people can't cope with a difficult game. This is why WoW has 11 million users. It has a low learning curve. It doesn't require you to think, just have fast reflexes on the keyboard, know when to pop your cool-downs, and don't stand in the fire.
Eve requires thought, research, and planning. It also requires long term co-operation while making sure to watch your back. Most people don't want to invest that sort of commitment to a game. They want instant gratification or at least a guaranteed payout for their invested time. Eve has no such guarantees.

I suppose much of these expectations revolve around how game developers dumb down their games in response to the whiners complaining that it takes too much effort and want things given to them or they leave. Developers in response watch churn rates and realized that if they make the game simpler the churn rate goes down and money pours in. An analogy would be games go from Chess strategies to checkers strategies to tic-tac-toe strategies to bankruptcy. The developers don't care as long as the money train keeps pouring in. WoW is in its checkers stage. Another year or so and they should hit Tic-Tac-Toe stage.

Be grateful that Eve is one of the only games that has bucked the trend and become more complex over the years.

I think that research just shows that 19 in 20 are liars!

Eve isn't popular because at its core it's an economic simulator, not the Internet spaceship game it purports to be. Nothing wrong with that. It's a pretty good economic sim, but that's what it is as anyone can see what with all the spreadsheets. And more spreadsheets.

Oh, and more spreadsheets.

Protip: not everyone gets a bursting erection over spreadsheets.

Yeah. I know. Hard to believe.

This is why you are warned from the start it is a very real possibility

Where as being trained up to run raids and do mindless grinds IS conducive to attracting and retaining new players, quineg?

they cant "fix" the game (the sense op is talking about) without breaking it(making it WoW like) and even then it wouldn't be fixed
but what they could add are some cool stuff for the 40% solo that do stay
for instance, avatars in eve are nice i'd argue they are on the best in current mmos, I can relate to my character that way
Skins for mining ship are another nice thing when they introduce them..
really just small little things can us half-carebearish players glad.

I'm content with the game as it is and don't want CCP to radically change anything
WiS or any iteration of it would be nice though, real nice..

TL;DR Answer

New "gamer" - is lazy and stupid.

Solution

New "gamers" are a cancer

As a relatively new player in regards to the quoted items:

I think it's problematic for CCP to link players to specific player friendly, player driven corps. They'd have to constantly evaluate and validate the corps on that list, whether they're still fulfilling the requirements to be there.
And even in the most newbie friendly corps, and maybe especially in those who take newbies without a lot of questions, the risk to have some "bad people" who might kill a newbie corpmate is existent, I think. Imagine that headline: "Newbie scammed and killed for following CCP's instructions" ..

I do agree, though, that the importance of a player corporation should be emphasized more.

I found a corporation pretty quickly once I started looking for it (after 2 or 3 weeks of playing). It went roughly like this:
I read a few recruitment threads in the forums, found a corp description I really liked, joined their ingame channel and after a short conversation I was told to apply.
They offered to transport my stuff to their home system. My only precaution against being scammed was to liquidate most of my posessions so that I wouldn't lose too much in case they decided to steal from me.
Well, they didn't scam me, were very helpful, and I'm happy to have taken this opportunity. I just hope I'll be able to properly repay them, as lately I have been online not very often and at bad times.
Maybe I was lucky, but it didn't seem that hard to me.

As for the spreadsheets: With a reasonably-sized display (not talking anything fancy, run-of-the-mill 1920x1080) I can already enjoy quite a nice view while still having important information like the overview and local chat and other chats and fleet window.
I have to admit, I wasn't in really big fleet fights so far, but whenever I play I still get to enjoy how nice Eve looks, at least I think so.
Sure, it'd be nice if you could get rid of the overview and so on.. but I can't imagine it to be easy to find a better, less voluminous way of displaying the necessary information.