EVE General Discussion

I don't think that it's the responsibility of the tutorial to introduce players to player-generated content.
I also don't think that the NPE should be another name for the tutorial.

I think, that while the tutorial is part of the NPE, the NPE shouldn't start and end with the tutorial. Fencing the new players off and feeding them tutorial missioins is fine provided that once those tutorial missions are done we don't say "well that's the NPE, now **** off".

the tutorial should just show people how to do ~things~ in eve, and once they're able to move about in space, and know how to fit modules to a ship, and how to open various menus etc... then we can start worrying about a new player experience. really the NPE should be the bit after the tutorial

Funny how many of you regulars on here have always called other posters risk-averse poons when they mention how AWOXing is absurd and dumb. I've seen how many threads on it where all the usual forum bros come in with their sly comments and tear the OP apart for thinkink AWOXing in high-sec is legal CONCORD evasion. Mittens mentions it and now watch as you sheep start actually considering the logic.

just because we know something is absurd and such, doesn't mean we're not going to abuse it like a choir boy at mass.

The NPE is horrible - as are the tutorials - and highsec is a hellhole. But we leave the majority of the playerbase trapped there because it's considered a 'starter area'. Is it really any surprise so many end up as highsec mission or mining grinding zombies who are often only liberated by chance? Solo PVE is one of the worst activities in EvE, but that's all new players are trained to do. We actively discourage co-operative play by telling them not to trust anybody, and that the game is full of scary monsters who will eat them if they step out of their comfort zone. There's an overemphasis early on about the importance of acquiring ISK and skills, as if you have to grind first to have any fun. As Dave said, the tutorials need to teach core mechanics and useful skills - but would it kill to inject a bit of immersive gameplay, as opposed to 'no ISK, no fun'? It's a stupid message to send as it implies you can buy your way to a better game. Some of Ali's suggestions here looked interesting, although teaching people by frustrating them seems counterintuitive.

Considering rookie systems are supposed to be protected from griefing anyway, ringfencing them doesn't seem like a bad idea. The only criticism I might make is it sounds like instancing, which undermines the selling point of being on a single sharded server, although it's largely irrelevant on your first day. I'm not sure how much impact it will have if new players continue to exit the starter area overwhelmed and clueless, then sit in highsec 'safely' grinding up their raven. An alternative might be to start everyone on Sisi in newbie areas so they can access free mods, maybe play about with some allocatable SP before they start training, try some FFA combat or group PVE, or jump straight out of highsec and have a look around.

There needs to be some way to phase people into the wider universe and demonstrate there are options beyond highsec that you don't need to wait until you have 100m sp to access. We also need to get people into group play a lot faster - even artificial fleets in the starter areas would be better than nothing. I really think breaking the monotony of solo play should be at the heart of improving the NPE rather than mechanics changes that promote an artificial sense of safety. Shouldn't another point be to show people that risk is fun (and rewarding)?

There's also a real problem in terms of vets being able to help new players effectively. We don't all have time to start rookie friendly corps, or sign upto the ISD programme. I see people giving (sometimes horrendous) advice to noobs in help channels, or arguing in front of them over semantics. Example: in rookie help the other night someone asked whether negative sec would result in faction police killing them. One vet (on a starter alt) replied yes, then gave some sec status restriction numbers, whilst another argued that you can evade faction police provided you don't sit on gate etc. Both were correct (sort of), although I think they misunderstood the question, and the discussion just confused the person who asked.

The article makes so many obvious points that most players would agree with, it's hard to believe CCP have only just realised how bad being a rookie is as an experience. The proposed solutions look reasonable, but they look like superficial fixes that don't address the whole.

Saying what has been said a thousand times on GD but some how because it's Mittani.com it has weight?

I don't know if I would be impressed that CCP took note or if they ignored it.

I'm going to throw it out there.

Achievements.

no, stop hitting me with that stick, it hurts.
think about what ccp said at fanfest about the NPE and that game that just had a tutorial of "build a fire" and that was that, it left you to your own devices.

i'm just thinking have something like achievements for the NPE. a list of things for new players to do, at their own pace, whenever they wanted, and totally optional.

"kill another player"
"visit a low sec system"
"visit a null sec system"
"join a corp"
"scan another player's ship using combat probes"
"lose a ship"

stuff like that. after you've shown them that you can do ~stuff~ in eve, sort of go "there's something over there that you can do, go and take a look" and guide them to places where they'll encounter player generated content.

no, more like Al Capone.
the man has a point though, we all know it and in this case its fairly irrelevant who the man is.

The main problem I have with a newbie area is, unless you make it time-limited and utterly useless for anything else, then the risk-averse types will move right in and use it as "ultra-highsec. That means no SP, no ISK, no modules, no ships, no nothing.

The last thing EVE needs is "Stay in the ultrasec newbie zone till you've skilled the max SP you can have there, gathered the max ISK, and gotten the best ship."

I've always thought the best way to introduce EVE to newbies is with a big booming (mostly scripted) fleet battle. Have a scripted FC teach the newbie typical commands and such, show them how a new toon can be useful (Fly over there, web that guy, shoot those drones, kill that tackler), give the basics of Dscan, then drop them into EVE. Have them lose ships in the tutorial in unscripted ways.

Another trick would be to totally do away with the terms "High-sec", "Low-sec", and "Null-sec". Call it "Empire", "Frontier", and "Sovereign", explain how faction police and concord respond in each area, and make it very, very clear that open PVP is allowed, and happens, in all three areas. So, so many people confuse "illegal" as meaning "not allowed", and....well, we see what happens.

If CCP JUST did that, I think it would help quite abit with the confusion some new folks have.

Le Martini desperate for clueless noobs making it to the nulsec phase so his zerg has someone to shoot at.

Wat??? Next thing you know Psychotic Monk will come out as saying neutral logistics is a broken mechanic that should be fixed ASAP... oh wait, he does. And then he uses it to slaughter corps because thems the rules of the game.