EVE General Discussion

This is another EVE vs WOW and how EVE needs to do better at retaining new players.

Most of the threads that I see comparing EVE and WOW haven been done by players that have a miss-perception of either of games, at least in my POV.

The main miss-perception is that in WOW there's no effort or skill needed to play the game. One could play EVE in a venture in a 1.0 system filling up buy orders that pay 50% of what the ore is worth. Or this effortless/skill-less player can decide to do entry level PI, entry level industry and perpetually run lvl 1 missions.

In WOW the journey from level 1 to level 90 is to teach the new player how to play their class well. One could do everything in his power to not learn the game despite the game spoon feeding the new player a new skill, concept or mechanic at every few levels. A reasonable gamer is able to get to max level in about 1 month playing moderately. The real game begin at max level, where one needs to know their character and their team mate's characters inside and out to complete PVP and PVE challenges. At max level there's no room for lack of skill or effort, you either play well or you'll find yourself in the equivalent of loosing a deck t3 cruiser to t1 frig faster than you can figure out what happened.

If haven't convinced you how much skill one needs to play WOW try the free trial.

Back? ok... so now that we have determined that EVE and WOW can both be played at a high skill level or at a level no skill is needed, I would like to move on to the point of the thread.

What lessons can CCP learn from Blizzard when we compare their respective games?

One puts their id and password for the first time, there's no character selection, you go strait into the trailer and your pumped. Next your ship's in warp and you get “someone” talking to you, not something you have to read. The dude talking to you explains that you an reinforcement on this huge battle, you come out of warp and its like a scene from the dominion trailer, lazer beams, missiles and explosions. The “someone” is directs you on how and who to target, how to shoot. One of the enemy gets destroyed and the “someone” tell you to loot the wreck and take it out of there. And so on... At each step you don't move on until you complete the very basic task. The same can be applied to navigation, the overview, professions... Having all these mini tutorials will ensure the player is no bombarded with a wall of text once their first log in.

In closing most of us know what EVE “end game” looks like and people try EVE because they see the “end game” in you-tube videos and hear their friends tell them about it. But when they log in there's no one talking to them, their no massive fleet, and their no explosions. As the game progresses the training-wheels slowly come off, when player-player interaction takes over from the mini tutorials.

Any CEO or FC will tell you that the most important asset in game is people. If new people don't keep coming and learning how this game is great, the current players will become bitter vets and move on.

Thanks for reading.

This is a topic discussed to death in recent times and we know from Fanfest that player retention is on CCPs radar, especially due to the poor rate of retaining new players.

In my view there is a huge disconnect between the focus of the NPE and the reality of what keeps people in the game. The NPE experience focuses on solo PvE play. When someone finishes the basic tutorials the natural question is: what next?

The what next is often the epic arc missions or mining because that's all the NPE equips players for.

It doesn't equip them for the social aspects of the game, nor for interaction with other players - wanted or otherwise. The NPE also doesn't equip players with the skills to begin determining their own play, rather than being spoon fed by the environment. Those are the things that engage people and keep them in the game.

But as always, my view is just my own and there are many other valid reasons that contribute too.

I'm not so sure retaining new players is as much of an issue as is retaining old ones.

+1 on that too.

I hope CCP doesn't 'abandon' (for want of a better word) their traditional customers, particularly those in nullsec, while they gear up to focus on retaining new players.

Both are essential and eventually aspects like sov need to be addressed or people will go inactive.

The reason there is a divide between the two games is because they are designed in two completely different ways. WoW is a themepark and EVE is a sandbox. Furthermore, WoW has a business model designed to appeal to the most people it possibly can, which inevitably means the lowest common denominator. EVE, on the other hand, is a niche game that has more complexity, a higher barrier of entry, and an unforgiving gameplay environment. The result is that there will never be the same new player retention in EVE as there is in WoW because of the fundamental differences in the two games. The ruthless pvp, scamming, griefing, fierce competition, and lasting consequences to your mistakes are both the best and the worst things about EVE and will always continue to drive the majority of people away from the game. But CCP is correct in focusing on the new player experience even so, because of those that remain interested after seeing all that is good and bad about EVE, everything possible needs to be done to keep their continued interest. In this way the game can not just survive but also thrive and expand and we can see even more content and more sand in the sandbox.

The real misconception is that any MMO takes actual skill. Real mechanical skill. I can't think of a single one that does, including EVE. MMOs require knowledge of the game and time. Examples of games that require mechanical skill would be games like StarCraft, Dota, Counter-Strike, etc.

I'm guessing the much wanted "industry in nullsec" changes haven't brought the waves of people that were going to live there, and they still can't figure out why.

Is it the same in other MMOs? This notion of players having absurd illusions of being responsible for somebody's business, I mean.

I think this is one of those "psycho" aspects of our community: we propose ideas of new features, we propose solutions to existing problems, we propose solutions to possible problems that out ideas could cause, we spend hours writing feedback to devs, we spend hours testing new features and fixes, we discuss financial problems of CCP, we discuss their HR tactics and recruitment and who leaves and who stays, we discuss why new players leave, we discuss why vets leave, we discuss how to prevent those both groups from clashing in some kind of class war but at the same time how to cater to both of them and nurture them and let them grow and...

Is it the same in other MMOs?

Except WoW has no appreciable death penalty.

No this is not trammel, not in the least bit. I guess fools could make a Trammel but I have more hope for CCPs creativity.