Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Most of you remember the initial chain of missions you got when you first started EVE, right? Go out in your pod, collect your first rookie ship, then get your first weapon, your first defensive module, and begin working your way up from the bottom?

And there are always complaints about newcomers to EVE whining about being caught off-guard by the Darwinian take-no-prisoners attitude of New Eden, as opposed to the more forgiving game worlds one can find elsewhere.

So the thought hit all of a sudden:

What if, in the first string of missions a new character gets from Aura, before that character's accumulated much beyond a rookie ship and a basic gun, there's a mission where the character is given a fairly straightforward objective, but somewhere along the way, in a scripted event, the new character gets ganked?

And not just ganked, but podded, to boot. Ship gone, escape pod destroyed, wake up in the home station with the mission failed.

Then Aura explains that this is an occupational hazard for capsuleers in New Eden, that they'll sometimes be hunted down and killed for no apparent reason at all, that the ship and equipment and cargo are essentially lost beyond recovery, but luckily the rookie ship and gun are easily replaced ... this time.

Advantages: the shock might give new players an honest view of what might be waiting for them out there. This would only require the scripting of one simple mission (and variations for the various empires). Losses for the new player would be relatively minor at this point, and easily replaced within the framework of the tutorial, while driving home the point that anything a player loses in battle is gone.

Possible problems: if not properly programmed, the mission might not result in the destruction of the player's ship and pod, and might break the tutorial chain. Can NPC hostiles be programmed to engage a player in such a way that survival is impossible, and also engage and destroy the player's pod? (Say, rats using CONCORD parameters, but can CONCORD engage pods?)

(Edited to note: this would be in the initial Aura tutorial mission chain, distinct from the military career tutorial missions in which you're instructed to go out on a "suicide mission". The purpose of the "gank" mission would be to use shock and surprise to teach the player about loss in EVE.)

That's in one of the military career missions, I think, and you're told up front that your ship is expendable. My idea is that the lesson might be more memorable for new players if it comes as a shock and a surprise, including the pod kill, while being early enough in the tutorial chain that it's easily recoverable.

Yeah, that might be useful ... but as an Aura mission, and not one of the tutorial agent missions.

Let her have a laugh at your expense -- re-work the "go get a noobship" one, so you get in, and are immediately nuked

I'm not much of a fan of organized and subsidized suicide ganking, or scamming, myself, but that's not really the point; my point is that perhaps newcomers to EVE need a surprising, shocking introduction to just how vulnerable any player can be, and it might be best if that introduction comes within the first chain of tutorial missions, as a teaching moment.

When I started I was given a ship and 5000 isk and told to get on with it. When I died Aura laughed at me and called me a clumsy pilot.

Good times.

"I don't believe in the no-win scenario", James T. Kirk

Found the carebear.

Which is funny because I do indie a lot and have been ganked before
My solution was to tank, then when I got ganked again look through why, swapped ships entirely and am currently in a darwinian fight with the gankers to survive.
They are now down 5 vexors, 2 tornados, 5 thrashers, 2 catalysts, and a very bizarre moa incident, to my continuing badger
And when that dies I have a super nereus (over 1k dps tank)

I firmly support the idea of moving the mission to aura, or actually adding a few more instances of it into the tutorial/career missions. And don't give a blatant warning that their ship is expendable. Let them go in just like they did the last 1 thinking it'll be EZmode.
Don't make it so their ship gets blapped, just make them face off with a ship that scrams them and is clearly stronger and have them sit there and watch as their HP drains away while they pitifully try to survive. Have it neut them too so it is an inevitable death. Also don't make it happen to a rookie ship, have it kill their condor or merlin that was given to them by the chain earlier. After they die and the game tells them to warp out and run off, it brings them back, gets them set up with another ship and starts the explanation of heres how to tank your ship and a couple fitting pitfalls to avoid.
Then a few missions later after we've learned that ABs and tank are good and important, KILL THEM AGAIN. Nothing in Eve is unkillable.
Have it be at this moment that they introduce you to the other ship lineup (like going with caldari so far. Before you had a merlin, gunboat, have this mission kill you by a fast tackle that orbits under your guns. Introduces you to the concepts of tracking, and in the case of factions that have them, the other weapon system lineup. Missile/drones).
I think at least 4 deaths over the course of the tutorial and all the career agents might be a good start.


As a side note I am seriously looking forward to the new "Burner" missions. Heck a mission that I might lose my ship. Can't wait, too bad I can't get on the test server.




Lol, fit em right, and badgers r tough as nails



Dude seriously, "0 risk"
Just remember, most of the ganks take several characters/accounts to pull off (and those are pretty expensive nowadays to keep running) you might not get any good loot. Theres no insurance on your ships so its a full loss (hence why many ganks are done with cheap T1 dessys) and even then, you might sit there for a whole afternoon waiting for a target worth it to come by. Where's the risk? Hours of time wasted really. And don't forget, you've gotta scan almost every ship flying in and out of the gate for if its worth it. There are countless channels that can be joined that try to keep track of known gankers and their scout alts.
And more than 9/10s of suicide ganks can be avoided by simply tanking your ship/bringing a friend. (since most gank whines lately seem to be haulers getting shot up trying to drag freighters with 20bil of stuff in them)

actually, there is already a security mission chain that allows you to sit on a gate and gank a scout coming through. Seems the amount of players that revisit lvl 1's is skimpy in this thread.