Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So, as a new player, I feel like I'm something of an expert on the challenges faced by new players. I'm also actually a new player, not someone returning after a long absence, not someone on his 5th alt.

Some of what I point out might sound kinda stupid to folks who have been doing this for a while, after all it's all common knowledge to all of you. Some of this is stuff I'm just now figuring out (or still haven't figured out).

Chat:
I'll start with Chat, it's the most important thing for new players. Whatever information they don't get from Google (or UniWiki) they'll be getting from chat, and there is a ton of stuff you can do in chat... link names, link items, link ship fittings, link ship fittings for ships you don't even have but that you've saved (), write in italics, bold, underline, and probably a bunch of other stuff I don't even know about. If you're in the rookie chat and you look through the links provided in the MOTD you won't find any chat help. If you look through the links provided in the NPE link you also won't find any chat help.

Now, they're all simple things that anyone could tell you how to do quickly, easily, and no one would MIND helping you out. But after you've spent the last 45 minutes asking all kinds of questions, and feeling like you simply don't know anything you don't want to have to ask about something as simple as linking names in chat, after all, it can't be that hard, can it? Right click, ctrl+right click, ctrl+left click, alt+right click...... you get the idea.

Now, I think adding a tutorial for something as simple as chat would be just silly. On the other hand chat is a little too big for a tool tip. So give it a quick reference sheet. Put a little bar at the bottom of the chat, just about the box you enter text into. Have it say something to the effect of, "Click here for chat help. X" You click the link, it brings up a quick reference guide with all the stuff you can do in chat. If you don't want to see that message ever again you click the X.

Compare Tool:
You know I was in the game for probably a week and a half before I knew that thing existed? I know. I'm a bit slow sometimes. It i s kinda hidden though, and whe new players have so much stuff to learn sometimes they don't spot things right away, or go looking for them. The compare tool is one of the best utilities Eve has for new players, if only they could find it.

So add it to the right click menu. Little choice saying "Add to compare tool" add it to item information, right beside the "View in market" button add a "Add to compare tool" button. People will notice it their first day, and life is good.

Modules&Market
There are modules to do anything you can think of. I'm still too new to even know what does what or what goes where, and that's the problem. So, I'm trying to fit my ship. Now, I could always just go to one of the dozen or so sites that offers ship fittings, and use one of those, but most of those assume higher skills than I have. I could ask in chat, but without listing all of my skills for everyone, they won't know what I can fit, besides, I'll never learn if I don't try doing some of this myself.

So I start fitting my ship, I know I want some guns here, so I go into the market and find the turrets and that's pretty straight forward. I put a few other things on my ship and now I've got an empty high slot, but no turret hardpoints or rocket hardpoints left. So I wanna put something else in that high slot. What should I put there?

This is where the market and modules becomes a mess for a new player, because unless you go through each item looking at the fittings page you have no idea what your options are, and there are enough modules to make this a seriously daunting task. There are some solutions though.

First: A toggle to list ship equipment by slot. Leave everything in the category it's in, but then have those categories listed under High/Mid/Low. So while using "View By Slot" you could look under "High" you'd see "Engineering Equipment" and under that you'd see "Energy Vampires" but you wouldn't see "Capacitor Boosters" or "Auxiliary Power Boosters" or anything else that isn't fitted to high slot.
Second: The ability to select what type of ship you're looking for (not everything that can be fit on a capital can be fit on a frig).

These shouldn't be the default, but should be options someone can select to rearrange the market to be a little more newbie friendly.

It's a couple small ideas to make the beginnings of the game a little more new player friendly.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and for all the work you do.