EVE General Discussion

I'm an actual new player, started 4 weeks'ish ago. I've never played before and I can provide my point of view of the new player experience....

Within 2 hours of being online a GM contacted me via in game chat and made sure I was OK and that if I had any questions to fire them off. He remained with me for about 30 mins. Told me about the recruitment tab/ channels along with the career agents.
He was extremely helpful and something I've never seen before in any online game I've played.

Starting off in the middle of space was a OMGWT# do I do moment and if it wasn't for the GM I may not have subbed (which I've now done).

With regards to making ISK it seems good with the level of skills I have with which I can fly and the type of space I'm flying in at the moment, it scales IMO very well. I'm stealing cargo, salvaging wrecks, doing the odd missions along with some scanning.

Being recruited wasn't really an issue either, the GM pointed me in the direction of corps that were noob friendly too and who would accept a starter char.

I fully understand that the big corps dont want new players as they dont have time or the inclination to train and teach me what to do and that's just fine.

I would say one negative thing however about the new player experience is that the starting isk wasn't enough, the tutorial missions gave me ships and a couple of guns with some ammo but this wasn't nearly enough to cut my teeth into anything. The starter amount should be increased as as far as im aware its been the same since the game started and everything since then costs more?

Thanks for reading.

"EVE" (it's maker, CCP, as well as ti's community) does want new players, and everyone acknowledges that the "NPE" does and has always sucked. It was so bad that after my 1st day of trying it I didn't play again for a couple weeks till the guy who introduced me to the game brow beat me in to it lol. EVE can and should do better than that.

That being said, "EVE" needs the "RIGHT KINDS" of new player. Players with a sense of adventure, players who aren't looking for some angle to play the 'victim', players who are self starters and self motivators, who have a sense of personal responsibility rather than a sense of false entitlement. And players who are patient and mature rather than the stock immaturity and need for instant gratification of the majority of gamers.

The simple fact is that there are very few gamers that fit the above profile, and CCP isn't very good and finding those that do exist (instead choosing to advertise this game in places where 'normal gamers' ,who aren't compatible with this kind of game, tend to congregate).

True and fair.

Maybe connecting Aura's starting bit (where you first spawn in space) to the rest of the tutorials via an actual mission would help? I remember starting, doing that first small task, and then not having any guidance until CAS directed me to the career agents.

I could be mistaken, as I also remember being heavily intoxicated when I started, as well.

I'm one of those new players - six weeks in - and my early experience does not quite fit the OP's characterisation.

The very first few days, I followed the Rookie channel quite closely. Whilst there are a lot of clowns, who are remarkably easy to spot, there are also several people who take their role as support very seriously and with just a few minutes of watching the scroll go by, you can judge who is being helpful. On their advice, I started the career agents, which was informative, after trying at first to follow the Opportunities and Aura - which was not remotely helpful. The two 'paths' are confusing, so I'd drop the Opps.

The interface is quite easy to get used to in travel terms. Not so much it's complexity, but that's taken care of by reading and practice.

The other group of astonishingly helpful people are the players in the New Citizens Q&A. I can't thank them enough for encouragement when I was stuck.

I should also add that within about ten minutes of starting up, a GM from CCP contacted me on local and spent several minutes checking I had a bit of a clue and pointing me at resources. That was a superb customer service intervention, and made me feel very welcome.

After a few days, I saw a corp advert from what turned out to be great bunch of people, very keen to start with new players and enormously helpful. They got me into faction warfare and very early on, got used to the idea of losing my ships. After a while, it wasn't quite for me, but I have connected with a fair number of helpful players through looking at the Show Info on player profiles and just contacting them if they seem interesting.

I come from a long term home in the original sandbox game, Ultima Online (from the start, man and boy!) so I guess I was more used to being left to sort things out for myself. Without being prejudicial (as I've never played it, only read) perhaps players from far more structured games like WoW find the non-linear approach a tad confusing? Though Career Agents are pretty clear and set one up with ISK and ships rather neatly, so it ought to be simple. (interestingly for me, the OP's complaints are almost a mirror of the same 'keeping newbies' in UO - an old, old sandbox game grown so fearsomely complex that the jargon alone is prohibitive).

Skill points are a red herring in my very limited view. Whatever number one may start with, you're still going to be asking endless questions and required to read vast amounts of information before being remotely useful. Only corporations prepared for that level of interaction can properly accept newbies.

I would agree with Seven Kosanaiken in post #7 however: the corporation search tool is frustrating and severely limited results are mightily unhelpful. I am primarily a role-player, and not only do most corp adverts have no idea what RP is (so the filter for RP is basically useless) limiting the number returned means one will never find many new player friendly corporations unless you get the search terms perfect. Realistic TimeZones are also important. I realise that this is much to do with recruiters being lazy or throwing their nets wide to catch one in a hundred, but it is dispiriting for the 99. I've found it much more useful, as above, to click on players in the same space as me, and read about their corp there and then talk to them. Maybe that's by design?

Finally, EVE is a very different game from most. I think there will always be a significant fall out from new players discovering it's not quite what they want. That's probably good, since the winnowing process is harsh and probably needed. And I say that as someone who paid for a six-month sub, and still isn't sure that this is the game for him. I like finding out though.

The point is valid, but in your attempt to be "right" you allowed yourself to be swayed into insults and aggressive posting, which damaged your credibility.

NPE sucks, it's a fact.

Like I said last year, you buy the game, then you wait.

Somehow I knew the 'enabler-in-chief' would show up defending the intentionally weak and the voluntary victims lol.

No, EVE doesn't 'need' those types (though they are as free to play as anyone else, sometimes people make bad choices in how to spend their free time and entertainment dollars), the game is made better by having and recruiting GOOD/SMART/NON-Victim players, which forces the people who want to beat them (whether with ship PVP, or a scam, or a gank) to up their game (which they would). And up their game themselves without the mechanical "ganking is too easy" interventions you've been championing for years.

Translation "That guy was no big loss, wasn't meant for EVE anyway".

If i got the translation right, I agree totally. I've known people like that in real life by the way, 1 thing goes wrong and they never do that thing again, and that repeats over many other issue to the point where they end up living in a cabin (read: trailer park) alone mad at the world.

Translation: Avoid Trailer parks.

You did.

The state of the NPE is a topic that can be reasonably debated, and there is nothing wrong with having some concern for the newbros.

Having said that:

Suggesting that SP just be handed out like candy for the simple act of creating a character is asinine.

Fascinating!

But!

You didn't think this through.

The coincidence-excuse in our context would be based on the idea that everyone has an equal chance, which isn't the case! Just as much as it's not a coincidence that the tens of thousands of us managed to play the same game and actually have no issues with it being challenging, it's not a coincidence that there's far more people who don't manage to do so!