EVE General Discussion

I agree, only moreso.

ITT:

Carebears mad that CODE is more relevant than them and they know that they will never ever be relevant by pressing F1 in that nth Damsel in Distress mission, AFK mining, AFK autopilot hauling or perma station trading their entire EVE life.

Any number of individual scenarios are possible to imagine and there would be someone who fits into it.

New player, learning game doesn't get ganked, doesn't really get into the game. Says this is stupid and moves on.

New player, learning game gets ganked, etc. as a new player without knowing mechanics. Decides to ask, makes social contacts. Loves the game and stays.

New player, learning game gets ganked. Gets mad. Never had such an emotional response to a game before. Falls in love and starts pvp himself. Stays with the game.

Etc.

Individual stories don't really mean much, other than being individual stories.

Unless backed by data, they certainly don't represent any sort of general case. CCPs data for example suggests that only a small percentage of new players get ganked and there is a correlation that those that do are more likely to stay with the game than if they weren't ganked.

The hypotheticals is a real difficult position to play. People tend to use only the examples that most benefit them to prove their point, i am no exception. I think that was the point you were meaning with the individual stories?

It isn't the gank that gets a person into it, it is the knowledge that does. I think it is very rare that an experience where a person thinks it is great to be attacked as newbs. it is more the explaination afterwards when asking what just happened. The reason why they might stay longer is now they know that eve has something different.

That correlation data, it is something I see far to often in my business. People see numbers, but fail to account what is included. Misinterpretation of which typically is a loss where they see gain. People ganked are more likely to stay than if weren't. How does one prove that? you cannot. They have two numbers. longevity of people ganked, vs longevity of people not ganked. Now let us put it into a profit point of view, something I have never seen talked about in these numbers. Divide them, including trials into ganked and not ganked.

What is average sub rate and total duration per player? Is the non subbing count of ganked players higher? Sure. You gained a year on one, but what is the point if it cost two years worth of short term subs. Doesn't pay the bills. I don't have any numbers handy, and not even sure if CCP has or has released said to consider it fact. But would fit logically.

I lost an industrial when nub, autopilot when loaded. Seven years in game, and the fact I got ganked has zip to do with it. It was a few years before I left highsec. My dollars no different than a pvper's. Difference is I show new players and work with em. I fly an oracle commonly in the epic arc stuff to show them the big parts of eve. I bet my success on creating subs is a hell of a lot higher than a gankers.




Wait, so you are saying it is bad that players know in advance Eve is hostile and take preparations before they undock? You just said what I was saying exactly. Why is it every time I talk about giving the newbies knowledge to be able to counter ganks and scams right from the start, that is a bad idea?

I mean it, why is it bad? The only person that knowledge negatively affects is the pvp carebear who is only good enough to kill an afk mining venture? Shoot, a one minute video saying criminals about, take guard, etc and done. Nobody can complain, they were warned. They see it and ask those questions right from the start.

"What did that video mean about pirates attacking haulers/ganks/or however it is phrased?"

Empowering newbs to counter must be a bad thing. I thought eve was a pvp game? should we promote it as a pvs, player vs station?

EDIT: I had done it for years. Working with indies and pve/highsec people on effective countermeasures for war decs and ganks. Quite successfully. Some (more than just a few) of em ready to quit because pvpers don't know how to train pve peeps. I also know of quite a number of them which have gone on to play for many years now in low and null sec.

Reason is, I KNOW there is more than one way to fight in eve. That different people have a value of what a WIN in a fight is. I teach these alternatives. I empower new players, and I do it without months and months of training to become some mediocre DPS only. I trained my newbs to be combat support while we ran DPS. Our first and foremost goal was to stop the enemy offensive, kills came second.

Point is simple. There are way more than a few people that are in this game, and have come to me years later wanting me to join their alliance as an instructor. Bitter carebears who took the step to pvp and stayed on for years more. I bring players in, not drive em out and convert them over.

But if I was still on trial, and only a few hours into game, and suddenly getting ganked running missions, etc? I never would have started to enjoy eve. I woulda just passively gone, "boy, this is dumb" and left. Isn't just my sub, but the communities that I helped work and develop.

We are usually quiet, but serious players. Don't here from us, but make up more than you think. Majority of em leave and don't think twice about eve. How many "Me-type" players left, just cause "what a dumb game" misconceptions.

An intro vid that explains this? Well, we would know, and would make it part of our play from the start.

Good catch, my bad....Late night posts, and I am bad for skipping words and misphrasing. Meant to say "Improperly interperated" and somehow it became correlated. You seem to have gotten what I was trying to say though. People only taking part of the data to create a conclusion.



CCP have more numbers then that.[/quote]

kept the ol quote I said for clarification. I didn't mean that is all CCP had, by "they" was being in general. Correct term would have been, "There are" instead of "They have"

But still is something I would like to see. If we break it into two groups, what does it look like?

They say ganked retention is higher than not ganked, well that makes sense if somebody who would have left after three months never subs in the first place, but that only means they lost three months. I cannot see that as being a positive. To make any debate of value on the subject would need a total percentage breakdown of ganked vs not.

What does the spread of subs duration per 100 ganked look like vs 100 non ganked including trials? Reason for that being is if ganking causes people to not even leave the trial stage, that lost revenue. Do these numbers exist anywhere? Does CCP look at the experiences of subbing trials and can they filter out alts?

But back to my old statement. We should be promoting that hostility of the game right from the start. Have people on their guard. Make it exciting right from the world go. We havent actually changed the way it plays. Just the mindset of the players when they start.

Edit: That is why I both love and hate CCP trailers. Since dominion, they have been doing a fairly good job of presenting a cinema style eve play. Late game, large fleet. Stuff I love. We cannot and should not rely on people being redditors, on forums etc to know about the game before that to get this info. There is a large number of people, in fact most eve players I know in real life, they don't even like reddit or forums... a couple of them in eve longer than I have been.

Getting off topic, but the trailers. Issue is, it comes in all glory, but does not properly portray the lead up, the journey. Players get in and just think of that as just a bogus cinema trailer when they talk to people.

The current website trailer? Fantastic. But I think "Causality" Trailer is probably the most correct and would do more for player retention if they expanded on that concept of promo.

I know the discussion has moved on and beyond anything resembling logic. But I still wanted to clarify that ISD Atomic Dove did not consider this a case of "toeing the line" of impersonation but rather suggesting that an employee of CCP will perform a task for someone. That's why it was boldened.

And for me and some others it's quite obvious what ISD Atomic Dove is alluding to.

I almost feel my heart warm up by the so humanitarian way people express their selfishness by implying that people have to understand how to play or how to see the game to like it. It is so nice of people to actually care about others enough to imply they have to feel or think a certain way to learn how to do something.

The problem with that is: Handling "honor and righteousness" is like handling nunchaks, which the power and effectiveness of the hit comes from what you have done before. Building a hit on a simple direct move will most likely bring harm to the one holding the weapon.

People went so deep on building the EVE stereotype and EVE prejudices that they firmly believe that they hold some shred of truth or anything of value. They are used to times when people who played MMOs were people who belonged to a subculture that indeed had those values.

Any discussion in EVE official forums that touches almost anything ingame soon become one issue only: Competition vs Contribution.

Competition extremist advocates have the "I dont know from what dark hole they got that idea" that eternal and constant destruction and competition will in some way enhance the gaming experience for everyone. They go so far as to dictate what is boring, what is useful, what is right, and so on.

Cooperation extremist advocates have the "oh so genial idea" that competition do not contribute to the hisec, and that people must be, for "reasons I cant find a way to translate in a resonable not whining form", protected from what they will inevitably face, in order to be prepared for that precise thing.

In either end, there is one common idea: That you are entitled to know what is best for everyone else.

Here there is no more discussions about one or other ideas, features, or specific topics. Any post become a factional warfare between the Competitive and Cooperative factions.

Luckly I am a trader, and I dont give a damn about whos right or whos wrong, I just step out and sell my stuff.

Its kinda of cool, but your line of questioning made me curious.....and i would not mind hearing the Mittani himself write a few words if i believe correctly he used to be a lawyer.....

Anyway i asked that question you proposed to the father of a friend of mine in real life.....the laymen answer i recieved (laymen i say because i didnt record the discussion but will put here here the answer i got as i nterperted it at the time.)

1.) No, at least at this time CCP (whomever) is not overstepping anything.
2.) unless it becomes a widespread inferred problem/issue.
3.) if sufficient evidence could be garnered a possible lawsuit could occur by a customer paying for services and being denied services by a corporate sanctioned event that is suppose to have little or no corporate involvment.
4.) in the future, if such were to deemed possible then even he would advice said corporation to incorporate (basically sieze) such organization and physical items in as legal a manner as possible and then market both that organization and physical items as their property for production of sales.

There was a lot more to that, and a lot of stuff i could not understand in the wording used to explain things to me.....but thats the gist of it.......
I would find it hilarious if all CODE characters found one day they had to be made into NPC's or cease and desist activity so CCP could turn a buck.
But then hey we could all get our own Permit at that time for $5 each......

Stop focusing on Zach's left arm and it'll probably get less creepy.

IDK though, maybe that's really working for you.

That cannot be inferred from the data that we as players have access to, however it can be easily reasoned that this scenario doesn't really apply.

The main data that CCP have provided to us is in two packets:

1. 80,000 new player (not alt) accounts in their first 15 days (old trial account time)
2. Subscribed accounts

From the first packet of data we know:

Highest chance of retention: players subject to non-consensual pvp (ganked)
Second highest chance of retention: players involved in consensual pvp (wardecs, FW, etc.)
Lowest chance of retention: players not involved in pvp (here pvp specifically referring to pew pew kind)

Clearly, all three groups have players that both stay with the game and that leave, it's just that those who get ganked in their initial steps into the game, have a higher rate of retention than those that don't.

There's no causality in the data that we have seen, however ganking, especially of newer players seems to be based (like a lot of ganking outside the really hot systems) on being a target of opportunity. So the risk of a new player being ganked is almost equal for every new player that actively plays the game and takes part in the tutorial missions and career agents.

There doesn't appear to be anything special about the group of players that end up ganked, in comparison to those that otherwise play the game and are not ganked.

So the data almost normalises itself in terms of the behaviour and there's nothing to suggest that those that get ganked were already more likely to subscribe to the game before they were ganked.

It appears that ganking itself changes a players likelihood of subscribing and the result, when looked at by CCP, surprised even them, because it was the opposite of what many people assumed.

After that, the second lot of data (players who actually subscribe) then looks at what types of play those players get into and whether they then stick with the game or leave; and the trend is that those that have rich experiences and social interaction stay with the game longer than those that don't.


There doesn't appear to be much relevance to that, at least in what CCP are interested in (ie. turning new players into long term lovers of the game).

From the data sets, it appears at the very least, that being ganked does not harm the chance that someone will subscribe (and actually increases the chance). After that, that initial experience isn't important anymore.

It's what players do, or what the game provides for them that determines whether they stay; irrespective of whether they subscribed having been ganked, involved in consensual pvp or not ganked at all.

CCP have used the term 'rich experience' as being their target to provide to newer players once they have subscribed. That includes things like getting them to join players corps, getting involved in fleet operations, using chat channels, getting into industry activities, trading on the market, etc. - all of the kinds of activities that involve interaction with others.

So those two things: ganked group vs non ganked group and sub duration doesn't appear to be that important. It seems to be more:

ganked = possibly more likely to subscribe initially
long term subscription = meaningful and rich experiences in the game

I think it was CCP Rise who once joked that the best thing CCP could do for retention was to arrange for every new player to be ganked (I might be attributing that to the wrong dev and it was totally said off-hand as a joke).

Clearly, non-ganked people (myself included) subscribe to the game, so I don't think we should look too deeply into what it all means, other than the simple conclusion that ganking is not a net negative to player retention. That's an assumption a lot of people make, but never validate whether their assumption is true. CCP have tried to validate it and come to the conclusion that it's not true.


Yes they filter out alts. They have stated that.

Exactly how, we don't know but guys like CCP Quant, the security team, etc. appear to be extremely smart and professional, so if CCP say that they are able to filter for individual players and not alt accounts, then I don't personally see a reason to challenge that statement.