EVE General Discussion

I don't think EVE or anything can convert new players. Players are responding to internal needs (for example, "what do you find fun"), not external influences. It's like if you are a stamp collector, you can't make someone else like stamp collecting, they have different internal entertainment needs, different attention span, different levels of susceptibility to the affects of (and need for) things like adrenaline and dopamine etc etc.

Modern gamers are instant gratification excitement junkies, literally addicted to how the games they play make them feel, and most games are designed to make them feel that way (which is why i like EVE, it doesn't feel like it's trying to manipulate me, it's addictiveness for me comes from the fact of it's extreme focus on freedom). You can't just sit them down and say "here you go, here is a game where the big pay offs are years down the road, but don't worry, you'll learn to enjoy afk mining rocks by then".

The other problem is "taking the new player by the hand". EVE is a game of experimentation and creativity. Tutorials and hand holding kill the very creativity one needs to enjoy EVE.. I have no doubt that people who advocate hand holding have the best intentions, but it's really the worse thing you can do.

From then linked article:



EDIT: The above is why EVE's NPE has created failure, it funnels people into mining and mission running, they do little else (because that's what they were taught to do) and end up quitting.

I've been playing Eve on and off for the best part of five years now. To this day if I am bored at work (as now) or at home I will ask myself "I wonder how you do 'that' in Eve" before going on a Google quest of epic proportions (coupled with inevitable spreadsheets of course, but that's part of the fun).

That's what I love about this game, its complexity, intricacies and nuances are unrivaled and have been for years.

We don't need to 'Panda' to the masses (get it?)

Then you are limited to the hardcore player, the one whose entertainment comes from suffering through.

I'm reminded of the design priorities of Everquest. "Make it hard; they love hard." What happened there?

WoW destroyed it.

A tiny minority of people find suffering a form of entertainment. It's not a good plan. It's niche.

What you need is a way to lead people into deeper game play. A good sandbox - say, Minecraft - does this be pressuring you, not punishing. Night comes... zombies. Run, fight. Build a house to be safe at night. Find odd bits; experiment with them. Look for other odd bits; explore to find them. Build a better nicer house, armor, weapons.

Here, you're not really given much of anything to lead into it. You're shown an amazing video of fleet actions with comms and... log in to no one to talk to, no one to fleet with - actively hostile players looking to kill or exploit. Find odd things and experiment? Nope - canned, non-variable parts you can't even build without blueprints you can't even get. Fight other players? Nope - you've got a tiny ship with no skills and the system incentivizes fights that aren't interesting or fair due to loss paranoia, real costs.

The story of EVE could have been cool fights. Instead, you get gate camps and ganks.

Wow did not destroy EVE though. So they must have done something right. I have said more times the videos of big fleet fights are very bad for EVE. They just lead to dissapointment, when newbies realizes they happen rarely and that they will most likely not be involved.

There are plenty of good fights in new eden(that you have not found them, does not mean others don´t find them). Gatecamps and ganks can be avoided pretty easily. I am not saying you did not experience this, but you are yourself to blame. All your points are things people do everyday in EVE, so why is it not working for you? And why are you not doing anything about it?

I know someone who quit because of CODE, or an organized high-sec gank at least.

I wouldn't change the game to prevent it, well, maybe a bit I suppose. High-secs false sense of security is pretty misleading. HS is safer, it isn't safe. It could do with hammering in a bit more at the start.
Anyway, yeah... he exploded, lost most of his stuff and despite my offer to help him rebuild his collection of misc. junk he never logged in again.

Shame, he was pretty boring from a gameplay point of view (mine, refine, repeat) but his tendency to share weird music videos in corp chat was pretty amusing.

I hope you all enjoyed my rambling mostly pointless story.

Interest is. Not perseverance. People don't have hobbies to suffer. A hobby is not endured. It is enjoyed.



Most experiences don't merit more than 23 hours of enjoyment - they lack perceivable rewards.



Not a binary distinction.



I don't want EVE to change much. I just want it to not die. To do so, it needs new people...

Likely nothing needs to change. It's survived this long completely static, right?

I've played EVE for almost 2 years. I love it, but find I play it less and less now. I started mining, then exploring, then PVP (sucked at it) then missions (got to level 4 in my Myrmidon :-)).

But the novelty has worn off and the backstory/narrative isn't particularly compelling or consistent for PVE. Despite the various long winded descriptions of what to expect it's essentially the same NPC's over and over again in a room/dungeon - just bigger, greater numbers etc.

For such a large universe the game feels rather claustrophobic and predictable.

Perhaps CCP should do away with trying to invent a complex narrative and instead innovate more tools for players to really feel like they are in a sandbox again. Designing spaceships, bases, enemy fleets, traveling off and not knowing what you'll find.

I want to feel that sense of endless possibility again.

So you're saying that nobody ever grows to like something? You've never found something you like a bit, or have a need to do even though you hate, and stick with that then over time get to like the rest of it?

As an example I used to play primarily PC games with mouse and keyboard. The idea of using a control pad to play first and third person shooter games was alien to me, to the point I'd simply avoid it. Then I started getting into playing some FPS games with some mates on a console, and my desire to join in had me putting up with the weird controls. Now I've grown accustomed to it to the point that I generally prefer a gamepad.

See how by having a reason to do something different I moved out of my comfort zone into something I didn't like, but realised wasn't actually as bad as I thought. That's the same way I see EVE. From the outside people see others saying it's got a learning cliff and how hardcore it is, when the reality is that it's a pretty easy causal game, it's just badly explained.

Again with this implication that "modern gamers" are inferior. It's just as likely that the reason you like EVE is that you like an excuse for pretending your are better than other gamers, and sticking with EVE gives you that.

Which is all well and good when the player isn't paying a subscription to the game in question and the game in question is designed in such a way that learning by doing is more feasible. There's a lot of stuff in EVE that needs explanation or at the very least a punt in the right direction. You know EVE, so you can't grasp what it's like to be dropped in not knowing anything at all about it and not having played other games you knew absolutely nothing about with no tutorials. If I were to get a trial of an MMO, I'd expect that by the time I need to pay a sub I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing and an idea of whether or not it's worth my continued payments, otherwise I'd not pay monthly to maybe one day find out.

Probably doesn't help that the majority of "PvP" players they run into are only interested in oneshotting them and running away laughing.

It's not that it has it be the same, but there's a rapidly approaching point that CCP need to decide if they want their playerbase to grow. I get that you want it to stay exactly as it is because you fear or dislike change, but the reality is that all games need to keep up with the times if they want to thrive going forward.

Lol. I'm not being very clear.

My play style is made much better when there are fewer and fewer people. I don't like training new players. I don't hang out with others. Your happiness is irrelevant to me. I'm the least desperate person in EVE. If the whole thing went under tomorrow, I'd not really care.

I'm not making a call from passion. I'm looking at what others say and suggesting based on that. I see people like PVP fights; find a way to put them into it. I see people like meaningful ships: show them one.



I'm not talking about a funnel. I'm talking about a trial. Not one thing. All things.

The current NPE is not what many like. Frigate missions with hand holding in high?

All I'm suggesting is to show people the game. Not PVE in high. It's pretty minimal change really. I'd rather they spent time on things I like, but hey... whatever.

The problem isn't the what, it's the how.

You think "showing them" works. I think It doesn't. If they aren't the kind to go find out for themselves, to wait till they can do it for themselves, and to find people who already know and talk to them, no amount of 'showing' them things works. And wasting time implementing those things is bad also.

EVE didn't show you or I that stuff? If what you say is right, why didn't you leave?

The only thing that works is connecting people with the correct mental attributes (folks like most of us who play already) with the game. I personally think CCP is advertising to the wrong people in the 1st place. It's silly to have a game that rejects most MMO features then advertise it mostly to MMO players...