Player Features and Ideas Discussion

New players need to be introduced to eve and it's core ideals not have their hands held

This idea does nothing to help retain new players because the suggestions do not introduce the players to EVE, but a completely different game. That is worse than what we have no.

Furthermore, EVE does not need to retain players who need this kind of separated instance to grasp the game, because these players cannot and will not be able to contribute to the game at all ever. If they realize that EVE is not for them, their unsubbing does a big favor not only to them because they do not waste their time and nerves, but also to the game because they do not introduce toxicity and bad suggestions to turn the game around into their ideal.

And what would compel a Trial player to make that choice?

Place yourself in the shoes of a Trial player for one moment. Why are you conducting a Trial of the game in the first place? You want to know if investing in the game with your wallet is going to be a waste of time and money. you want to know sooner rather than later, at no cost other than your own time for now.

So, within your wormhole-type instances, I have a choice: either enter the "actual" game, or start paying (albeit a reduced) £5 subscription for an extension to the tutorial.

Remember, as a Trial player, you're trying to ascertain if this particular game is where you want to be. There's a lot of other competition out there. So what would you do?

Personally, I would want to poke my head out of the safe zone and see what the actual game looks like. At this point, you are essentially back to the original issues of Trial player retention that we have right now: does the game appeal to me, or doesn't it? Am I here to stay, or gone for good? A noobie-nest doesn't make one jot of difference to me as a Trial player.

As to the issue of wasted time on the part of your experienced player coaching the Trialist: was their time wasted? The experienced player in question chose to (admirably) spend their time trying to teach a new potential. CCP does much the same thing: they spend money on advertising. They don't have to - they have a pretty nifty "buddy program," for example - but they choose to do so.

Trial players will always either stay or go. No game mechanic or fast-talking is going to convince someone who doesn't want to spend their money being here to stay.

That would be this section of his idea, hoping you simply missed it and were not purposely ignoring it. You now the part where they can leave this training area whenever they want, or they can stay for a max of 3 months (to long in my estimation).



Oh I get so tired of the vets trotting out this tired old statement or something like it. EvE is a very complex game with a very complex UI, many players have and many more in the future can and would benefit from some form of this basic idea. A safe place where they can go to figure out the UI and the basics of the game.

My problem with this whole general topic is that both sides have valid points.
I have worked with and then seen players leave the game never coming back because they lost that first PvP encounter simply because they lacked the ability to make their ship do what they wanted it to do, you know that basic UI and basic mechanics thing. Knowing several people in real life that have tried the game and quit for this reason I believe that the OP is at least in a general sense on the right path with the ideas presented. On the other hand I have worked with other newer players that have been sheltered from the realities of EvE for far to long and when they run into those cold hard realities they rage quit and never come back, this indicates that any isolation period needs to be kept short. As noted above I believe that 3 months is to long, if I was asked I would suggest we start at one week and then enter into a trial phase while data is collected and then adjust as needed based on feedback from the new players.

There is no doubt that this game needs a better way to introduce new players to the UI and basic mechanics of the game, even CCP admits that and continues to work on it. There is precedence in the computer gaming world to support a change in how EvE deals with this issue. Some games like Planet Side 2 and Hawken offer training areas that only players in their first few days/weeks in the game can get into places where there are hard limits on the things that can be used. Others offer a series of tutorials that work a new player step by step through the UI and some of the basic game mechanics before dumping them head first into the deep end of the pool.

For what it is worth there are my thoughts on this.

How about a different approach:

Instead of training noobs, we get them started on paths where they are more interested in actually playing the game instead of trying to spergingly min/max it.

Because whether it's ISK or killboard, it's the attitude and perception that drives noobs away.


They need to know what they can do "right now" and not "what they have to learn to do it later". Meaning they need to get on the proverbial horse on day one and then let the skills and interest fall into place.


The NPE is vastly improved over the years, but the track is wrong. It's still a path towards stultification and boredom, covered in a layer of being intimidated by the very appearance of the bittervets.


It's an old problem that at least is being thankfully addressed head on. Years ago, it was considered perfectly normal to think you had to "grind ISK and SP for two years" before going to nullsec, then deal with "stats or GTFO" responses, then not be able to go, then get bored out of the game. Occasionally someone would get convinced, via forum fu, to go fit some perception of an "I Win" boat, costing lots of ISK, just to go die in a fire two jumps I into lowsec and somebody's killboard is enhanced. Usually the people giving that bad advice were the ones camping lowsec. It took years for players to catch on, and then followed years of lowsec campers complaining that lowsec is dead.

(duh)


The noobs must be driven by the NPE to get into dangerous space and start doing dangerous challenging things from day one. It's that simple. Once they are hooked, how much ISK and SP they have becomes background noise. Make it so they have enough fun that they don't care.

Now with the highsec wardec/hub-humping epidemic, which pretty much plays into some disruption of "grind for two years and get bored", but replaces that with "I don't want to play a game where I get farmed by people who have nothing better to do all day" (meaning that instead of two years of subs from one player who leaves out of boredom, you get a few months of subs from players leaving out of frustration), this is the best time for something significant to be done about it. Kill the highsec wardec scourge through changes in mechanics, possibly the ways of olde return, but that was not really the best way either.

It may ultimately be up to the vets. But do we want to rack up stats that will mean nothing when the game closes down? Or is high-fiving each other over killing an MMO the actual goal?

And how is an isolated environment, only containing equally clueless players, going to help them learn the UI and basics?

I played this game for years before I ever tried PvP. I quickly learned that everything I had taught myself, or learned from others, about PvE and mining was almost totally useless in PvP. It took losing ships, asking those who shot me what I did wrong, and asking more experienced players in general, to learn what little I know about PvP, how to optimize the UI, and how to use the core mechanics of the game to my advantage. None of this would happen with OP's suggestion.

The problem is that EVE is billed as one thing, and is in reality something else entirely.

The promise is of an immersive rpg. This implies lots of PvE elements that were once intended, the stubs are still there, but PvP completely sidetracked that development almost from day one.

The reality is a mindless haven for sadists, and a purgatory for those who are still looking for that rpg.

Oh please it's just the only game where sandbox element is still present. Sadly CCP are still removing the sandbox part because they feel that people getting "wronged by the bad guys" is a thing that shouldn't happen *cough* that's sandbox niche *cough*.

Under fire? Which fire? There is nearly 0 fire in the rookie starter systems and the surrounding areas. In fact, the rookie starter systems with all the restrictions in place are already a lot like what this thread asks for.

On the other hand, there are also so many incompetent new players asking stupid questions like "How do I leave a system" when there are Stargates listed on your overview. You can have the best tutorial in the world; however, it cannot compensate for general denseness.

Let's not start with trivializing real world problems like domestic violence again.

Eve is a PvP sandbox game set in a dystopian universe where players have the freedom to explore questions of morality and tell their own stories. That means players need to be vulnerable to each other so stuff actually happens and both 'bad' guys, as well as 'good' guys, can make content in the sandbox.

Walling new players off from this central sandbox game play is not a good idea. Keeping new players in some conflict-free garden only to dump them into the cutthroat greater universe a few weeks after would be a massive bait-and-switch and unfair to them. That said, some more limited guided tutorial to help explain the UI and central concepts could work. Really though, what is needed is to open the minds of these new players to the possibilities of the sandbox beyond highsec mining or leveling your Raven.

Eve isn't for everyone (as seen by those that repeatedly come to the forums to whine about intended gameplay instead of quietly moving on to another game) but it is a shame that many people never get a taste of the possibilities of the sandbox offers and leave Eve thinking it to be a pretty, but empty mining simulator or missioning game.