Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Wanted to touch on this because I think its a valuable point.

However, it is at odds with the existing policy in rookie systems, that not only says "don't mess with new guys" but gives a very hazy definition of what "new" means.

I played another player-empire-centric game for a while that used the newbie island idea efficiently called shadowbane, which basically started everyone in a pve fairlyland with pvp disabled, but had really ****** resources to exploit and kicked people out at a certain level.

The approach worked quite well. It gave newbies an opportunity to get familiar with the basic systems of the game, and messaged very clearly when it was getting close to kicking them out that they should steel themselves for a much larger and more dangerous world, and suggested they think about starting to find help.

And really, I think that's the purpose of newbie systems in a nutshell, get new players familiar with the very basics of the interface and controls. Putting the new NPE in such a "sharded off" area would work really well because it has a clear narrative for them, explains basic concepts, and still offers some freedom to explore mechanics at your own pace before you finish the last site and get podded to finish it. Then maybe you pick a career agent to visit and you're in new eden with all its ups and downs.