EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hello all!


I joined up with the free account recently and just wanted to ask a few questions about the tutorial and the older tutorial system that seem to not be there any more.

For starters, the tutorial campaign deal was awesome and was very effective at teaching the basics. I recall trying to get into EVE circa 2008 and it was just an opaque mess. Never could. New tutorial made it very easy to get into the game.

However, after the first bit ends, and your ship blows up and you are a hero, is that the end of the new system? Is it going to be expanded later with new stuff to do to showcase what EVE has to offer? If this is the case, I'll be patient. If not, that seems like a missed opportunity.

I was talking to some older players and they mentioned the last tutorial system (Opportunities) and I caught the help video for it and it looks pretty robust and helpful, but I don't see any way to enable it? Was it taken out completely, or just replaced for alpha clones with the new tutorial campaigns?

The Opportunity system sounds like a good transition to the wider game, whereas the current tutorial taught the basics and then ended. Is there a way to enable the Opporunity system for new players?


I am currently halfway through the Arnon storyline after finishing the career agents, so can probably figure it out myself, but a little more guidance would go a long way


Thanks!

-Nir

New NPE tutorial + career agents is all the education you get from the game. The opportunities thingie wasn't really teaching you anything, it was just a bunch of small cash bonuses that popped up for doing something for the first time (It did not really explain much).

Well, there is one more thing. The videos under F12 > Tutorial videos. But there are only some basic topics, most of it is advanced, and you won't really know why you need it right now, but you can check it out.

From there you have to choose what you like, and join a corp that will teach you or - if you prefer to go solo - google guides up on Uniwiki or watch them on youtube (and/or ask a lot of questions in the help channel). No more hand holding :)

Learning is pretty much what you will do during your whole Eve career, even most vets don't really understand more than 30% of the game and they learn something new almost every day.

The only thing i didn't like with the NPE was the lack of ISK rewards. In the previous tutorial you would get like 5mil ISK for doing things around. That was a very nice starting money before starting the Career Agents.

This is kind of the crux of the situation. Eve is a sandbox. It is a great game in a lot of ways and it is very different from most other MMOs out there. The core of the game is an open world, single shard, PvP game where players are the content and you make up your own story.

It is a stark contrast to other theme park MMOs with a Linear storyline that garuntees you are the hero.

In Eve you can be the hero or the ass pony or both. The game is what you make of it and there is no garuntee of any kind of success no matter how you define it.

So one thing that has come up quite a bit in the discussions about updating the NPE is the fact that at somepoint you will be left alone to make your way in the game. If they do too much hand-holding in the begining and then just leave you alone it tends to leave new players feeling lost and abandoned. However if you don't even give them basics instructions as to how to get moving around and use the market then it's just a brick wall of confusion.

So when you say "showcase what Eve has to offer" that storyline that you are talking about which makes you the hero is not something that Eve has to offer. If you are looking for a guided storyline that makes you the hero then you need to look for one of the linear themepark MMOs because Eve is not that and it is intentionally not that.

Steve Ronuken, if I may make a suggestion, one thing that needs to be done IMO is the initial state of the UI for a new account / new player. Specifically:

- Widen the Overview and the Selected Item windows in-space so that all the default columns are visible. When first starting the game, both of these windows are overlapping and they're very narrow and transparent. I'd suggest a left 20% camera center offset, with "offset interface with camera" but it's up to CCP really.

- In-station, similarly widen the Station Panel, it's about 1 inch wide.

- Chat windows are the tiniest they can be, should be slightly larger.

- On the Neocom toolbar, buttons should probably be re-arranged a bit. For example "Inventory" is at the top, "Assets" is buried towards the bottom. Contracts isn't even in the bar, nor is Redeem Items which the tutorial needs to open twice.

- In-space, during the tutorial, it is a lot less confusing to locate things if the newbie right-clicks the Orbit Camera (middle) button to the left of the HUD and chooses Toggle Auto-Tracking. With auto-tracking, as soon as they click the wrecks in the overview (as highlighted by Aura), the camera points them right at them. Tutorial is a lot easier with auto-tracking but it's not on by default.

You guys should get together with CCP and decide on some organization for the UI, considering that everyone's moved to wide screens and there's more space on-screen now. Or perhaps make several, resolution-dependent defaults. The first time the game is started, all the windows are positioned and sized like crap.

I've been playing (on & off) since May 2003 but in the last 8 years I've done nothing other than PvP and in-station trading.

I did once try drug manufacturing but it seemed so much hassle that I'd rather just pay someone else. A friend had the Hulk BPO (when the Hulk was good) and he spent half his time in Eve chasing down materials to keep the build going. Too much like RL work for me.

Even on the PvP side of things (near enough maxed out on all subcaps) I don't have a clue how to fly most of them. I can put a decent fit together but until you've lost a few then you don't know how to fly it properly.

I'd suggest 30% is a generous figure for most vets.....