EVE Information Portal

The hardest problem is balancing the game design with business sense.

Eve is hard. There's a lot to learn and it takes a lot of time and patience.
And that's good.

However, by definition, that fact will limit your potential customer base.

No obvious answer there.

Despite choosing to play a MMORPG, there are lots of people who have no intention of mixing with other people. They are quite happy mining/missioning/etc and making isk to collect shiny ships to do more of the same.
Yes, it's more efficient to work together with friends - you need to spend less and get much more profit. But no, this type of person would much rather spend billions on their own shiny ship to enable them to do everything by themselves.
And that's all fine. After all, they pay to play the game just like anyone else.
The problem here is that when someone comes along and kills them, despite being 'safe' in their spot of high-sec, they tend to get stroppy and leave. Other people come along and interfere with their style of game play.

For people who are really new to the game, try and get some information across to them before they undock for the first time.

A big banner along the lines of:

"Know that your ship will get destroyed. As will many others.
Your pod will also get destroyed, along with your body contained within it.
But you are a Capsuleer. You will return.
And you possess the ability to unleash your wrath on the perpetrators."

Let people know that Eve is hard. They will die. But it will be worth it.
Also let people know that you don't need a whole bunch of skills or isk to have fun. It's much more important to work with others than it is to be uber_skilled yourself. You can make isk, you can even (help) kill other players. But it's immensely harder by yourself.
Join a corp and established players will hardly bat an eyelid when handing out a few million isk and a couple of ships.

Anyway, that's enough rambling with no particular direction. For now at least.

I could probably get 15 people to try Eve in the next month if we could fly our ships WASD. This is the biggest hurdle I've had trying to bring friends over for free trials.

For anyone experienced in MMO's and FPS games, the clicking in space to move the ship is just too freakin whack compared with every other game they've played and enjoyed. I think many of them would grow and adapt to the playstyle; but for those used to games with some manner of twitch reflex Eve seems embarrassingly slow to them at first. A WASD and quick key/hot key setup is the most efficient process, and forcing people from this system into a "point and click" game just has never worked for me.

Also, the fact the mouse wheel zoom is backwards in Eve is a deal breaker. It still drives me crazy.

I've been playing for a couple years now, so I can't offer direct commentary on the new player experience. Several of my friends have started playing over the last few months and I've noted a couple things they've said:

1. The new player experience is pretty good actually. All of them did the tutorial missions and picked up the basics of the game with little problem.

2. Once they were done the tutorials however, all of them hit the same flat spot: "Now what?"

Now with friends in game that question has an answer, but if someone starts playing without a buddy, it's a different story. New players get pointed to the epic arc, but on the path of new player to hooked player I think the end of the tutorials is probably the weakest link. I don't know of a good solution, but figured I'd provide the feedback in case it's helpful.

All new players start in NPC corporation, which is IMO bad idea... they should start on their own(without corp) and than find player driven Corp.

Necessary addition to current Corp system:

1. Add corp within corp, which I mean some sort of academy for newbies, where they can still be in chat with vets and stay active in given division.

2. Make newbies worth within corp... more newbies in "academy" should mean BUFF for entire corp.

It's just an idea - dont bash me for trying to help.

Fly safe o7.

New players have a lot of misconceptions.

Emphasize that "Bigger is not always better."

I recently brought a new player to the game (he's enjoying himself by the way, he loves the complexity) and he wondered what good frigates and cruisers were for when you could have a Big Battleship with Big Guns and all that. We then had a long discussion about weapon sizes - turret tracking and signature resolution in particular. Once that was done, he realized that small ships DO have a place in PvP, and was thrilled to learn that smaller ships have a fighting chance against larger ones.

I think that a practical exercise during the tutorials would be helpful and encourage some players to specialize in smaller ships early on. Take one of the generic "shoot the bad guys" missions and have the pilot tackle a battleship; once that's done, have supporting NPCs come in and blow the larger ship up (make it take 10-15 seconds instead of insta-pop, that would make it more exciting). At range, the battleship should be able to track and damage the player (though not much), but in a close orbit, the battleship should be missing pretty much every shot.

Emphasize (somehow) that "Old Characters Don't Always Win".

A pilot that specializes in, say, interceptors for a little while is going to be just as good as a six year old character before too long. That is one of the gems of Eve's skill system. Old characters can't fly X much better than a young pilot that specializes in X, and that means that anyone can become an expert in something without a whole lot of time invested. The only difference is that old players have had the time to specialize in Y and Z, too.

Also, an old character doesn't mean that a lot of training has been invested.

Planetary Interaction Needs a Tutorial.

I recently ran through some of the career agents to help out my standings, and if I remember correctly PI was mentioned only in passing. There should definitely be some kind of interactive PI tutorial - it doesn't have to be complicated, just plonk something down on a planet, harvest a resource, export it.

Low Security Space is "Instant Hell-Death"

As many of us know, low sec space isn't all that scary - if you have a good idea on how to protect yourself. It would be nice to have one of the career agents provide the new pilot with some of those tools. Teach the player how to use the directional scanner, for example, and explain why it is useful. Tell them about warp core stabilizers and why they help - or don't. Emphasize again the value of smaller ships (they get into warp more quickly, are harder to target), which again will help fight the "Bigger is Better" mentality.

Answer the Question, "What do I Do Next?"

A lot of people ask this, too. Once they're done with the career agents they all wonder, "What do I do next?" Although, instead of dumping them onto new mission agents, perhaps they could be redirected to the personality test thing (which is nice, but could be expanded), and after that, to the recruitment forums. Encourage people to join a player corporation. They make the game much more entertaining, plus it's wonderful to have a real person answering questions.

--

Also, please fix the forums. If my active session has timed out and I hit post, at the very least PLEASE re-populate the text entry box with my text (or, better yet, just post my message). I shouldn't have to train Copy and Paste to Level 5 so that I don't lost my posts.

I find that a lot of new pilots come to the game with many misconceptions regarding gameplay, PVP, markets and other aspects so I put this video together to help educate players (and yes, get a few plex from buddy invites).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0M7jkv3xkQ

I keep planning to make more videos on the 'first days in eve', but it takes a lot of effort.

Beltayn, this blog is pertinent to you and I was wondering if you had any suggestions for improving the first few hours/days/weeks of Eve Online.

http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=3421
New dev blog: The ease of EVE

Beltayn: I found the easiest way to improve the first few days was to uninstall the game and watch this trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u5mUHIt4IE&feature=relmfu

World of Tanks Teaser #3
World of Tanks is a team-based massively multiplayer online game dedicated to ar...(truncated)

Beltayn: In all seriousness though it was just overwhelming there was a whole lot of content to take in and it wasnt possible to break and come back because Id already forgotten how to do what I learned in the previous tutorial.

Beltayn: I feel like though it may be fun at first it will eventually reach a point where there is too much to do and accomplish to make the game fun. Much like the point in SPORE where you are able to conquer entire star systems. Playing the early points in the game developing your genetic structure and the like were great. But once you get to that point its just silly.

Beltayn: Like in WoW when the only way to finally get your quest log clear for a few days and feel like youve completed something is to just not accept new quests.

Beltayn: If I want a game where I am a starship captain I will just build a DOS shell and play Star Control 2.

Wow way to blow things out of proportion. Apparently giving them less ISK then I spend on a Thrasher Fit and Less SP then I train in a day = 50mil SP and a whole fleet of ships.

Starting new players off with a tiny bit more targeted in the right places is a good thing. We already give them Starting ISK and SP and a tiny bit extra is not going to spoil them.

Not the end of the World.

Umm duh of course this is a good idea. But this has 0 to do with a minor buffing the starting stats.

Fitting guide is a great idea. I can remember not understanding (still at some points) why some things needed fitting and others didn't.

Get them into new player friendly corps. Best thing about EVE are the people you go out with to find some pew pew

I always felt that the inspace tutorial epic mission arc could need some tweaking to help show players than even a small frigate can do very useful things.

Aurua will point that an agent requires your help as you are the 'nearest' available help. Agent goes onto explain that they had a battleship captain on a mission running into an issue and requires reinforcement.

Mission 1 Rescue NPC freindly Batlteship
Battleship is getting shot up by a smaller ship that it cant track, the captain explains that his ship was designed for long range attacks and cannot protect itself from close threats. Player then gets a how to target and saves the battleship from getting destroyed.

Mission 2 Optional Find Safe spot for battleship.
Player receives a minimal 'prefitted' astrometrics frigate ship for probe launching. Captain of the battleship gives player instruction on how D-Scan works to actually see if there is such safe place. Then encourages the player to use the onboard scanner to pinpoint the site. Player will be tasked in finding a forward command post thats not bookmarked. Captain will discuss the various ways to setup the D-Scan and what results on the onboard scanner and advantages and disadvantages.

Mission 3 Repair Battleship.
Player finds the forward outpost and triggers the npc battleship to warp in and park near the outpost player can then receive a prefitted mining frigate to help resupply the outpost with the materials it needs to repair the ship.

Mission 4 Protect the outpost.
Player is given a Attack type prefitted combat frigate and is tasked in defending the outpost from attackers this is to reinforce what the player learned in mission 1. Captain will give some pointers on tanking this time around as the player will be the target of damage.

Mission 5 Find hostile base of operations
This mission is to reinforce what player has already learned in mission 2 and introduces the concept of probe launching the captain will give detailed explination on how to find locations. For role play purposes the captian expalins that a spy put a signal amplifier making it easier to find than most nomral sites.

Mission 6 Escort the Battleship.
Once you located the site which its entrance is a locked gate you return to station to get your second prefitted intercept combat frigate with electronic warfare systems. You accept the next mission and the captain says hes already gone and unlocked the gate and went into the mission and it will be your job to kill smaller targetrs while he handels the defense systems. Pilot will be introduced to the broadcast system as the battleship captain will be pointing out targets for the player to attack.

After all small hostile targets are dealt with and the battleship brushes off the remaining defenses of the base a trigger event will start where the hostile battleship captain undocks and makes an attempt to get to the next gate.

Your battleship captain orders you to attack the larger and much more dangerous battleship and try to prevent it from escaping using your prefitted webifier. Pilot webs pirate battleship, friendly battleship sinks bad guy pilot completes the arc and rewards the final combat frigate for the race with a small prefit and a package of cheap modules.

Players are then encouraged to consider thier future options in space and emphasis that specializatoin and making specific goals is important to keeping up with older players in eve.