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First of all, you all talk about playing together. Well the first thing I've learned on the same hour into the game. Was way to much yellow cans out of Clellinon with some griefers just faceraping every noob with a bit to much curiosity. I saw some ships blow up and learned the utmost lessons of EVE: TRUST NO ONE! followed with logic "DON'T get targeted and if, make sure to afford another ship+fit". So how are you able to play together? Even if upfront the goals seem mutual. There is no way to be sure. I currently do not see how. As of events I don't trust anyone nor grid, local, station or whoever it is I warp away or dock up a station ... well I'm a newb there is no way I outsmart a 2 yo toon (that probably outskills me too) in a space fight where just everything to me looks like crispy new.

There is no way I will ever join corp/fleet/pair without the very distrust on both sides. so here I am hitting 1m SP last weekend .. mining my way thinking "well why is this game called MMORPG if it's more like a gigantic FFA space-grief-box". so my midterm planning involves solo missioning .. to give the game time .. ( yeah great -.- X3 does have that too I know, thx ) .. and at all costs solo! Well then I get all the fun with mission griefers and scamming or just killing me if it's profitable.

Well anyway. After way to much reading out-of-game source. I got some of the basics. The certificate system is somewhat a useful guide to get an idea of what I need for like exploration. Ohh hullsize dictates skill time somewhat in every aspect of fits and supportskills .. that took me quite long to see and understand. I will stick with frigates maybe in future cruisers to keep it reasonable simple ... I don't think that anything larger is reasonable.
One overwhelming part was turning off "show available" in market view -.- that still is overwhelming. But I'm getting used to it. Manufacturing and production are still a mystery. Overall I don't have a clue what I want to do. Just rolling heal and running all the dungeons and pvp in pugs till max level and switching to pvp and minimal pve to sustain pvp isn't an option I guess? because nothing of that is there? ohh btw I learned in other MMOs that "friend lists" tend to grow that way or even a "corp" invite comes or "corp" forms out of that network -.-

"get into player corp"-rushing sounds in EVE way to illogical for me as a new player. Cookies won't get me into a corp and the dark force nah ... so my best bet is "I'm doing it wrong" <_< As far as NPE goes to help me sort things out or prepare, it fails!

My little internet spaceships on perma warp ... with trollfoodz in cargo ... on this "NPE" and my few weeks into EVE while reading a lot of info full of old and less new EVE wisdome *sigh*

PS: I see potential and for sure "fun" but lack probably needed guidance in an full-duplex-no-trust environment.

Hi, I'm fairly new, so take these ideas with a grain of salt. First, a few quick things:

1) You think having to resort to EVEMon and EVEHQ is bad? Try being a Mac user and not having either. I've wasted a lot of ISK fitting ships the hard way, and many hours learning to plan skills the hard way (not to mention hand-building a spreadsheet in lieu of a proper fitting tool). Yes, please, build skill planning and fitting tools in game. They don't have to be super-fancy, just useful. Build the skill planning around careers and certificates. Make the fitting screen react to modules selected in the Market window the way it reacts to selected items in your inventory, including a simple means of showing that the module can't be fitted. Add a message or visual that lets you know when you're putting drones in your bay that you can't launch.

2) Flatten some of the skill trees. Right now R&D and Logistics are unavailable to new players. Is there a good reason for that?

3) Please don't give out so many frigates. Both my main and my alt ended up awash in free ships. How many Navitas does a guy need?

4) Yes, please, to combat arenas. Have two kinds: One in which you bring what you flew in, and another in which you dock your ship up, pick a prefitted ship and fight against a similar ship. Allow two or more people to suit up in prefab fleets to learn group combat. Have fleet boards so that you can see which fleet compositions are looking for adversaries. Have the latter allow pilots to fly ships and use modules that they don't have the skills for, so they can try out ships and fits and roles in play.

5) Allow players in lowsec to duel consensually by warping to unused deadspace features sprinkled judiciously around--some with complex terrain to keep things interesting. Of course, non-consensual PVP would work the same way it does now; this would be a way for people to whomp on each other without getting a GCC flag, or taking a standings hit, when the other guy wants to fight too.

Now for the big suggestion:

Distinguish NPC Universities (NPCUs) from other corporations. When you start, you have not just graduated. Rather, you have completed rudimentary training--non-elective courses, if you prefer. What happens next depends on what path you want to start down. And this is where things get interesting.

I believe that the best thing about EVE is people--they make the best benefactors, tutors, friends, business partners, opponents, enemies, and whatever else is required. So at this point the new capsuleer would have two options: Stay in the NPC university and follow one of the skill-training/player training paths, or jump straight to a corp. How would the corps be selected? Simple: They'd be certified as offering equivalent training. Not all corps would have to offer all career paths: a PVP corp simply wouldn't appear as an option for someone interested in trading. If the player chooses to stay at the NPCU, they are forcibly graduated when they complete every career path. But we still want the players who stay with the NPC university to interact with people. So: Allow players to be hired by NPCUs if they pass vetting by GMs and staff. These players--professors--organize and FC fleets of newbies, hop into frigates to play pirates for the students to fight, impart wisdom, answer questions, and otherwise help out. Maybe you can take a page from America's Army and have two fleets from the same NPCU look like the bad guys to each other, while they both look like the good guys to themselves. In return for herding newbies through course material and otherwise helping them out, they get piles of LPs and maybe some other stuff. And, like true professors, they can take sabbaticals to do something else for a while.

Upon graduation, students are guided to the full corp list.

So the player who's eager to just jump in--or who's an alt of a player that doesn't want to go through all the true newbie stuff again, or who already has friends in a corp--can pretty much jump right into nullsec or lowsec or W space, if there's a corp there willing and able to train them; or, they can linger at the university until they've covered the bases thoroughly, then look for a corp wherever.

Note what's missing: Agents are... suboptimal. I say this as someone who most people would call a mission bear, but it's mostly for lack of time, not because I like taking the same dozen or so missions from the same robots.



Thanks for reading.

Maybe you can remove anti faction missions from normal security agents. Or remove faction standing penalty from them.
This will certainly lessen the stress from new players when they realize that they SUDDENLY can't enter other faction's space

Now: after the tutorials.
Once I finished the tutorials, what did I learn about Eve? I learned how to play it alone in high-sec PvE. I knew I could mine some ore to trade it for ISK, I knew how missions work.
This is where new players either stick to it, or give up. After the tutorials, the new player usually wants to get better ships because they have troubles fitting mods on the ones they got through tutorials, the new player wants to make money to buy those new ships, the new player wants to mesure himself to others and *play the game*.
But here comes the harsh reality: bigger ships take time to skill for, they cost more and aren't necessarily better if poorly fitted or without some levels in support skills.
As a result, many new players invest all their money in BCs or BSs despite the warnings they got through tutorials, help channels, NPC coprmates, because they finally met the basic requirements to fly them, skipping all other skills and lose it to an assault frigate, or a few NPCs in a mission. Losing a ship is part of the game, but many new player probably don't realize that they're thrown in the arena with everyone else and not progressing through in areas where they will encounter similarly skilled players or NPCs.
But it's not necessarily the game's fault. Eve naturally filters its player base and shouldn't change, because making it too easy will dumb down the game. Eve is not a CoD-like, where everyone has similar stats, equipment and only gaming skills make the difference. Getting in a BC or BS is way too easy, I could already fly a BS by now if I had trained the right skills, but how would I fit it? As a result, many new players rage-quit because they could get into big expensive ships but didn't have the support skills to properly fly them and lost all they had in a single fight.
Unlike other games, XP isn't gained through killing others, but I think some new players don't get the idea and quit with the feeling they'll never progress as they can't kill anyone.
Also, took me some time and fiddling with google, evemon, eft, trials and errors, to figure several things out.
- Eve alone isn't enough, you need several third-party tools. Unless they ask around, new players can't easily figure it out and sometimes they don't understand it.
- Eve requires a mid-long term involvement and a serious learning effort to pay off. That should be stressed to new players, it might not significantly help growing the player base, but might filter the new players to motivated ones.
- Eve is just not for everyone and shouldn't become. The other very popular MMO is the example I hope CCP won't ever try to follow.

Some things can be improved, others can't, but it all depends on the player base you want to have in game, easing it up too much will dumb it down.

expanding on my last idea

you could have a intro scripted sequence that tells the eve back story story and you could jump the player in and out of scenarios happening, i.e fleet combat, gate camps, pos defense, escort runs, being a titan, popping a titan, getting jumped mining, wormhole exploration where the player can affect the situation but only barley - the point is to let them taste things that can happen and while that's happening explain the story, let them see and use fitted ships. all of this would be totally virtual and away from all the players of eve.

then when its done wake them up as them and let them work towards creating those experiences for real with tutorials

Give the players at the end of the tutorials an extra job without time limit but with extra reward:

- Miner: Come back when you can fly a retriever
- Fight: Send them into FW: Come back when you have killed an opponent.
- Trade: Come back when your wallet reached 50mil.
- Producer: Build a BC and bring it back (Players can buy it, but some will try to produce it)
- Corp: Join a corp and then come back.
- PI: Build some P4 stuff and bring it back. (Players can buy it, but some will try to produce it)
etc.

I'm not sure if you were agreeing with me or arguing against me...

I've been playing eve for about 7 months. Just gotten to the 10million SP mark. And I still feel new. I've recently started thinking about PvP now that I feel able to replace lost ships in the more lucrative missions/corp incursions.
PvP is arguably the main-stay of eve. But im finding getting into PvP is expensive and frustrating; both bad feelings caused because you lose ships. 

Before anyone jumps on me, I'm aware you will lose ships. My gripe is the following.

My first PvP experience (quite recently) was a small roam with an experienced friend. After getting to null and flying around for about 30 minutes, finding nobody we finally made contact. 

And I proceeded to explode. 

They were sat at a gate (cloaked) and as my friend warped off in the bigger bait I was left to wonder how I was in a station. 
Fitting was part of it, but inexperience was the main issue. And it's an expensive way to learn, both in time and ships. Personally i feel this is what might be putting some new players off. 

My corp very early on told me to stop playing the missions as I would learn more by doing. Which is sort of true.
But currently there isn't anything to prepare you for PvP.  It's just "suck it an see". So far, it doesn't taste nice. 

So what I was thinking was this: simulations. Modern RL militaries have them for jets, tanks etc. Even soldiers. Hell, it's just grown up, expensive laser tag. 

So why can't we have that in eve?

I was thinking dummy ships for awhile but realised they would just get used as a direct blockades in larger, non training, fleet engagements. And tbh, "stupid" targets are of little use. You want something to react like a player. So.....Maybe a player?

At the moment you could have a high skilled corp director fit a heavy tank and fly around as a target. But shooting back at n00bs is fraught with danger.

And to really maximise training your going to need to learn to deal with incoming fire. 

And say your practicing stealth bombers. You are probably going to blow the target ship up, AND possibly pod kill them in the inferno. 

So why not provide "blank" ammo which somehow tracks hits. 

Basic principle is this:
1) Corp grown up learns a new skill. "simulation management" or something. That allows them to manage the simulated weapons etc. Everyone in the simulated fleet can attack each other with blank ammo with immunity from concord etc. 

2) Corp grown up sorts teams out. Arrange sides based on ship name "Blue - Waylander" or something. 
Corp grown up is a referee. Not involved in shooting. Sort of reviews progress. 

3) n00bs/people trying new things fit the "blank" ammo to the proper weapons. (so you still need to skill for the ship and fit)

4) Blank ammo scores "hits" etc but does no damage. Repair units, power disruption and all that still works. 

5) Somehow track damage so people know when they need to ask for help/activate repair units.

6) Once your dead, your dead in the water. Can't move, shoot etc. Until one side wins. 

Ships don't actually explode so no harm done. 
Players experience PvP fitting. 
Players experience having an FC/operating as a group. 
Everyone can train new tactics without having to trial it in anger right away. 

So that's the outline idea. 

Cue the poo-pooing. 

Unless it's a good idea. In that case please send money :)

Waylander. 

Spies. Few political corps are going to take new players on much less because of their capabilities as for the risk of red alts. I have a minority opinion I'm sure, but I feel like if the game can have spys, there needs to be in-game tools to find/prevent them. API keys does nothing for multiple accounts. As long as the meta-game of spies exists, newbs will be shunned.

And as for socializing newbies - redesign the corporate hangar system. Make it shop-wise.

You have established communism in EVE. At least, when it comes to corporate hangar contents. If anyone want to take something - he takes as much as he needs. And when he have something to share with his corpmates - he does it gratuitously. Well, it works - but not as good as it could be, so I suggest we pass over to capitalism. Corporates don't trust newbies (spies, etc.) - and this feeling is mutual. And when there is no trust - you can't build communism, as it's based on trust.

You could introduce some kind of interface for transferring good from player hangar into/from corp hangar. It could look like planetary customs window, or something. The CEO (or someone with role) will make a list of goods that could be sold to corp, and bought from corp - and the prices of course. It should also work with Orca hangar - newbies like to mine, but it's bloody difficult to make a fair rewarding system, when mining within a fleet.