EVE New Citizens Q&A

OK, I'm a patient guy, so I eventually made it through the tutorials on my first character. I figured since I was starting this new one, I would revisit them.

I recall the experience of the tutorials being incredibly frustrating. Roughly akin to what I'd expect from a circa 1992 turn based strategy game with low circulation. This opinion is only reinforced the second time around.

The example at hand is the combat mission where Aura starts telling you to buy and equip a Stasis Webifier without giving you the skill to do it (3'rd mission if I remember correctly). It's only 1 of MANY examples. I bulldozed through a few before making it out of the starting system.

Aura's verbal instructions do not coincide with written text. Do you realize how hard it is to hear one thing, read another (mayber, perhaps you actually expect the spoken word to coincide), and get the intended result? This is asinine. I work in an industry based on clear communication, this would get people killed.

The object of a tutorial is not to show off the technical features of the client, but rather to immerse the new player in the gameplay through interactivity. SIMPLE interactivity. By my count it's like you have at least three elements working at cross purposes.

Aura, the written text of the tutorials, and the tooltips that obscure the interface and don't disappear when the correct action is taken.

While I'm at it, taking the correct action should automatically advance the tutorial. why do I need to click next after I've done the right thing?

Yours, in disappointment,

U'Mad

Haven't done the new tutorials - barely did the old ones.
But.

EVE isn't a hand holding game. The tutorials are supposed to give you the bare minimal introduction and then you are on your own to figure the rest out. If you are looking for a hand holding game, I suggest you look elsewhere.

That said, there's a project about to improve the tutorials - I hope you gave more feedback for them to look at in the petition, rather than this vague whiny thing.

Calm down and relax. Don't hurry yourself. Read everything carefully and try out things not covered in the tutorial. Explore, experiment, expand (your knowledge). You don't know what that funny looking button does? Push it. If nothing happends, click on some object and push it again. You need to learn the game yourself. There's a huge number of guides and articles about EVE for new players. Find them, read/watch them. EVE University published a series of movies(*) covering character creation, Aura's missions and tutorials (career agent missions... I know that's not technically a tutorial, but we all call it that way), step by step with commentary. You should watch it, even if you finished all the tutorial missions. I did and I learned new things.

EVE is harsh not only because you can lose your ship anywhere, anytime(**). It's also because it forces you to learn on your own, to make mistakes and fix them and to think, think, think. It's a game for people who need intelectual challange, who want to learn new things all the time. You can't master EVE in a few days, weeks or months. You need years for that (and I'm still not sure you can master entire EVE).

Some time ago I decided to try Planetary Interaction. There is no tutorial for that. It's complicated but logic. After like hour or two of clicking, trying, moving icons etc. I had a working planetary installation producing stuff. I can't even tell how extremely fun that time was. Then I looked up some video tutorials to see what I did wrong. It turned out I don't need a warehouse, Command Center can be placed anywhere and all modules don't have to be connected with it. New things learned!

You can play EVE casualy, but EVE is not a casual game. You need to invest your time and tears in it, but payout is great.


(*) EVE is the only game that have numerous tutorials to the tutorial...
(**) Ship spinning at NPC station is the only "safe" activity in EVE.

The point of that story was: learning the game by yourself is part of the fun here and you can do well without tutorials. Sorry you didn't catch that. Maybe paying more attention to what you read would help you with it and the tutorials.

Hard information for you: many players did all the tutorials and had not much problem with it. Few players (including you) are crying about it. Maybe this game is just not for you? Think about it. You are QQing so early in the game and it gets harder and harder later on.

Tutorials aren't perfect and we all know that, including CCP. I'm sure it will change in the near future (there was a devblog about that lately). Until then, put some effort into playing and learning the game, because one thing is certain - tutorials won't cover all the mechanism in EVE, only bare minimum (which is a lot).

And I wouldn't call tutorials disfunctional... a bit flawed maybe, but they do the job.

Well, it's a social game, right? ;)

Unfortunately create a competent tutorial for this game has been even more complicated. The new tutorial is far and away better than the old one, but it is far from perfect, obviously.

Rather than try to get everything perfect, they put a serviceable tutorial in game and have been improving it along the way. CCP really does like feedback about the tutorial and there is a thread for changes which someone already posted..

Also, I hope you like being trolled. You picked the wrong name to complain about anything.

So, the guy named 'U mad,' who assumed this moniker based off the meme that mimics folks who get mad at something while being openly mocked by the noisy masses, is himself 'mad?'

Living proof the universe, and in this case, Eve itself, does have a sense of humor.

You should develop a new game and take the majority of EVE players. You have my full support for that.

Guys. The new player experience being confusing and inconsistent is a bad thing that negatively effects the health of the game. As EVE players that isn't something you should want and it certainly isn't something you should defend.

EVE should be hard because it is hard, not because the tutorials have multiple personality disorder and newbies get confused and quit before they even sub.

You know, responses like this don't make the community seem friendly, and really don't encourage new players.

And why is it that every time a new player complains about the (horrible) new player experience, someone mentions WoW? If you go on the WoW forums, almost nobody mentions EVE when somebody complains.