Assembly Hall

I really like that idea, although I can't help but think it would be promptly abused horribly by vets. Vets do so many ... lamentable .. things, like trying to get new players in Newbie Help channels to re-roll as a friend invite account, so that the vet gets a free PLEX and the newbie gets a shiny pittance. And CCP's aim of the invite a friend programe gets totally undermined, as someone CCP has attracted to the game suddently gives them yet another $15 debt on the books, all due to unscrupulous vets.

I'm sorry...everyone was under the impression your idea was a troll in the first place.

Maybe you should try again yes?

Wow people are so short sighted sometimes.

Everyone seems to think that a new player doesn't deserve some kind of protection from the asshats who deliberately target them. Make suggestions that are better, rather then repeating that Eve is a dark and cruel place. There are more MMOs that are geared towards PvP/Conflict that provide some kind of basic protection for the new player. The PvP servers for Runes of Magic have a block on PvP against low level players, for instance.

I'll ask again, why is doing something to protect the new player a bad thing? Back lash from the first loss is inevitable, its going to happen regardless of when that loss happens. A sense of invulnerability in Highsec? Isn't that the case already?

If no one else is willing to suggest something to modify this, then it's a dead issue. Too bad that the typical lack of reading comprehension is killing a possible discussion with short sighted ideas on how the player base should continue to abuse the new players.

On that note, I'm done with this topic.

People failing to see the potential in something, simply because it's not how they started playing. Congrats, it's attitudes like this that cost us other games that had a lot of potential.

/finished

Rather than being given an utterly arbitrary invulnerability for their first however long of playing, they need to learn ASAP what is possibly the #1 rule of EVE:

Don't fly what you can't afford to lose.

It's an absolutely foolproof way of making sure you never take a crippling loss.

indeed. new toons make excellent bait. :D

Sorry Zim, she's right. You are trolling, and the real issue is that for some playstyles the mantra "don't fly what you can't afford to lose" translates to "other players can prevent you from playing for weeks at a time". They quit EVE instead.

That is abysmal design. And it has implicitly been recognised as well: go see the dev blog on ship skill design, and note the training times for exhumers. To make good ISK as a miner you need an exhumer, and to train that you need to wait 2 months (47 days). At that point you get your first exhumer: which typically the player will not be able to afford to replace. Because the ships all come into range in a relativey short space the new players go for the most expensive ship they can get, because they need the ore income stream, especially if they hope to pay past 3 months with PLEX.

You gank such players in their first exhumer (typically covetor / hulk), the chances are excellent that they will not renew thier sub at month 3, which we know is critical to new player retention. So yes, Hulkageddon really can directly cost CCP revenue. If CCP were brave, they would plot exhumer training, loss, and player retention data and present it to the community: I know annecdotally of people who have got their very first exhumer, spending everything they have, and lost it within hours of getting it: and who stopped playing because of that.

It is all well and good for the hardcore to say "you need to learn to only fly what you can afford to lose"; but that is overlooking the issue that CCP have not, which is that there simply is nothing else worth flying for this playstyle. Mining frigates being scrapped in the latest patch is a stark admission of that, and it is expected meaningful sub-exhumer ships will be added soon.

If someone tries EVE, spends 2 months to get a ship, takes it out and loses it to a bored suicide ganker nearly instantly, then guess what, they typically won't be able to replace the ship (given the insurance issues), and there being no suitable smaller ship option they will simply quit the game, because all thier work proved the folly of EVE's advertising saying new players have a chance against veterans. They don't. No matter how well you tank a hulk or even orca, or who you fly with, veterans can and do suicide kill them in Highsec. Unless the vets are stupid, they will never fail to kill it: and "always wins" is as flawed in game design terms as "can never die". The first is in-game currently, the latter is the natural counter (New Player Protection Act, with suitable balances).

And if you keep saying "you need to learn to fly something you can afford to lose" ... do the math and logic. How much money per hour can you make with a 40 million ISK battlecruiser? Or a 300 million ISK battleship? it's more than a solo covetor or hulk with T1 strip miners that has to can mine (which is where most newer players are at in month 2 of a mining career). And if you lose your shiny combat ship, unless you bizarrely sold off all your old ships, you will have a hangar full of cruisers, frigates, and other ships to earn up a replacement. If a 2 month old player loses their first exhumer, guess what new players learn:

"CCP design effort is focused on veteran vocal combat players, and the only thing you can fly that is worth flying you will not be able to afford to lose until you are a veteran. So sorry your experience of EVE has been 2 months of waiting to be able to really play, then bored vets robbing you of your gameplay, and that you're quitting. We would love to fix the design flaws by making a credible sub-exhumer mining ship, but to be honest we've been too busy making missle launcher graphics to make combat even prettier to appease the vocal combat players. You're the quiet social players who pay for this game, but we forgot about you. Oops, hugs and kisses, please please please tell a friend how wonderful EVE is and get them to play too, even though you think it's **** because you can spend months to get nowhere because you foolishly believed mining and industry was viable for new players like we told you in the tutorial when we set you up for getting obliterated with bad ship balance, insurance that isn't enough to get you into a credible smaller version of the ship you lost to keep playing, and no-lose pvp kills for all but the most stupid vet teams."

I really am pleased that CCP has admitted they have a problem with mining ship design. But that's not going to stop them bleeding subscriptions over this, they need to step up thier game, fast. The quickest temporary fix ould be to make Hulk basic insurance x% higher payout so that a player losing a Hulk can afford to buy and fit a Covetor to keep mining. But better balance between ever-increasing cheap firepower for gankers and static wafer thin exhumers is silly: maybe hotfix Hulk and co ships hull's up 10,000 points or more, to make them something that actually requires some effort and thought to gank. All you need atm is three destroyers and to not screw up.

Bottom line: stop pretending there is no problem here. There is, because the ship progression is screwed up, and the playtyle is badly neglected. The "mining cruiser" has a hold of 420 m^3 ... which can hold nothing ISK worth of ore? Where is the gas mining ship again? Get real. If they wanted a real mining cruiser, it would have an ore hold of 2,000 m^3, be able to fit 1 strip miner, and add refine ore (poorly) sub-cap ships that are not exhumers (converted battleship mining ship).

Excuse me?

You think I'm in goonswarm?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Lord Zim - She thinks I'm in Goonswarm! HAHAHAHAHA

You really are a dumbass.

I have no authority or right to offer up Goonswarm so I'm not sure how the hell you figured that.

And there are hundreds of corps who do the same thing.

Get over yourself.

Waste of time...go cry in your corner.... I'm sure there will be plenty of people to show you what EVE is about.

The gas mining ship: Ferox

Gas clouds do damage, a lot of damage, and you need to tank that damage, espcially if you're running five T2 Gas harvesters and your three buddies are doing the same. Sorry, what was that? You want an exhumer with Strip gas harvesters and a rock hard tank to supply the market with cheap gas? Guess what: THERE IS NO NEED FOR IT.

Gas is used in two things as far as i know: T3 production and Boosters. T3 can only be properly done in wormhole, Wormholes get ladar sites so they can often stay self sustained. Drugs are illegal in highsec, and can only be reliably made in null. Guess where the largest usage of boosters are? Null. Guess where the good gas clouds are? Null. Guess where you have to be for it to be a decent sort of income? Null.


New players have a chance against veterans, but that is in a certain context. No veteran has a chance in a hulk against 5 sucide gank destroyers, nor does a new toon. A new player on the other hand can fly a rifter with a point and microwarpdrive, and keep that 80 million skillpoint maelstrom pilot locked down whilst the rest of the fleet blows his ship up.

Also, giving a larger insurence payout would only make the economic situation worse, it's an isk faucet after all.

No, she's not right. You may think that eve should be some cuddly huggy place. It's not. It's supposed to be a place which is safer than lowsec or nullsec, but it's not supposed to be safe. Just look for what CCP themselves have said, look at their reaction to Burn Jita, and tell me EVE (and hisec) is supposed to be a huggy cuddly carebear place where everyone just loves eachother.