Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As someone that regularly creates jump clones on a rorqual, who is making them consistently for people that have a slew of questions about how they work, the vocabulary involved and the differences between medical clones and jump clones--I think I have a better idea than isk for clones. Bear with me.

* First, 8.0 standings to create one is indeed too high, and is counter-productive to many of the goals of Eve. Easy, readily-available access to at least one jump clone early in your eve career, even very early in your eve career, is a difference-maker to the New Player Experience. In CAS, when we started regularly running PvP events, the biggest hesitation players (especially new players) had was that they didn't want to risk their implants. They weren't ready to make decisions about joining a corp either, so many of the workarounds weren't a good solution for them. The one we picked then was to scout people into the (then) freeport at EC-P8R, but when things really took off for us? When we started offering free, publicly-advertised, rorqual-based jumpclones. It was the single biggest factor we saw in CAS for people not only being willing to take on outright PvP, but in participating in Mining Ops, exploration fleets, and other group activities in and out of CAS if they knew they could put a clone in the area.

* Second, the descriptions for the entire thing are so vague and confusing as to be rendered nigh-useless to a majority of new players. Nearly everyone I know in my time in Eve had to have someone show them how the whole thing worked the first time or two, and nearly everyone exclaims that the process itself is easy, but the descriptions make it way more difficult than it had to be. I've often told people that the developers responsible for the vocabulary, definitions, and process of jump clones/medical clones should be punished, preferably by having to be the one explaining it individually to every pilot in Eve. (I also had a recurring nightmare that I'd do something that drew CCP's ire, and they'd punish me by forcing me to explain jump clones as a newly-introduced thing to every single DUSTbunny when it first began.)

My idea: Add getting your first jump clone (doesn't have to be more than just that first one) to the Sisters of Eve epic arc that so many new players are working with at the beginning of their eve careers. This has the advantage of allowing CCP to show off the considerable benefits they provide to players early on, and giving new players one of their most important tools in learning to appropriately manage their risk in Eve rather than try to avoid it entirely. Make it as easy as possible for new players to experience more of what Eve has to offer them right away--on a personal level--and they're more likely to enjoy what they find. Jump clones are quite empowering, and the game itself should promote that.

This would also hopefully force your hand, CCP, at cleaning up the explanations, the vocabulary, and the processes itself to present them in a more useful, easily-understood, hopefully-sensical way. Maybe this is the time to implement things like not having to pause/restart your training to clone jump, telling people that they don't have to only leave jump clones in stations with medical services, or allowing us to NAME our different clones. Clean it up, fold the new shiny understandable process into something that most new players encounter early on, and your playerbase is less burdened with doing your job, and can focus more on doing ours--finding creative ways for people to spend their time USING clones.

~Boiglio