EVE General Discussion

What's a carebear ?? I've never met one in 4 years. I see mission runners, miners, ice miners, mining bots, PI producers, market haulers, blah blah blah, happily gong about their business. But I've yet to encounter a "carebear", whatever that is.

You seem to be looking down the road towards flying [insert ship name here] and dismissing the importance of learning along the way. Frigates are a great platform for learning basic PVP mechanics while not being too invested because they're so cheap. I think you, along with those who agree with you, would be surprised by how much power a frigate can project while soaking up a considerable amount of incoming DPS.

Think about it - even if you were in a Widow ... would you understand the nuances of what you're going to be up against having not flown lesser platforms? It all ties together.

I love EVE forums for threads like these. Both sides are very passionate about the game from either side. The noob that gets pissed cause he has to wait for training cue for a new ship or new T2 weapon they want or the vets telling the noob to buck up and suck it up cause we all had to go down the same roads. All in all it's pure passion for the game I love and others love to hate. Long live NEW EDEN.

yeah ....

Wizards tried that with D&D 4th edition and look where that got them.

Dumbed down games full of noobs with no veteran players left may look good to the marketing guys straight out of uni ( a noob is worth a lot more cash per month than a bitter vet) but they invariably fail bigtime.

Well I think I convinced one friend to try EvE and give up that worthless ******* crap called STO.

Time will tell!

Well, no. That's not quite true. There is a concept of boutique MMOs. Personally I believe that EVE is too big to be considered in that bracket, but they have a well defined target audience and a well established presence, market and direction for their content.

You can take the rise and the fall of World of Warcraft as a good example of what would happen if your approach was taken with EVE. Pre Burning Crusade it was a game that required a certain degree of skill, despite the systems that were put in place to make the barrier to entry low. Now it has no barrier to entry and all of the game is accessible to everyone and they've gone from quarter on quarter growth to a state of near continuous decline.

To, foolishly, take it to a more real world example. You do not improve the market for an exclusive product by mass marketing it. There's a reason Ferrari has their market and Hyundai has theirs and while Hyundai's market is good, would you really want Ferrari to adopt a Hyundai approach to their vehicles?

I wouldn't. As long as EVE, as a boutique MMO remains viable, I think that's a well reasoned business plan. And let's face it - it has been viable and growing for the last decade!

What does "perfectly' mean to you? Level V mastery?

no ... in EVE your experience and the contacts you have made is whats actually important.

Several of my alts have just a single months training and they are often more fun to play than my main that has all battleships to the 4/5 level.

Of course a new player is not that likely to be wandering around losec in a Republic Fleet Firetail but that is because they do not know the game, it has nothing to do with lack of SP.



ASIDE FROM WHICH .... if you really believe that bigger is always better, and with no personal experience of EVE you can be awesome in a battleship or super if only you had the skillz, then just spend the real world cash on the PLEX to buy a character with the skills.

Everyone I talk to and try to recruit is afraid of the learning curve first and foremost, despite me saying that its not that bad once you get into the game. I think its because mostly they are comfortable playing a game they completely understand. Probably doesn't help that many MMO articles written about EVE always talk about the steep learning curve I think it scares them off.

The second biggest gripe is "ill be useless" which again stems from the "level cap" type games which encourage rushing to endgame and bypassing years worth of content to reach relevancy. This one is easier to push aside because people seem to grasp the concept that a decently trained frigate has use in parts of the game in the form of scouting and tackling, but it still seems like a hill. The mindset is that they will never be as well off as a 10 year vet again I think equating it to the versatility that long term "level cap" players have vs new blood in games like WoW (multiple classes, lots of gold, trained skills etc.)

In addition to the above people seem to stress over tiers and ship sizes, and have a hard time I think placing ships in the hierarchy that is EVE. The concepts of "bigger is better" bred in "level cap" games has kind of pushed the mindset that if you can't fly a BS then you aren't going to be able to play the game. Despite discussing this with them this is a big mental hurdle for people to jump over I find.

Ive recruited about 10 people to the game in my time, of those 10 only 2 remain as "full time" players and 1-2 show up again every few months.

I think the biggest detractor is that CCP doesn't actively engage in promoting the things newer players can do, and generally leave it up to word of mouth. Unfortunately word of mouth from gaming sites tend to hammer on the negatives of being a new person. The learning curve is steep, its hard to make isk, training times can take up to a month. It doesn't help that the tutorial doesn't really provide direction to people, it essentially shows them a few things then leaves them sitting in the rookie system wondering what do I do now. The "level cap" games are very structured and essentially guide you by the hand in terms of where to go next and what you could be doing.

EVE and the sandbox style (while excellent when you understand it) kinda just push them into a pool and expect them to know how to swim, which results in many sitting in the shallow end until they become pruned and bored with only being submerged halfway, and because they never learned how to swim they just get out of the pool instead of checking out the deep end.

I remember reading an article of this nature but can't recall when or where. But the problem I had with it then and still do is that, while I agree they can not be compared, they are going to be compared. EVE is an MMO and it is going to be compared to other MMO's even if its actual operation is far removed from the traditional MMO.

I think one of the biggest improvements CCP could do is enhance tutorial on locating corporations, and agents. Teach new players how to search for corporations they might be interested in, and also teach them how to search for corporations/agents that might offer missions they show interest in.

I really feel the weakest part of the early game is that once you are done the tutorial, you get dumped into a rookie corp, and kinda flounder away wondering what you do next. I love the sandbox, but I strongly feel that there needs to be at least something that points out the different parts of the sandbox and shows players how to get to the areas they might be interested in. Even if that is just directing people to corporations that might suit them.

I know CCP shouldn't promote any player run corporations due to "fair play" and all that stuff, but there are definitely some very rookie friendly corporations in this game that should be given a nod in the tutorial. Places like UNI and RvB, it is hard to find a corporation as a new person, and without the social aspect it makes the game that much more unfriendly for new people to grow into.

Especially when the first chat you get stuck in is typically filled with AFK Alts, trolls, and scammers who overshadow the almost nonexistent helpful people.