Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I agree with many of your posts, but I think we should consider looking after newbies a little better. Especially given how warm and fuzzy the tutorials are.

It doesnt need to be a full blown hand hold, but I think it would be better to trade a few potential loot pinyatas for better newbie retention. I find it hard to agree that people should do full blow research before firing a game up - over time, certainly - but I do think there is a place for it in the tutorial. A simple masked "courier" mission where you're blasted to bits without warning would do fine.

One of the primary reasons I've played this game as long as I have, and keep coming back to it over and over after it pisses me off and I stop playing, is because it emphasizes something sorely lacking in the real world... Personal Responsibility.

You are personally responsible for deciding what you want to do in Eve, rather than be forced along racial or class roles. Rolled and Amarr toon but hate lasers, you can train something else.

You are personally responsible for finding something to do to occupy your time. Sure alliances and corps have ops at designated times, but if you're not there at that time you can't blame anyone but yourself that you missed it.

Following the trail of brain crumbs to it's logical conclusion, it is your personal responsibility to ensure your own safety. I will state again for all you carebears: Concorde is not a crime prevention branch. Their only existence is to punish those who break their laws. This is Concorde,

Yes, newbies should be warned of the dangers in Eve, and in fact they already are for anyone who takes the personal responsibility to do even the slightest bit of research into a game they are thinking of spending money on. Do not hand hold newbies with more repetitive missions where they'll still think that they're safe from players because they got ganked by NPCs. Yes, they will think this.

Furthermore, CCP needs to stop hand holding the highsec carebears who continually cry for more and more nerfs of ganking when they refuse to take even the slightest personal responsibility for their own safety.

For the record, I too am a carebear. I mine, rat in null, engage in the occasional pvp roam, and have hauler alts roaming through highsec. I protect my assets. Now that I can tank my freighter, you'd better believe it's tanked, as are all my mining barges. I've had one mining barge ganked out of four accounts spanning the last 7 years with this attitude.

Final word to CCP: There's no problem with ganking. The problem is with those being ganked.

Final word to everyone else: I apologize for the long rant, but these whining highsec carebears are giving carebears an even worse reputation than we already had.

I'd say take a step back from impossible and simply make it very hard. Sending them deep into faction warfare in an industry ship would be a suicide run but any player that succeeds should feel like they've accomplished something, and not have to ask in the new player help channel "Why can't I complete this mission? I've dropped off the cargo to the right spot." only to be told. "Oh, you were supposed to fail, undock and self-destruct your ship."

A lot of the problem I perceive new players have with coming to terms with ganking is that the progression of ship affordability is in no ways clear to a new player. In any other MMO if you can afford it you are encouraged to upgrade immediately, whereas in Eve if you can afford it you should in no way spend all of your isk on it, because you are then risking everything.

Getting out of the old spending habits other MMO's have drilled into us for decades is a hard process, and you can't make a tutorial for Risk vs. Reward because that balance can only be judged on an individual basis. Some people like to gamble big, some small.

2 months: 10%. It's pretty damn awful, especially for a game with so much content that people 2, 3 or 6 months into the game are just scratching the surface and have no idea what they're saying no to when they unsubscribe.

First time I got ganked in UO and came back to find the parts of my butchered corpse scattered amongst the bushes I was crushed, and UO suddenly became scary... Over the next few weeks I may have randomly attacked about a dozen people who I thought were acting suspicious....

This. That was well said.

"The game revolves around trade, mining asteroids and the efforts of different player-controlled corporations to take control of swathes of virtual space."

This doesn't really help matters. : / In Eve you're either a miner, a trader or you're involved in Sov warfare. Um, no.

But overall, yes, news stories like that should really prepare people for what they are getting into. It's a game were you fly spaceships, and there is violence. Lots of violence.

Doing it right

I fully agree with you. It's the reason I'm still around. I used to try and convince my friends to play it, but now I'm comfortable knowing that not everyone can enjoy Eve's glories. (and love it despite it's flaws.)

Indeed. Even when I'm being a jerk, I am nothing if not polite.