EVE General Discussion

The high barrier to running Incursions and runaway inflation due to riskless "PVE" in high-sec would drive any new player away from the game. Think about it, running missions or frigate mining/hauling for paltry ISK sucks when the Incursion fleet you can't join is devaluing ISK faster than you can earn it. What possible incentive does a new player who doesn't hook up with a decent player corporation really have for staying subbed to Eve? Oh snap!

This has not been addressed 'as best as possible' - far from it in fact.

The 'new player experience' improvements that were brought in, were just that... Improvements. They are still utterly terrible compared to the tutorials made by the player-base themselves.

So, in my opinion at least, CCP have done well to come this far - but should in no way, consider their work done in that regard.



Don't be daft.


Please see above.
Also... using words like Asinine, while making statements like that last one, really takes away from your argument - in my book at least. Your experience may vary...

Eve is not for everyone and never will be. Working as intended.

lol eve is dying

Only thing the japanese client will introduce is a new revenue of realtively cheap advertising to nexxon customers.

As a (bitter?) old vet, let me relate my early days of being a newbie...

The game was a download file only without a true rating attached to it. That is, while today it is labeled with a "Teen" rating, back then it was borderline "Adult" with items and themes that matched. When my very first mission with Caldari Navy was to supply the agent with a stash of drugs because she was the local supplier, I knew then this game was not another kiddie game. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Aura was borderline indifferent towards new players. "Here is your rookie ship." "Undock using the yellow arrow keys in the lower left hand corner." "Target the station but do not shoot at it." "Warp out to an asteroid belt and target an asteroid." "Let the mining laser run until you collect some rock." "Return to station." And then it was a kick in the ass and told to go make my own destiny in this grand universe. No further hand holding was offered.

Players as a whole were much more mature in my opinion back then. You did not have the constant stream of slang terminology, much less the pursuit of "tears". In fact, players were much more helpful without the need to get a quit killmail when the odds were definitely in their favor. As a personal example, I figured out how to use the market and bought something that was cheap for my Merlin frigate. I set out to retrieve the item and whereas today I would get warning messages that I am about to enter low security space, back then there was no such stoppage. So away I went to get my module, exited the station, and stopped to watch two players shooting themselves apart. After one blew up and I was thrilled, the other looked at me and noted I was relatively new. So after a round of questions based more around how do I like the game so far, this person explained to me the various differences between the security spaces, various career paths in the game, and other finer points. Then this player told the local chat I was leaving the area and I was hand's off since I was new (and green). And yes, nobody went for a cheap kill and let me pass.

The agent rewards were much different then too. Until manufacturing players protested, agents handed me enough ammunition and missiles to rival modern day stockpiles (to this day, I still am wittling those piles). Occasionally I would be granted skill books as rewards, Hmm, "Sharpshooter" - whoa, this skill would be handy!, since there was no EveMon to set the perfect path. Nor were there remaps, much less skill queues to build the optimal set-up. What you started with based upon what you read during your character creator days was what you lived with from there on out. And while there were some similarities among the races, each of the four races were quite distinct in appearance while retaining that futuristic space look (still waiting for my battle scars / facial implants CCP)...

So back to the topic - over the years, CCP has made it easier and easier and easier for players to get into the game and get a foothold in the universe. Yet it seems to me the overall player base has changed to an instant gratification crowd: nobody wants to wait, nobody wants to ~work~ (in a game!), and everybody wants to be the hero right now. Players get these radical ideas in their heads that skill points equals experience points and will never "catch up". Hell, CCP has made it easier to "catch up" compared to years ago; yet new players do not see that. New players are not fond of cutting their teeth on destroyers and frigates - they want the biggest, baddest ships right now or else they are leaving. And if they are not scared off by the pure time element with skill training, they throw a tantrum when the ship's maiden voyage ends in a wreck because the subsequent side skills are poor to non-existant and there is no reset button in this game.

Is Eve dying? - perhaps it is... but if it means that CCP needs to rip out what made this game special to me and all the other players that have stuck around through thick and thin just to placate a new breed of players, then Eve would be camatose and on life support with the death knell ringing in the near future.

But that is my opinion.

Thanks for reading.

That was an excellent read, thank you Guttripper. Puts things more into perspective.
No, EvE is not dying, I would just like to see it grow more so that instead of 35K around 20h00 Evetime on weekdays and perhaps 50K on Weekends, I would love to see 60K+, no matter when.

I do not see any 'bittervet' comments in your essay, just by the way. I read things in there which would make today's EvE so much better for all. Thanks for that background of the past.

o/

niche product. all the potential customers who are ABLE to like EVE are already playing it. numbers won't grow. deal with it.

The issue I've always seemed to have trying to get my friends into eve is trying to explain to them how long they have to wait before they can do certain things, and do them well. I know its possible to have a ok-fitted rifter in a matter of days, (t1 guns, a small tank etc), but they fit it up, go into lowsec, and get popped by anything that gets on grid with them, I know when that happened to me it was demoralising but thats EvE, and although the newer players need to learn that sooner or later, it's not good for new player retention.

TL;DR, newer players feel the skill queues take too long to do anything

(before you all flame me, I don't want eve to be easier for new players and I'm completly against safe areas of highsec or instant gratification of getting good ships really quickly)

For many new players the biggest cause so far is griefing wardecs in High-sec and ganking on miners.
(New players rarely transport anything of value hence logistic ganking is less of a problem).

I'm not saying it should be different and I have done it myself, but it is really tough for a new player wanting to play with your friends facing more experienced players than yourself who war dec's corporations in high sec for money or tears.

People constantly claim more and easier pew pew in high sec. I get the point why, but honestly it will only cause more problems with people who are either learning the game or who have less interest in pew pew.

On the other hand rewards should ofcourse follow and an overall empire tax of 5-10% on missions, trade and mining could be a solution. On the other hand make it harder to wardec corps and alliances non-consensual.