Note: As an editorial piece, this article reflects the opinions of the author and not TMC as a whole.
With every year that passes the gap between an established vet and a newly created character gets larger, in terms of SP, ISK, player knowledge, and in-game connections. None of these things are essential to enjoying the game but they do help a great deal. The first two will increase over time gradually but the second two, player knowledge and connections, will vary drastically dependant on the personalty of the player.
The keen player will actively go out and try new things, fail perhaps, adjust his approach, and improve. The gregarious player will find friends, fit in, and learn from them. A good example is the guy who decided that Eve Uni had taught him enough and who had heard of the Tuskers, he aimed straight for Hevrice and challenged every Tusker he could find to a 1vs1. His introduction to pvp was hard but we respected his guts and started coaching him – he is now one of us.
We do not need to worry about this type of player – they will always succeed but the other end of the spectrum could use a bit of help.
A presentation at fanfest showed some numbers regarding player retention. For each 100 new subscriptions, 50 would “not get it” and leave after one month, 40 would stay in highsec doing solo PVE activities (and subsequently be more likely to leave) while only 10% joined a corp and/or engaged in more diverse activities.
Firstly we have to accept that EVE is not for everyone, not even close. It is hard, unforgiving, unintuitive, and you have to make your own path – there are no roads here so we are going to have to accept that many will simply not enjoy our masochistic, spreadsheets in space environment. This is fine but anything that can be done to improve the numbers even slightly should be considered.
The next problem is how to do this without sacrificing the sandbox element of the game, which I will admit is extremely difficult. Both CCP’s numbers and our own experience agree that getting into a corp of like minded souls is the best way to enjoy the game. I’m sure most players would agree, and I don’t need to elaborate here.
I expect the thinkers at CCP have devoted much time to this and they will have run into the same brick wall as I have just now. As the creators of the game, and with many staff being ex-players with prior allegiances, they have to be scrupulously neutral which very much limits doing anything within the client.
A few things can be done and I’ll list the ideas I have had in order of ease of implementation:
1. The recruiting section of the forums needs to be expanded. At present we have one section for all adverts both for corps and for individuals looking for corps, this is huge, unwieldy, and you have to scroll a long way to find something of interest. It would be quite easy to split this into “Corps looking for players” and “Players looking for corps” with subdivisions in each for high, low, null, and wormhole space. At a stroke people are now browsing approximately one eighth of the ads they were before and the ones they are looking at are more relevant. Super easy to do.
2. The in-game corp search tool could do with a complete rethink. Ideally CCP should get a group of new players and corp recruiters together (or perhaps a big survey) and try to come up with something that has a few more variables and can tailor the results slightly better. I am no programmer and have no idea how easy this would be but I think it would be worthwhile in terms of developer time.
3. Coming at the game from a pvp standpoint as I do, the first ship loss is an important potential turning point for most players. Most will have no idea what happened when they lose their first ship and how they react to this sets the tone for their subsequent game style. I have had reactions from “Whoah cool, I get to see my body in space” (he got a load of ISK and advice) to quite graphic threats of what the slighted capsuleer would do to my family, property, and dog (he got podded and ignored).
Ideally (and I’m just throwing out ideas here) the game needs to prepare you for this. While there is currently a tutorial mission including the loss of a ship, it does not really reflect the experience of PVP. Perhaps you could get a mission from an agent to send you into lowsec and engage a flashy character with the aim of simply tackling them, or activating guns, with the agent clearly stating that you’re not expected to survive and providing a ship for the purpose. Similar options in nullsec could include stealing from ESS units or activating an entosis link, the possibilities are endless. Of course anything along these lines is open to abuse and would need to be carefully thought out but the rewards that a new player would find lucrative are probably not worth gaming the system for.
4. Lastly there is one thing that every one of us can do and that’s the basic “hug a newb” approach. Depending on how I’m feeling, if I catch an obvious clueless newb I will often ransom his totally worthless ship for a joke, or make him jetcan his (equally worthless) cargo, or occasionally even get a song out of them on comms (one guy belted out Bohemain Rhapsody like he was channelling the ghost of Freddie Mercury and blew us away – he got a pile of ISK).
Again the personality of the player matters here, many will just swear at you and those are the ones who won’t fit in anyway but maybe 40% engage and tell you how cool it was that some random guy appeared out of nowhere and demanded a good joke to be set free. The more they engage with me, the more time I will spend with them discussing fitting, potential paths forward, and anything else they ask about.
This is the first step to realising that the game is not the important bit but merely a construct allowing you to make connections, develop your skills, and ultimately create content. The hardest lesson to learn in EVE is that the players are the game.
This subject is among the biggest headache that CCP’s developers have at the moment. I expect they have thought of all these ideas and more because the continued existence of the company depends on it. While I don’t claim to have any greater insight than they do, I think there are a few points above that deserve some merit.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Johnny Twelvebore.
