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OHNOES! EVE hates n00bs!!!1111
nurgles
Member Posts: 840
There is an enormous amount of criticism about how inadequate EVE is for new players when compared to older players, I would like to give some hope to n00bs while giving a bit of a perspective on the game and why it is so different.
“EVE-online’s skill progression system doesn’t let me catch up to an older player”. The statement is both incorrect (which I will explain later) but it is also a game killing concept. Why should you be able to catch up to an older player? That implies that the older player themselves have reached a halt in progression, nowhere to go, endgame, so they may as well quit.
EVE is structured to both get new players and to also keep older players, that is why there is people still playing from the beta release in ?2003?. So try to keep in mind that when playing the game, you are not heading towards endgame, as there isn’t one.
So then the question is “what is the goal?”, the simple answer is “it’s a sandbox, so whatever you want it to be” which I admit sounds hollow. To me, the point of the game is the social aspect, everything drives you towards interacting with others, this leads to the complexity of social organization and politics. So the point is to be involved in the player driven ‘structures’ in the game. These structures can be the items from the manufactured ammo all the way up to stations and titans, or they can be the abstracts like the economy or the political organisation and wars. It is the single server persistent world allows this.
Now back to catching up to an older player in skills. Simply put, the skill tree design, the fact that skills have a maximum level, mean that you can have exactly the same number of skill points in an area as an older player. “Hold on a sec, is this not in conflict with what is said above?” Not really, due to the older player being able to have more diversity in what they can do. This allows them to explore more content in the game.
“But I can never fight on an equal footing with an older player!” again, why should you be able to? The fact is that the most important aspect of PvP in EVE is knowing the situation that you are in. Skillpoints, ISK are immaterial if you do something stupid. Most battles are won or lost on controlling the intel that each side has. You need to bait people into a fight that they will loose. Some people like a one vs one fight, and some even fight ‘honourably’ in requesting a one vs one, but the majority of fights in the game are unequal. As a social game, a tight team working together can really hit hard. Then there is the fact that each ship is designed to have a weakness as well as a strength, so you should be able to beat it by hitting its weakness, so a younger play can take down an older one. Also a lot of older players don’t actually fight, the highest known skill point character is a scientist/inventor/industrial character.
“But I can never control space, or be CEO as all those positions are held by older players!” honestly if you want to be one of the political movers and shakers in the game you can do so, it will take you a year or so of political manoeuvring, building trust and hard, hard work, but you can get there. The reason I am so sure of this is that the determination, hard work and stress that comes from holding these positions brings great rewards but also burns people out. There is always a demand for people that care and put in the effort.
Underlying all of this is another point, EVE as a game has constantly grown however it has never rivalled any of the popular MMORPGs for subscription numbers, this is because it is not a game designed around a boom then bust cycle of money spinning. It does not want to attract everyone who tries it so they can play through to endgame, it is designed for a niche group who find the game attractive. It may not be for you, you might be bored to tears, or find the penalties from PvP in the game to high,or the PvE content to small, or the long term goals too abstract, or the crafting system too complex, or the ISK grind to painful, or the lag too infuriating, or the combat too strategic, or the ships as avatars too dissociating, or skill system too slow, or the need to gang up to tiresome. That’s fine. I hope you find another game that you like. The game doesn’t pretend to be for everyone, it need not be for everyone, all that needs to happen is that it continues to grow, and grow at a reasonably slow rate. If a million subscribers joined tomorrow the game would die, the server wouldn’t cope.
[edit] It has been mention bellow that this sort of discussion has been carried out ad nauseum, I wholeheartedly agree. I was mainly trying to have some thing that would be worthwhile to direct people to in the future rather than flogging that dead horse 3 pages into a threat that is a pitfall of trolls. I may have been reaching a bit far, but hey, it was worth the effort if it saves someone else having to write it out again. I am happy to edit the first entry with good suggestions.
Comments
is ur personal review of the game?? though i commend your try at showcasing what makes eve online great, i think its overly done. i think there are plenty of posts thus far that dictate what eve offers. and the subject of this post seems a bit l33t talk and childish trying to get attention. but i appreciate the time u took to write this, but i believe people have a grasp on what eve has to offer and know what to expect if and when they play the game.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
That was awesome Nurgles
I just quoted that on my station forum for new players over there to read aswell and I'll get the devs to read this too
link
I enjoyed reading and agreed with most of whats in Nurgles "Review" and well done to him for summing it up so well (care to try yourself?)
The point is, many newbies (I hate the word n00b) haven't got a clue about EvE... Hell, i only started in Febuary myself and wouldn't have carried on if I didn't have 2 respected (feared?) players helping me out and there alts in my corp and my corp regularly takes on new players to give them a safety net for teaming up with more experienced pilots
Nakuma, his post contains arguments for both sides. He does not make himself seem great and he uses no leetspeak whatsoever. He doesn't scream for attention.
I agree that alot of what he says can be found anywhere around the globe, but at the same time, it's wellput and placed in a context.
Your reply however, seems to be a bit on the troll side and perhaps a bit 1337 and full of yourself.
edit : I agree about the title, I also expected to find a moron.
Very well put.. and in honesty, to me the title practically screams sarcasm.
I think eve is a mature players game, as in older person and attitude, there is a tutorial for everything just about, if ya dont read it, you wont get it, its up t you to want to do the tutorials, and the new players channel is full of people that will help you, great thing to do is do the tutorials and get into a helper corps, if you have no patience and just want to mindlessly hack and slash then eve is definatly not for you.
playing eq2 and two worlds
aristea i was talking about the title having a L33t talk to it being a bit misleading, not the article itself. the artcile was nice and explained about what the game was about, but how many posts has there been like this?? Im not downing it though.
and no where in my post was there l33t talk lol, unless you consider proper english l33t lol. just want to make that clear. k
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
Problem of Eve is...
After you've completed the tutorial, there's nothing to do beside those boring missions.... Unless you're joining a player-driven corporation.
Now the problem is... How can you choose and join a corporation in a political world you know nothing about ? You may do the wrong choice, as a noob, and join a corporation that doesnt really match your playstyle or goals in the game.
And once you've joined a corporation, even if your choice have been correct, what can you do as a casual newcomer ? (casual newcomer = a player who just started to play the game - a "noob" - who is also a casual player).
So, you ask your corporation channel about things to do and you get the answer the OP gave us here : "do whatever you want !".... Yea, ok, very good idea, but if i'm asking it's because i have no idea what to do, and this is totally logic, since i am a new player who know very little about the game and even less about the political situation of the world in game and the goals of your corporation within that political situation.
Do you really think i'd ask you what to do if i had any idea ? Dont you think instead of asking you what to do, i'd do what i want to do, without asking you the "permission" ?
So... When i ask you "What can i do ? How can i make myself useful for the corporation ? How can i enter the real game, have a role in this game and bring my 2 cents ? Even if i wont have a decisive role and rule the universe, i'd like to make some difference, even if this difference only influence very slightly the efficiency of our corporation."...
Do not answer me : "Do whatever you want !
It's a great game enjoy your freedom !", because i will only hear the following : "Get by yourself, noob, and stop disturbing me during my playtime."
The learning curve in this game is RIDICULOUS..... If thats why people say that Eve-online isn't fond of the "newbie" its because of that.
also....
POSTER SAID THIS ~ The reason I am so sure of this is that the determination, hard work and stress that comes from holding these positions brings great rewards but also burns people out. There is always a demand for people that care and put in the effort.
This is exactly why I quit the game a year or so back. Burnout. Pressure from other peeps. It happens to alot of people. I look back at if I would have just kept paying on my "accounts" how much more skillpoints I would have but the game is JUST SO FREAKING COMPLICATED AND INTERWOVEN!!!!! When you say "put in the effort". how much effort would it take. Personally from my former corpmates and CEO's it takes HUGE AMOUNTS of time and energy. They felt they were constantly having to put more time into the game inorder to get the enjoyment out it they they so felt they so rightly deserved. Its this time and effort is what concerns me. After awhile there needs to be equality brought to the gameplay experience. Running a corp means that depending on how big it is you really dont get to have THAT MUCH FUN because I dont know about you but sitting behind a computer all day hauling escorting people hauling coolant, escorting poeple into noobspace to GET THERE GOODS BECAUSE THERES NO FREAKING TRADE HUB SET UP IN 0.0 YET... etc.... is what makes people quit..... ok I feel better now
.
I believe that in order to enjoy the game at its peak you really need people that you already know in real life in your gangs or corps. Having someone to relieve you and also having that someone be on the same page as you IS FREAKING CRITICAL. I've never played an MMO like this ever though and it was an AWESOME experience to learn all about what the game had to offer. In fact EvE for all its sandbox'ean flaws (i.e green space sux, but red space sux worse unless in a corp/tight gang etc.) eve Online is truly an MMO thats ahead of its time. I would have in fact kept playing the game if the big space battles (even though they were just 2 groups of geeks on a power trip
) weren't such a lagfest. Once technology (in real life that is 
) advances to the point where hundreds and hundreds of ships and objects can do all the cool stuff we with them to do, Eve online will explode in the popularity of its former players. There were even people in the game that I knew that stayed out of 0.0 just because of the lag in fleet battles but they loved the game so much they stayed in green space.
Also its been awhile for me is there an actual 0.0 LEGIT trading hub set up yet?
I wonder if the people who run CCP really have well over 12,000 employees working for them.... and they just happen to be the PLAYERS THEMSELVES. Who needs Developers. FOR PETE'S SAKE IT ALMOST TAKES A GAME DEVELOPERS KNOW HOW TO EVEN START A CORP. CCP saves LOADS of cash not having to hire AS many of them. But then again I could be very wrong about this one since the "gamespace" is freaking huge and having to monitor and or correct for errors might take more devs to handle then other MMO's.
I hope this post doesn't come off as someone who is "bashing the game" or is "carebear'in" in up here. Not at all. I just miss the game a lil. I was just happy in .5 doing missions the last 2 months I played. But it seems that all the good stuff is in 0.0 and after getting a battleship, then supin' it up the way you like, then getting faction the way you like. Theres really nothing else other then mining or lining someone elses pocket.
"maybe the game is just a tad too realistic"
ahhaahahaha just kidding
Ah... oh well.....
Is there an MMO that out there that isn't affected by Xao Ping Wang and their money grubbing macro bots?
http://wow.stratics.com/content/features/editorials/mf/
Just say no to ingame money/mob farming.... the site says it all
i may have been reaching a bit far but hey it was worth the effort and i am happy to edit the first entry with good suggestions.
thanks everyone for the compliments
I applaud the OP for a well written thread. Although it has been done thousand times people are still attracted to threads like this. I find it quite amusing when people say the learning curve is to much to handle. Honestly just because EVE doesnt have magical dwarfs and healing spells doesnt make it a complicated game. You pick what you want to do. Then you buy the skills that correspond with what you want to do. Then you join a corp that corresponds with your skills and WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. Thats the major problem people find with EVE. The fact that the game doesnt tell you WHAT TO DO but rather you pick your direction and path. Been playing for 4 years and still get a adrenaline rush in combat.
you are right, breaking into the social circles can be a quite a tough problem. I was lucky in that rl friend got me hooked in the game and recomended i follow up with a group of young characters that had set up a corp that was dedicated to roleplay and PvP. two years have passed and now my n00b corp is the executor corp of one of the oldest roleplaying alliances in the game, we have been in the splash news often.
the do what you want thing is a terrible pitfall for some players as they have no idea what they want to do. My awnser to that is, are you OK blowing 3 months to get a feel for PvP? while not glamorous learning to be a tackler is a great way to get involved in the PvP side of things. just be willing to die a lot, but it will give you the hands on experience. Put a thread in the recruitment board on the eve-online forums saying you are enthusiastic to die horriblely for a cause, tackler for hire!
if you are more of a casual player you need to find something acheivable with the time you can invest, this is a hard one. the isk problem is a real one, but the more carebear occupations at least don't have the costs of constant PvP. see if your nationality gives you some ciontacts, do you have any other interests, look for like minded people to chat with. but to be honest the game is not the best suited for casual gameplay.
oh, and remember that there are jerks in any social grouping, most of the eve-players i know have a lot of patience with a newbie as long as the are enthusiastic and interested but whining is not appretiated
The point about rl friends in game is very important as trust in the game is hard to find, but of such great importance.
Doing this type of topic is a right of passage to most eve players one day even I will do one.
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Retired from: Neocron, Everquest, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, RF Online and Final Fantasy VII
Currently Playing : EvE Online.
This is a very good review!
Nice post, been said before though
Although, it won't take 'years' to rise to power as a CEO... if you are a good social person with decent social skills you can easily rise to power in a corp or alliance in under a year or so. You won't be a "BoB" but you can easily be a CEO of a spaceholding corp that leads an alliance. I know this because I have friends who have done it. Personally I'm as high in the social ladder as I want to be. Once you go beyond a certain point, to me, the game starts feeling too much like work. I've done the Guildmaster/CEO/whatever thing to death when I was younger. It stopped being 'fun' eons ago
Me? I love leading fleets into combat. But leading a corp/alliance? No way
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
So the problem is not really that new players "have no idea what they want to do". The problem is "new players have no idea what they can do". And consequently, of course : how can you decide what you want to do, when you dont even have an idea of your different possibilities ?
Of course, in Eve-Online, you can :
And the time invested in order to achieve something fun is so huge that deciding one or another job in Eve seem to be very important at the beginning.
I've seen some tutorials, written by players, saying that new characters should learn "learning skills" first, so they'll save a lot of time at the cost of a slow start. It seem to be a nice idea, but in that case : why forcing me to play something unfun before being able to have fun ?
Well, let's go back to the problem of not knowing what new players can do (from the new player perspective)...
I think the tutorial in Eve teachs you how to use your ship. And also teachs you some basic things, like missions... But the tutorial also forget something important : it doesnt give a clue to the new player.
Oh the answer to that one is simple
New players should first join a corp like EVE University where they can get a beginners taste of 'a little of everything' and hopefully get a feel for what they'd find interesting. After they've gotten a bit of time in EVE University they should attend some Agony Unleashed courses to get a feel for PVP to see if that interests them.
In the meantime, while they learn up, they should set some short term goals and use EVEMON to plan them. Note I didn't say to learn all the learning skills to 5/4 skill level. I said use EVEMON to plan a short term goal... as in... within a few days what do you want to do? Set up the plan, then let EVEMON suggest learning skills to minimize the training for it. Then follow that plan. Perhaps get some advice from the folks in EVE University while you are at it as to a path to take initially.
This will allow a new player to have FUN while experiencing the game. After you have hit that short term goal, set a slightly longer (say 1-2 weeks) goal and set the plan for that, then let evemon recommend learning skills for that plan. After you have reached the SECOND short term goal then learn all your learning skills to 5/4 because, at this point, you should have enough skills trained to be able to have some fun while waiting for those learning skills to train up.
Don't be affraid, during the longer ones, to train shorter skills while you are online, either. Train the longer trains overnight or over weekends/days you're not going to play. That way you can pick stuff up along the way as you see a need for it.
Then again, this has all been said before, in many other threads.
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
i just started playing EVE last week, .. ive in no way found so far that people there dont like me or the others on the "noob help chat channel" ...matter fact they have been very helpfull .. what i have found is that many can be annoying when they ask questions that are answered in the tute .. and then say well the tute was boring so they didnt finish .
How do i find my next agent, ... at the end of the tute the agent introduces you to a new one .. and it also teaches you how to look them up on your own if u dont want the one that he tells you about next ..
Its been like that on all the games ive played, it isnt so much that community hates noobs as i feel it is that they dislike lazy people ... There r things a person could forget from doing the tute, and things that might not have been covered or covered well, and i think people realize this, but then there r just things that ring a bell that this person is just lazy and thats annoying. IMHO
ps: you can also play any of the tutes at anytime by clicking the tute button on the left side of the screen and picking a subject ..
the point about the difference between what a new player wants to do against what they can do is an interesting one. I can see how knowing what you can do should proceed what you want to do, i will try explain why i don't ususally address what you can do.
I have been playing over two years, i play a 'jack of all trades', i have a short attention span so concentrate on one area for maybe 3 months before moving onto another. so that suggests i have tried eight different careers in the game, and still i don't know what you can do in the game as there is always something else.
Buy asking what you can do, you are asking us to define the limits of activity in the game, which can't be done due it's sandbox nature. As soon as someone does difine the limits, someone else with find a new type of gameplay. This is why I was implying that you should just get active. The fear that your initial choices control where you end up are baseless, as long as you are willing to be patient and enjoy the journey. If Min/Maxing is everthing to you, i don't think eve is the game for you, you need to be able to dabble some at least at first to get a taste, then, for sure, you can focus and and min/max a setup/ship combo, but it will be how you use it that is more interesting/important.
Asking what you 'can' do also limits your vision to looking for an endgame. What do you do once you have achieved your goal?
You already know the broad possibilities, here is some elaboration.
Now the reason i recomment a stint in PvP as a frig tackler is that you get exposed to PvP, the skills are easy to set up, there is no long term commitment, you learn PvP techniques and see others implimented, and if you do decide to go with any of the carebear carrears afterward, you will have a better idea of how to protect yourself, as you will need to protect yourself.
You do not have to do learning skills first, that is just the min/maxer talking. for short term goals learning has little effect, it is the long term ones where it pays off.
How is PvP different from other MMOs? To be honest i have never played any others so i am the worst person ask. Except, maybe if you understand why I chose EVE. the single server means that ever player action has an effect on every other player. This means that shooting another player is PvP, but so is trade, mining and manufacture.
The penalty of loosing in PvP is harsh. the loss of a ship is in 98% of cases a finantial loss, you lose the modules, you lose the rigs, and if you are podded you lose your implants and have to pay for a new clone. It costs you gameplay time, you need to make that ISK back, but you also need to aquire all the components, the modules etc, which will cost you time, you need to tweek the ship setup so all the components fit. This cost in gameplay time means that you don't want to lose the ship, it means that it matters to you if you lose it, that means that the fights have a significant emotional investment, your adrenalin pumps, they are exciting.
The bottom line is that eve is the journey not the destination. To find out what you can do, you need to put in the exploration, this should help you find what you want to do in the long term and remember that a goal that takes 3 months is nothing if you are looking for a long term game. If you don't find the learning and exploration aspect of the game fun, then you should not play. EVE is not an endgame grind so you can PvP in a fixed arena against 'equals' for 'fun'.
The corp/alliance leaders have the problem of long term goals, morale and diplomacy, these leak out into rl more that organising the next fleet op.
In fact, i'm a professional developper, and one day, i'd like to run some kind of a small-sized niche mmorpg based on the sandbox model.
I'm looking for (i dont know if we can really say that i'm actively searching it but... Well... If i ever find it, i'd be happier) a long term game.... But that doesnt mean i'll agree to wait 3 months before having fun.
"3 months is nothing", except it's 3 months of subscription time.... 3 * $15. =p Not nothing finally.
It's not only the 3 months, but in fact, if i had to describe the gameplay of Eve for a new casual player (I think i have some experience with it, since i have tried Eve perhaps 5 or 6 times during at least 2 weeks each time).
I'd say : it's an endless journey where you complete fedex quests, where the distance between each POI (point of interest) is at least a 5 minutes journey, where you spend all your time mining very common minerals (which is very unexciting), where you avoid battle since the day that guy oneshooted your ship and your pod.
As a hardcore gamer, you probably dont have a problem with "short term goals" that takes 3 days or 2 weeks to complete.
As a casual gamer, i do have a problem with journeys (travelling from one point in the space to another with my ship) that takes more than 2 minutes, especially if travelling is something you're doing so often that it represents 80% of your playtime.
Basically, Eve is probably a very nice game when you are willing to invest a lot of yourself (RL) in, but when you consider it a game, nothing more than something to give you some immediate fun/relax after the work, it's a nice screensaver of a ship travelling hyperspace.
To me, Eve seem to lack something fun and accessible immediately, without having to wait 3 months of learning or wait 30 minutes in hyperspace.
I agree with davcha. Eve is huge, the sandbox aspect and the skill tree system are making this game limitless. There is no end to the amount of skills and isks you will be able to spend in this game. There will always be a bigger more powerful (and of course more expansive) toy to play with.
But in a way that's where the game lost me. My first steps in Eve were great, skills were easy bought, easy learnt. A couple of hours missioning/mining/ratting and you were able to buy a brand new ship with new toys. And the game got harder and harder...
When I got close to 30millions SP, I had to spend more and more time playing if I wanted to afford my ships'insurances, clones renewal, tech II fitts upgrades and so on... I had only two choices : missioning for hours and hours a day in hi-sec (but I'm a casual) or mining/ratting a couple of hours a day in low-sec.
My last "unfortunate encounter" in lowsec cost me a full techII fitted HAC and a clone. I was in straits, I knew I had several weeks or even months of missionning in hi-sec to get back on tracks. That could sound like a challenge to some, it sounded like work to me. I decided to cancel my sub.
I'm sure to have missed something in this game. It seems so easy for some to get money. Maybe are they smarter than me, maybe do they have richer friends ingame...
I'm constantly thinking about resubbing but I know I will face the same challenges and the same failures. So sad this game has so much to offer but not for me.
You can be an effective tackler after ~2 days to one week and live in 0.0 and highsec. You just need to poke the right guys at the right time, and you wont even have to think of isks.
Takes a fair bit of socializing though, and maybe someone else who plays the game already who can confirm you are not a spy, as metagaming is huge in eve.
But, as all mmogs, eve takes time. And even more so, as bigger fleets or even roaming gangs looking for prey take some time to set up, then you need some time for a proper briefing etc..
i am not sure where you got the 3 months of no fun from. the first 3 months are part of the journy that should be fun. take a look at this thread.
mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/144230
i agree that for the casual gamer, and for the impatient one the game is unplayable, i guess i like that. The time cost of travel is one of the burdens of loss that happens in PvP, as i said very harsh penalties.
One of the things that i resisted doing for a long time was starting a second account, i gave in recently. The main reason i did was that i had changed my gameplay so that there were long periods of doing nothing (probably too much of the game is like this), so having a second accound ment i could build an alt, do semi-afk mining for production. The main reason i resisted was cost justification, however i can now make enough in game credit to excange it for game time cards, so someone else pays for my account.
What it seems to come down to is that EVE is not the game for you. However, you are tring to work out why EVE, a small, niche based, sandboxed model MMORPG fails for you so you can desighn one in the way you think is attractive. Fair enough, I think you have pretty substantial design challenges ahead of you, I don't think that sandbox suits casual or impatient play, as the sandbox is a blank slate unless you put work in it to build and to maintain it. Casual fun to me is TF2. I am not saying your ingenuity is not up to it, I certainly hope you make something that breaks the mold.