Pages: [1] 2 :: one page |
|
Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 0 post(s) |
Zan Callira
Broz With Froz
3
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 18:07:00 -
[1] - Quote
Look, since the number of subscribers in EVE has been dropping off dramatically, I thought that what EVE really needs is a REAL hook to reel in the new players. The best I could come up with is a new take on your first 5 minutes of EVE. And then I looked into the other games I play to build up my character. Well, how about a harsh take on reality with a game like Need For Speed: Underground? Example:
- Player N just clicked the [OK] button on character selection.
- Player N is whisked away to a random spot in nullsec (not a part of the full tranquility server so no other players in the system with you), armed with a battleship, and the ever-present Aura guiding with tutorials. (i.e. warp off station, go to sun, go to planet, dock at station, join fleet.)
- Player N joins fleet (NPCs), and is greeted by (scripted) greetings and rowdy banter typical to their chosen faction. Aura guiding on ins and outs of what your ship is, what fittings/rigs are and such. Player N finally gets through the last tutorial and fleet chat starts flashing, opening it, there's a convo about an enemy fleet approaching.
- A fleet member tells everyone to undock, Aura guides Player N to undock.
- A fleet member tells everyone to warp to gate and engage hostiles, once again Aura guides Player N to activate modules to help with tanking explaining a difference in shield, armor, and hull tanking.
- Coming out of warp, it's pure devastation. There's wrecks everywhere, heavy losses on both sides. Aura is helping slightly: aim at this target, click or use a button for this module. Once Player N scores a kill (scripted), the hostiles engage Player N and succeeds in not only killing his ship, but podding him as well.
- Clone activation: Aura appears during the black screen with a tutorial about clones, skills, and various other tips on what to do. Player N upon reaching the end of this tutorial, has to purchase his first Alpha Clone, as well as purchasing (on Aura's market) a noobship (that's all the money they have for it) and various fittings like mining lasers and shield boosters and skillbooks are still given freely through tutorials.
What do you think? Oderint, dum metuant. Let them hate, so long as they fear. -Accius |
Ali Aras
Noir. Noir. Mercenary Group
472
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 20:53:00 -
[2] - Quote
http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/give_it_to_me_stephen_colbert.gif
This is a ******* amazing idea. Pod back to mission system, now you're in the more normal tutorial lineup, and *you know what's out there*. Retool the newbie missions to connect back to that experience (rebuilding your ship stocks?), and bam, it's a hook. It's the same hook you get from well-written fiction that does the whole in media res thing: you skip the boring explanatory setup baloney because nobody wants to read pages of worldbuilding before they get to the good parts.
Problems I can spot: I think this would be annoying on your 2nd or 3rd or 4th or nth alt. If there's a way to skip it, idiot noobs will too ("hurrr I don't need a manual I'm a hardcore gamer"). There could be some smarter ways around it (I don't know what CCP knows about "a player", but, defaulting it to off and offering it as an option if they're sufficiently "a vet" might be useful).
That's it. I'm sure some CCPer could find more-- I'll pass this link to the person I think would be most interested in it, and maybe they'll come post. But, holy hell this would be so many light-years better than what we have now. It'd probably have to wait until the "new content tools" mentioned in the CSM minutes-- CCP's PVE-setup (and this is PvE) is horribly broken atm, making adding new PvE content, er, challenging.
Once it's not broken, though, selling this kind of intro should be easy. It's like a trailer for an expansion, except instead of paying out once it hooks / keeps hooked new players coming into your game. http://warp-to-sun.tumblr.com -- my blog |
Moya Aideron
Reasonable People Of Sound Mind
2
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:04:00 -
[3] - Quote
brilliant suggestion |
Ali Aras
Noir. Noir. Mercenary Group
478
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:08:00 -
[4] - Quote
There's also the whole problem of, "well, how *do* you get the player in a BS when newbies don't start with all that?"
Easy: you start them with all that. Pod them back to station, and they've lost it all. What's that, if you undock in an unupgraded clone you lose skillpoints? GOOD TO KNOW THANKS TUTORIAL.
Basically this would teach a lot of the really niche parts of PvP all in one go, using the traditional RPG trope of "give the player a lot of power, then take it away" (see: Assassin's Creed, iirc the beginning of Mass Effect 2, others). People want to get it back, so boom, you've already got an idea of progress and progression. You can still even be a new capsuleer, woken up specifically for that battle WHEN SUDDENLY oops you get sent back to your newbie institution to relearn some things because of pod death. http://warp-to-sun.tumblr.com -- my blog |
Mike Azariah
DemSal Corporation DemSal Unlimited
785
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:11:00 -
[5] - Quote
I like and Ali's suggestion except there has to be a way to keep the fool from running away from the podding so he can keep the skill list.
m Mike Azariah-á CSM8 |
Ali Aras
Noir. Noir. Mercenary Group
478
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:13:00 -
[6] - Quote
Mike Azariah wrote:I like and Ali's suggestion except there has to be a way to keep the fool from running away from the podding so he can keep the skill list.
m What's that? Some sort of bubble that spits out of a ship, preventing warp? :D http://warp-to-sun.tumblr.com -- my blog |
Samuel Caldara
0ne Percent. Odin's Call
5
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:13:00 -
[7] - Quote
I saw your comment on the post on The Mittani. I love it, its an instant hook and you would learn so much more.
Maybe at the beginning of the intro have a popup come up in the corner about a specialized one use jumpclone back to empire space to skip the tutorial. No new guy is going to know how to access that let alone what it does.
Another thing to add though - I think a plug to Eve University is needed in game. Yes its favoring a group of players, get over it. The amount of help they will be able to give is significantly more than they are ever going to get from the starter corp and help channel. |
Dersen Lowery
Laurentson INC StructureDamage
935
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:15:00 -
[8] - Quote
Mike Azariah wrote:I like and Ali's suggestion except there has to be a way to keep the fool from running away from the podding so he can keep the skill list.
m
Not a problem if it's a random spot in nullsec. All you need is a dictor.
Hey, they can learn about bubbles, too! I love this idea.
[EDIT: Ninja'd by CSM.] Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables. |
Two step
Aperture Harmonics No Holes Barred
4392
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:17:00 -
[9] - Quote
CSM 7 (I think) suggested exactly this sort of thing at one of the summits. Now you are going to make me go back and look at summit minutes. CSM 7 Secretary CSM 6 Alternate Delegate @two_step_eve on Twitter My Blog
|
Two step
Aperture Harmonics No Holes Barred
4394
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:24:00 -
[10] - Quote
Yeah, here it is: http://web.ccpgamescdn.com/csm/CSM_CCP_Meeting_2012_05_30.pdf
Page 152:
Quote:UAxDEATH : Maybe you could put the noob into the middle of a fake fleet fight of some type, so he gets a feel of what a real battle is like. And not just looking at it, but participating.
Trebor: To be honest, that sort of thing would probably work better as some sort of video you canwatch while the client is downloading. Sort of like a tour of the universe. For a noob, the depth and complexity of doing the simplest stuff in EVE are so overwhelming that you can't expect them the fly through a battle first thing they'll be totally lost.
UAxDEATH: As much as a video during the download would be beautiful, there's no amount of training that can prepare you for a real fight. You just have to go into it.
Edit: Also, a bunch more a few pages later, on page 157 CSM 7 Secretary CSM 6 Alternate Delegate @two_step_eve on Twitter My Blog
|
|
TheMercenaryKing
StarFleet Enterprises Almost Awesome.
102
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:26:00 -
[11] - Quote
Wow, that is some serious trial by fire.
But this fleet thing, would it be like an NPC fleet? I mean, as much as i would like it to be a player fleet, its unlikely going to be that. How would aura know "undock now", "warp to xxxx", "bridge via titan".
I mean, it would be one thing if it a weekly thing planned ahead by CCP. |
Ali Aras
Noir. Noir. Mercenary Group
478
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:28:00 -
[12] - Quote
It'd be an NPC fleet, and Aura would know because the entire thing was scripted. Sure, it wouldn't be as amazing as a real thing, but if it's the first thing the player sees, the sense of bigness would still be there.
Two Step, that's awesome. http://warp-to-sun.tumblr.com -- my blog |
Bienator II
madmen of the skies
2416
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:36:00 -
[13] - Quote
many games actually try this "fast forward" introduction but its easy to get it wrong esp in complex games. To pick an example, the introduction chapter of witcher 2 where you start with fairly high skills got the most criticism. eve style bounties (done) dust boarding parties imagine there is war and everybody cloaks - join FW |
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
2549
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 21:43:00 -
[14] - Quote
Don't allow people to skip the mission on their first character. Every other character can skip it.
Want to skip it on a new account? create a throwaway character. biomass it. You can now skip it. Steve Ronuken for CSM 9! http://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/ Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter |
Ali Aras
Noir. Noir. Mercenary Group
478
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 22:02:00 -
[15] - Quote
Bienator II wrote:many games actually try this "fast forward" introduction but its easy to get it wrong esp in complex games. To pick an example, the introduction chapter of witcher 2 where you start with fairly high skills got the most criticism. What makes those games failures? http://warp-to-sun.tumblr.com -- my blog |
Algol Bailiwick
Bunnie Slayers Redrum Fleet
15
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 22:21:00 -
[16] - Quote
We used to be closer to this, when you started the game in space being shot at by 2 rats. It wasn't much, but it was in space, and there was shooting. |
TheMercenaryKing
StarFleet Enterprises Almost Awesome.
102
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 22:42:00 -
[17] - Quote
Hmmm. To get the actual size of it, a you would want capitals involved, probably some doomsday animations, |
IcyMidnight
Valkyries of Night Of Sound Mind
0
|
Posted - 2014.01.14 23:13:00 -
[18] - Quote
This sounds like a great idea! It'd be great to tweak it so it still fits in the universe so as to not hurt the RP players. Worst case: it's a training simulation as you graduate from capsuleer training or whatever.
Getting players over the: dying is fun even though you have to buy a new ship (spacesuit) is key. We're immortal, people! |
TheMercenaryKing
StarFleet Enterprises Almost Awesome.
102
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 00:15:00 -
[19] - Quote
Create an account log in "Warning Friendly fleet is engaging hostiles..." "Please open your inventory and select a ship." "You have selected a battleship, Please open your inventory and right click on the modules and select fit to ship." "your ship is fitted, please click undock" "on the right you have your overview, please select the Cynosoral field" "in the window above that, please press Warp To" .... etc etc "Please click on the [NPC Titan] and select target, then activate your guns by clicking on them" "Warning a Doomday weapon has been activated" "You are now being attacked " "Your ship has been blown up" "Oh no, your pod isnt able to get away" "you are no longer able to fly battleships until the skill is trained" Mission Complete: Trial by Fire
Do it, I will make trial accounts just to do that. |
Samuel Caldara
0ne Percent. Odin's Call
6
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 02:59:00 -
[20] - Quote
You could also build into the small ships vs big ships into this too. Just have a segment where you have to try and shoot a frigate but can't. A play in like this isn't there to teach the new person everything. Its to show the new character that these relationships are there so they can go learn more about them.
Ship types in a battle, ammo, resistances, optimal and falloff, capacitor warfare, ewar, logistics, cynos, overheating, shield tank vs armor tank. You don't need to say "This is a Falcon, falcon's use ECM, this is what ECM does and how it works." NO! Instead the intro can put you through a short jam cycle, point out the ship that is doing it and have you blap it. You don't know HOW ECM works but you do know it exists which is far better than the average pilot ends up after the tutorial mission. |
|
Zan Callira
Broz With Froz
23
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 05:38:00 -
[21] - Quote
Okay, so first things first. I would like to thank members of the CSM who have taken time out of their busy schedules to take a look into my mind for a bit, as well as thanks for the comments into the "behind-the-scenes" ideas.
Secondly, I did not realize that the fanbase of both this forum (and mittani's) would suddenly be into this as they have. This idea, and as frank as I can explain, was more of a bit of flow-charting a bit of fan-fiction I'm currently working on added to the idea of new subscribers not finding a reason to stay past their first year.
So, what would drive a new player into doing anything other than flying noobships and shooting rocks?
It got me thinking, "Why do I EVE?" ( << Not a typo)
Then, "Why should others EVE?" ( << Also not a typo)
It made me think of every hook that makes me want to play games, but EVE's new player startup missions were SEVERELY LACKING. Have you gone back to your roots and tried the newbie missions as a high-skilled player? It's as bad as trying to sit through the entire music video of Rebecca Black's "Fridays".
What do I find in WoW (yes i play, STFU)? The grind is horrible but the storyline is beautiful, as are the landscapes.
What do I play Borderlands for? Once again, the grind is horrible, but the camaraderie with a group Is amusing at times.
What makes Minecraft fun? Well... Imagination. (...and the grind is horrible)
Once you get past the BIG PICTURE, you start seeing this idea start to pester the players who always seem to have the best stance on the topic. Half the subscribed players think the other half is cannon fodder waiting to be exploited, but the smaller half have mixed ideas about what to think. Some are, "nullseccers are evil so stay in highsec." Some are "pirates and scams are terribad, but It'll never happen to me." And lastly some are, "as long as i can safely shoot these rocks and make isk, i don't care."
Forcing new players into E-Uni sounds like a good idea in the long run, but it would require a "corporation rebalancing" to take place. You don't believe me? How big can a corporation be? How many players is CCP looking to sign up? A few hundred, no problem. A few thousand? Little difficult. Tens of thousands? Um, things are getting out of hand. A million? Please sto- Tens of millions?
Well, we're not WoW, so i think trying to break half a million subs should be a main focus. But if EVE can somehow "break the bank" and we can login to find that there's now 100k+ people on almost ALL the time, things will perk up. Economics will see greater fluctuations. Nations (not really alliances anymore) will rise to power or fade from existence. CCP would have to increase their War Server shards by 300% for new bouts of combat springing up all over.
Also, i'm out of good vodka. Kool-Aid is keeping me going, though. Oderint, dum metuant. Let them hate, so long as they fear. -Accius |
Khellan Charante
SUNDERING Goonswarm Federation
4
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 06:41:00 -
[22] - Quote
This would be fantastic. I cannot put into words just how cool of an introduction to EVE this would have been. I was lucky to have friends who could guide me through all the things someone needs to be successful in EVE, but what a great way to get a glimmer of what EVE is capable of. |
Luscius Uta
Unleashed' Fury Forsaken Federation
68
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 08:56:00 -
[23] - Quote
Also, at the end Aura should say:
"Now you felt how real EVE looks like. It's up to you to decide whether you want to experience that feeling again, or you would rather spend your EVE career as a cowardly carebear who grinds for ISK." |
Sephira Galamore
Inner Beard Society
244
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 09:29:00 -
[24] - Quote
I like the general idea, but: Don't put a new player in a Battleship. A BC or Cruiser will do the job, too, and will deter from the idea bigger=better. And teasing him with the ability to fly a BS when he can't speed up skill progress (much) may lead up to frustration. |
Treborr MintingtonJr
Quantum Reality R n D Spaceship Samurai
134
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 09:32:00 -
[25] - Quote
Awesomesauce idea +1 |
Bi-Mi Lansatha
RillaCorp The Kadeshi
280
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 14:02:00 -
[26] - Quote
Zan Callira wrote:...armed with a battleship...
I will try to be constructive. No.
After completing the "new Player Introduction" they will find that a Battleship is 3-4 months away with fair skills (a ship they should not be trying to get into that fast anyway). Stick with a T1 Frigate: quick to train into and fairly cheap to replace. Also, while I have never done it myself... Faction Warfare, I am told, is possible and profitable for a 'newish' pilot in a T1. |
Altrue
Exploration Frontier inc Brave Collective
832
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 14:42:00 -
[27] - Quote
I like the idea, but you should make it a simulation, a training for new pod pilots while their first clone is being prepared. There would be too much stretch from the reality and it could really drive away people by making them think they will go back to a rookie character if they die. Also, a lot of people that tried other MMOs with personal stories are TIRED of starting as someone powerful / a hero / someone with a great destiny / etc...So yeah a smiluation would do the trick perfectly.
By the way, three points : 1- The whole thing of having your original body terminated and waking up in your first clone when you start a character is not exploited at all, whereas it could be an easy and interesting way of introducting people with the harshness of New Eden and Eve storyline.
2- Any form of "epic introduction" should see a rewamp of the whole tutoriel to ensure that players are not dissapointed by what they see next, and the lack of action they might get while learning stuff.
3- There is no need to commit on making the most epic scripted experience possible. Just make something realistic that gives a teaser of what is Eve one you are not a rookie anymore. More would bring dissapointment and the feeling that CCP is lying to its new subscribers. G££ <= Me |
Phoenix Jones
Brave Newbies Inc. Brave Collective
394
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 14:56:00 -
[28] - Quote
Great idea, but I would not shuffle the person off in a frigate. Start them big in a battleship.
If you want to get both standards done well, start them in a battleship, when it dies and they are in their pod, do a tiny tutorial about boarding a floating abandoned cruiser or battlecruiser floating on field, and then they can continue the fight a little longer. That way you get both perspectives. You could potentially put a fit ship on contract and make the person buy it (I would do that for the battleship).
Don't overdo this concept though. Its meant as a 10 to 20 minute introduction, not a 3 hour extravaganza. Programming that much AI takes time. Stabbers are totally broken
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=15116553
|
Le Petite More
Brave Newbies Inc. Brave Collective
73
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 14:59:00 -
[29] - Quote
Starting them off in a battleship is a terrible idea because then they will want to race for one and will lose it because they lack the skills. |
Ali Aras
Noir. Noir. Mercenary Group
491
|
Posted - 2014.01.15 15:01:00 -
[30] - Quote
The exact story and ships chosen are the kind of design thing that CCP, employing professional designers and having more data, would likely be more able to do.
I'm interested still in ways this could fail-- one that came up was the problem where there's a big time to train into the ship you're test-driving. That's a good point-- a lot of times this kind of start ends up taking you to endgame power, which is similar in concept, but those games don't have multiple real months to get to where you're going. http://warp-to-sun.tumblr.com -- my blog |
|
|
|
|
Pages: [1] 2 :: one page |
First page | Previous page | Next page | Last page |