I've tried the new tutorial-arc on SISi, and overall, I must say, most impressive!

But no more Aura-voice?

Dis maek meh haz a sad :(

But seriously guys, please do try to bring that back when feasible to do so -- Speaking only for myself, of course, but a HUGE part of my initial immersion (read: Falling in love so bloody hard with Mme. EVE) was from that voice-over.

As I say, the EVE Community is really great and has an immense insight into EVE Online that it would be a shame not using this knowledge and passion to improve EVE together.

With the new train to in the right click menu its realy ease to place in training

See responses here https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1720061#post1720061 and here https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1720165#post1720165 Note that this isn't "falloff" but "falloff range", which is optimal + 1x falloff.

We left tracking off because we wanted to keep it simple, and because actually using that number is sufficiently advanced behavior that you probably know your tracking value already.

Or, put another way, it's (IME) rare that you're in the middle of a fight and think "oh crap, what's my tracking in radians/s?"

Stage Four: Evaluation and adjustment

Once we were done with the main implementation work, we went through several rounds of user-testing with external volunteers. As you'd expect, we learned an awful lot from this, and came away from each session with long lists of adjustments to make.

A key example of this is how we teach in-space commands. We'd assumed initially that using visible UI functionality would be better than relying on context menus, so we endeavoured to teach with the Overview and Selected Item as much as possible. Repeated user testing showed that new players were far more comfortable right-clicking on everything, to the point where later tutorial steps that forced players to rely on Selected Item were tripping them up because they had no idea how to use it. This experience led us to rework our teaching throughout the tutorial to use right-click and the context menu, which subsequent testing confirmed as a much smoother experience.

...and some bad spots (most notably the bit right at the very start where we try to teach the skill queue before you've even undocked)

...This experience led us to rework our teaching throughout the tutorial to use right-click and the context menu, which subsequent testing confirmed as a much smoother experience.

Then just label it "Maximum Range". Clear. Concise. Not EASILY ameniable to misinterpretation like the current phrasing.

Clarity is good. Maximum Range is better :)

Ok before I go any further, it really looks like the advance tutorials, the ones for the career agents have not been updated, before I go scrutinizing them could I get a dev response as to whether they've actually been updated? No point in me dissecting them if there are changes soon to come

I personally disagree. (And I must stress that this is my personal opinion as a player, I am not a games designer, I am not trying to tell CCP how to do their job, just sharing my thoughts.)

For some reason many developers in the past few years, now CCP included, pretend that the only interaction a new player has with the game is through the tutorials. They feel the need to explain every tiny bit through lengthy series of "do this, trust me" instructions and/or throw a huge wall of text at the player.

Now I don't know about others, but when I get into a game, especially such a complex one, I tend to do a little bit of reading on it. I knew EVE was advertised as extremely complex, I spent about two weeks browsing the official website, forums, and guides before I even registered to get a feel of the game. Even if one doesn't do this research beforehand, all these resources are readily available - in EVE even without tabbing out of the game through the IGB.

In my opinion the tutorial should explain how to use the UI - how to undock, how to fly your ship, how to shoot at things. As far as I remember that was what it was like when I started. Then there were I think three career agents to show off the various career paths, and off to the real game. The tutorial shouldn't be explaining game mechanics - especially as complex as tracking or fitting ships. These should be explained on the game's webpage in a quick guide, and then in great detail through manuals and gameplay guides.

(Going off on a tangent here, but still related to the NPE - these kind of things are ridiculously difficult to get to from eveonline.com. Personally along with the links "One universe", "The Sandbox" etc. at the top I would add one for "Guides" or "Game Mechanics" or something.)

Quite often showing too much is even worse than showing too little. If the game doesn't explain a mechanic, the player looks for another source of this information. But if the tutorial provides a half-arsed explanation, the player is under the impression that he already understands it, and is content with what he knows. However in fact his understanding is lacking at best and misguided at worst.

The tutorial also shouldn't be explaining how to do things efficiently - as in, how to fit your ships, how to run missions, etc. This is something for the player to explore and discover by themselves. Trying to imprint a certain way of doing things to people early on has the same negative effects as I pointed out above (lack of detail leading to misguided understanding), but also ruins the sense of discovery, trying various approaches and seeing what works - basically everything that makes a game a game, and not just following a set of instructions you read off the screen.

This is not about making the game more difficult for the sake of it being difficult (or conversely easier for the sake of being easier). The information should be readily available,but it shouldn't be forced onto the player in bits and pieces however CCP thinks is the best. I don't like being told by an NPC to fit a web and use it on another NPC. I want to read a little about what webs do, why is it a good idea to use one, and when should one be used.

Would be interested to see, how many people quit after seeing the awful inventory system.

Thanks for all the comments. Especially from those who actually tried the new aura-tutorials on sisi.

I am taking lots of notes from these comments :)

edit: for a couple of questions -
We were given a short timeframe to get some awesome people, we had to pick where we could make the best impact. I would have loved to give the career agents a thorough workover, improve a lot of UI, etc. But we tried to hit the biggest problem areas.

Those who have tried the new tutorial will note the use of civvie modules while giving you a quick skill to learn to use the "full" modules in the next missions.

You might have also noticed an extra tab on the skills in your head - you can see what each level of a skill will allow you to use.

you can now use Back and Next to page through the entire string with no breaks or restrictions.

You say in the devblog players prefer the right-click method. However in step 19 of the tutorial you say
"To look at a ship or other object in space, select it, and use the the Look At button in Selected Item, which looks like an eye."

Either change this to right click instructions, or add a pointer, pointing to the eye on the selected item panel.

Do the gun/ammo tool tips include skill/implant modifiers in optimal/falloff/dps numbers? I would assume so, but you know what they say about assuming...

I'm not sure if this is an issue you also encountered, or it was just me messing up the tutorial because I just wanted to show a friend the game and rushed through it but I made a fresh Amarr character on TQ and started the tutorial.

I was given an armor repairer that I needed to use, but I did not have the skill for.
And it didn't help that I had lost half my armor while blowing up a structure, so I was kinda 'stuck' in the tutorial, as I could not tank the...enemies.

I resorted to canflipping in an effort to pay for the skillbook.

Section 23: Additional Reading should not include medical clones. Corporations and skills are fine to talk about while your ship is auto-piloting to a station but the medical clones bit should be saved until the player is IN a station. It is more relevant there, where they can actually upgrade their clone while they read that bit of the tutorial. Having them read it while flying in space is a recipe for forgetting and then them cursing you when they die and lose skill points.

Request: On the agent menu "Add Waypoint" would be nice to have if the mission is in another system.

Ok before I go any further, it really looks like the advance tutorials, the ones for the career agents have not been updated, before I go scrutinizing them could I get a dev response as to whether they've actually been updated? No point in me dissecting them if there are changes soon to come

CCP is just figuring this out now?

After all of the constructive feedback on the Inventory re-vamp regarding conventional computer user-interface interactions and well thought-out posts on why the removal of right-click access to various hangars was terribly detrimental to game-play....

And CCP took the word of volunteer testers over the word of loyal customers regarding value of right-click contextual menus. Words fail me at this point.

Edit: Does the new tutorial content include information and a walk-through on how to most efficiently use the re-vamped Inventory UI elements?

While i havent done the caldari tutorial before, one of the BIGGEST things that was confusing to me was how missile "range works". I think one thing that NEEDS to be explained in ALL the tutorials is how flight time and missile speed work together to get your that range you can hit out to. I was maybe 3 months into eve the first time i used rockets and it confused the hell out of me to have to figure out how flight time and speed and all that worked together, especially after basicly being trained to think in terms of optimal and falloff for normal guns and then not have a set number with missils/rockets.

Your solution is to eliminate it .. hmmmmm. What one does when dealing with noobs children new comers who exhibit disinterest in something that will ultimately help them is to play into their natural curiosity but not forcefully. Introduce the skills as normal (assuming the bad spot doesn't extend that far) and rest assured that they will poke around until they press the queue button .. at which point you can tell them there is a guide available should they want/need it (you can use one of those fancy new pop-ups!) .. most like figuring stuff out themselves though.

If a child refuses to eat nothing but pizza, the absolutely worst thing one can do is to let the little bastard eat nothing but pizza . Yes, the context menu has improved a lot since I started out .. to the point of usefulness even .. but to base the entire introduction to Eve on nothing but will come back and...

why not have basic skills inject and start at level 1? I'm honestly just curious what the goal is to make players train these skills instead of starting them out with them?

IMO this will lead to a lot of confusion.

The new player will never know if he actually did everything right or not when clicking 'Next'.

Worse is, before recognising that there are no restrictions, he will have the impression of having done everyting correctly even if he hasn't just because he can go to the next page of the tutorial. He will then end up in a dead end where the tutorial text does not match his actual progression soon. This is totally different from every other game tutorial out there...