42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

It's 53.2%, dumbass

I've taken another look at this and arrived at 57.3% with a .3% chance of variation.

I'd say 100% players don't care what NPC alts think about retention of newbies.

I'd say 100% players don't care what NPC alts think about retention of newbies.

There were no NPC alts in your quote... I'm 100% sure of that

42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

24. Off-topic posting is not allowed.

Off-topic posts are not prohibited but should be posted within reason. Excessive off-topic posts that derail a thread may result in the thread being locked.

Another quality NPC alt post.

So increasing costs for new accounts and making invites less effective increases retention numbersGǪ how, exactly?

... get rid of buddy invite program where for the price of one PLEX, we can get 51 days on a new account and 30 days on our current account.

It is my experience that 75+% of "new players" are really just vets on alts. You don't have to be in a conversation with a "new player" very long before they slip up and use common EVE terminology or in some other way show that they are not really a new player.

SO, even if the "real" retention rates are close to 50%, it will show up in CCP data as 90% of new accounts drop after 51 days.... (21 day trial and 30 days they paid for, to actually get the 30 days on their main).

Another quality NPC alt post.

CCP knows by IP and email addresses just exactly who is and is not a 'real' new player for thier metrics.

This is a hare-brained OP post indeed.

Another quality NPC alt post.

That's not always true. Some people have dynamic IP, meaning it changes often. Depending on your internet provider, dynamic IP might actually be the norm, as it was with my last one. The current one uses sticky dynamic IP, it still changes, just a lot less frequently. Not to mention you could always use a proxy and pretend you're someone from Ivory Coast... :P And email address? I can create 10 dummy email addresses in 10 minutes.

That's not always true. Some people have dynamic IP, meaning it changes often. Depending on your internet provider, dynamic IP might actually be the norm, as it was with my last one. The current one uses sticky dynamic IP, it still changes, just a lot less frequently. Not to mention you could always use a proxy and pretend you're someone from Ivory Coast... :P And email address? I can create 10 dummy email addresses in 10 minutes.

This is of course assuming you want to mislead CCP and are willing to put in effort to do that. That's...probably not a lot of people, if anyone at all.

They have their ways.



edit: Also, player behavior can reveal a lot at that point. A new multi account probably will not run through the tutorial sequence etc.

It's actually really hard to hide things online these days. A mistake a lot of forum posters make.

He didn't know, they didn't know, I didn't know they knew? You know?

A cheap way (not cheap as in production value but cheap as in a cheap trick) could be to have a few 30-minute series made. CCP is pretty high quality in terms of trailers and storytelling so and as far as I am aware of, EVE is quite rich in lore of the sci-fi kind. Half hour short stories would IMO be the ultimate way to go, preferably starting from the beginning when New Eden is discovered and all that.

I love this idea.
Hell, they could even play short trailers on tv or something.

However, the trailers as they are now are mostly misleading. It would be nice if CCP would come up with a trailer that reflects the actual gameplay and doesn't make people instantly think of "scum in space hardcore mode" when you mention eve to them.

The beauty of eve for me is the lore and the story to be honest, if only eve could appeal more to sci fi folk. My boss's husband was in the navy and he got interested in eve when i told him about ship classes and guns and stuff, but after doing some reading about it he concluded that he didn't need a 2nd job and that "the community looks like a bunch of trolling people with too much time on their hands".

... get rid of buddy invite program where for the price of one PLEX, we can get 51 days on a new account and 30 days on our current account.

It is my experience that 75+% of "new players" are really just vets on alts. You don't have to be in a conversation with a "new player" very long before they slip up and use common EVE terminology or in some other way show that they are not really a new player.

SO, even if the "real" retention rates are close to 50%, it will show up in CCP data as 90% of new accounts drop after 51 days.... (21 day trial and 30 days they paid for, to actually get the 30 days on their main).

yes a montage of miners and mission runners would totally attract so many players

"oh man I can mine AND kill NPCs? sign me up"

You misunderstand what I mean.

What CCP tell you in the trailers: "You can be anyone you want, you can do anything you want, universe is yours blah blah blah"
What you get when you login: "HTFU,pvp or GTFO my game you peasant carebear!11!1!1"

What CCP shows in trailers: Big organized fleet fights with cool headed FCs.
What you get in game: Blobs of the same ships and cheap tactics for "lolz" as well as clueless emoraging FCs.

What CCP shows in null trailers: Constant fighting for systems between big alliances.
What actually happens:"Let us carebear in our little corner among the sea of blues"

Now imagine if ccp actually showed gate camping, scamming and highsec ganking.....

Hope you see my point now ?

Try introducing EVE to a bunch of WoW or CoD teenagers. You'd probably be lucky to even retain 5% of that group.

Yeah why bother, EvE's subs would just double or triple because of that 5%

It seems nobody got the hidden point of my OP.


I've read several dev blogs and even the CSM notes, where CCP seems to be focused on retention rates. Oh, if we could just fix the new player experience so that we could increase the retention rates even a couple %.... blah blah blah.

Well, as I've said, increasing the retention rate would be easy. Get rid of my ability to get 51-day alt account and 30 days on my main account, for the cost of 30 days on my main account.... Fewer temp, throw away alt accounts would result in a much higher retention rate of the actual, real, new players.

Well, as I've said, increasing the retention rate would be easy. Get rid of my ability to get 51-day alt account and 30 days on my main account, for the cost of 30 days on my main account.... Fewer temp, throw away alt accounts would result in a much higher retention rate of the actual, real, new players.

They have their ways.



edit: Also, player behavior can reveal a lot at that point. A new multi account probably will not run through the tutorial sequence etc.

It's actually really hard to hide things online these days. A mistake a lot of forum posters make.

The casualty trailer is the essence of EVE.

How will making it harder for existing players to start new accounts make EVE more attractive to potential new players?

GǪand everybody got that GÇö it wasn't particularly hidden. What we don't get is the leap in logic: why would fewer temp accounts lead to more new players? It's a complete non sequitur.

The beauty of eve for me is the lore and the story to be honest, if only eve could appeal more to sci fi folk. My boss's husband was in the navy and he got interested in eve when i told him about ship classes and guns and stuff, but after doing some reading about it he concluded that he didn't need a 2nd job and that "the community looks like a bunch of trolling people with too much time on their hands".

That suggestion will do nothing for new player retention. All it will do is reduce the number of alt accounts by old players making use of the buddy system, and reduce the number of new people coming into the game (they would only get 21 days free and then have to pay, with no benefit to the guy who invited them, who should in all honesty give them the PLEX anyway, or at least split it). Besides, didn't they already remove the restriction on how many buddy invites you can send and removed the free PLEX as reward if they sub? I seem to have heard something like that not too long ago.

Besides, I don't believe anything they do will attract new players or help retention in any considerable amount. I mean, look at upcoming expansion. Crimewatch, bounties, rebalance, new AI. Imagine yourself as a totally new player, never played EVE. Do any of these have any meaning to you? The answer is no. None of this is attractive to a new player. Now, imagine yourself as a new-ish player, you tried EVE at one point, but didn't really like it, so you quit after your trial expired. Do any of these things call you back to the game? Again, not really. The AI might, if you thought the PvE was boring. Except the AI change is so minor that it will still be just as boring, with a new healthy dose of aggravation mixed in. So, where's the carrot?

That's the thing CCP needs to focus on. Things that will attract new players, or players who tried EVE but didn't click. And no, new tutorials are NOT going to cut it. Nobody ever came into an MMO for the gameplay but stayed because the tutorial was just so darn awesome.

What they need is something massive to shake up the whole system. To make everyone, from total noobs who never tried EVE to bitter vets that quit ages ago go "Whoa, I gotta try that!" AND, and this is a biggie, it has to work, and work properly, at launch. Not be iterated over months or years. It has to work right out of the gate with minimal bugs. If they do that, we'd see a spike in subs. But rehashing old content, no matter how much it is needed (and it IS needed, I totally agree), will not bring new players in, or help to keep them.

You misunderstand what I mean.

What CCP tell you in the trailers: "You can be anyone you want, you can do anything you want, universe is yours blah blah blah"
What you get when you login: "HTFU,pvp or GTFO my game you peasant carebear!11!1!1"

What CCP shows in trailers: Big organized fleet fights with cool headed FCs.
What you get in game: Blobs of the same ships and cheap tactics for "lolz" as well as clueless emoraging FCs.

What CCP shows in null trailers: Constant fighting for systems between big alliances.
What actually happens:"Let us carebear in our little corner among the sea of blues"

Now imagine if ccp actually showed gate camping, scamming and highsec ganking.....

Hope you see my point now ?

THAT IS MY POINT!

It would be super easy to increase the retention rate. Eliminate the buddy program, poof, the army of 51-day free alts goes away. New account creation tanks.

Instead of 20K new accounts a month, 15K of those old players starting accounts with NO intention that they live beyond 51 days, and 5K accounts by actual new players.... they drop to 5K actual new players. Like magic, the retention rate jumps from 10% to 50%

CCP seems to be focused on "fixing" the new player experience as a means of increasing the number of active players. They look to the dismal retention rates as proof that the new player experience is broken.

... get rid of buddy invite program where for the price of one PLEX, we can get 51 days on a new account and 30 days on our current account.

It is my experience that 75+% of "new players" are really just vets on alts. You don't have to be in a conversation with a "new player" very long before they slip up and use common EVE terminology or in some other way show that they are not really a new player.

SO, even if the "real" retention rates are close to 50%, it will show up in CCP data as 90% of new accounts drop after 51 days.... (21 day trial and 30 days they paid for, to actually get the 30 days on their main).

You are still the one making the illogical leap that fewer temp accounts leads to more players.

and you're assuming that they can't tell the difference between old and new players and the difference the NPE makes on the actually new players.

There is nothing wrong posting with NPC alts, actually its funny watching you guys get all butt hurt about it, which you do. So in closing I will add a U MAD?