While in general I agree - those week-long skills for a character a few weeks old are deadly when it comes to losing new players to boredom - it seems that old hands consider anything under 2,000 days of training "instant gratification" and therefore bad. Also anything that makes the game more user-friendly and that doesn't feel like someone is driving a lawnmower up one of your tighter orifices is greeted with "this is not Wow in space, GTFO". In other words, they're scared stiff of losing the massive edge that their SP gives them.

I came to Eve from a game called Mankind, itself a bit of an obscure game, with a group of friends. I remember talking to one of my employees and he mentioned Eve was coming out so we jumped into the Beta. I've liked it ever since.

While in general I agree - those week-long skills for a character a few weeks old are deadly when it comes to losing new players to boredom - it seems that old hands consider anything under 2,000 days of training "instant gratification" and therefore bad. Also anything that makes the game more user-friendly and that doesn't feel like someone is driving a lawnmower up one of your tighter orifices is greeted with "this is not Wow in space, GTFO". In other words, they're scared stiff of losing the massive edge that their SP gives them.

New players should be allowed to start out with a certain amount of SP in skills they select. Equal to about two weeks or a month of training time.

This has no real effect on balance, but stops the idiot "have to log off till I get Level 3 of X so I can get Level 1 of X and even equip the *bleep* module.

That seven hour log off does nothing but *bleep* people off big.

Also, EVE's PvE is terrible, come on guys, let's get with the program here.

Just one problem: that would be more beneficial to old players than to new ones. The reason they got rid of the 900k newbies were that the builds only really helped people who already knew what was needed, whereas new players had no idea. Your idea has the same issue: it lets older players hand-pick skills for their speciality alts, whereas new players still have no idea how to spend those SP.

The advantage with the current system is that it lets those new players have some time to pick what's needed, and the initial picks are guided by the tutorials and certificate recommendations. The problem only really kicks in when they get bad advice from other players that they GÇ¥must train lvl X or diiiieGÇ¥, which is when they start queuing up those week-long skill levels that they don't even need.

Giving new players more choice only helps if they can make informed decisions, and the entire point of them being new is that they can't yet. So it's a rather dicey issue.

It did plateau, and then started right back up again, ending up with again a larger subscription base than the year before. As it always has.

Just one problem: that would be more beneficial to old players than to new ones. The reason they got rid of the 900k newbies were that the builds only really helped people who already knew what was needed, whereas new players had no idea. Your idea has the same issue: it lets older players hand-pick skills for their speciality alts, whereas new players still have no idea how to spend those SP.

The advantage with the current system is that it lets those new players have some time to pick what's needed, and the initial picks are guided by the tutorials and certificate recommendations. The problem only really kicks in when they get bad advice from other players that they GÇ¥must train lvl X or diiiieGÇ¥, which is when they start queuing up those week-long skill levels that they don't even need.

Giving new players more choice only helps if they can make informed decisions, and the entire point of them being new is that they can't yet. So it's a rather dicey issue.

Perhaps catch up on all of the retractions and revisions in the press before you ride that bandwagon too much further.

A mistake happened, a reasonable punishment was determined. If you aren't happy with it still, you really need to get over it.

I remember ratting in a 0.4 system in a crap fit Stabber two weeks after starting the game. I was able to handle the rats, so I thought the PvP in "this zone" will be at my level. Well that was a stupid assumption that lead to my lost ship, however, I was making so much ISK ratting in lo sec, I kept going back, but now with an education...

I think this underscores how unperpared new players are for the realities of survival in EvE. There are so many ways to get ganked and scammed that it takes a long time to see all possible scams and modes of gankage, even if you read up ahead of time. I think this is one of the many reasons that keeps EvE a smallish game.

In reality, I like the fact that the population has been somewhat thinned after the mass rage quits over the (dare I say it) Aurum thing. Of course, if it shrinks any more it might not bode well...

so your "no it never stagnated" is wrong by your own admission, nice

In reality, I like the fact that the population has been somewhat thinned after the mass rage quits over the (dare I say it) Aurum thing. Of course, if it shrinks any more it might not bode well...

Yeah i often hear "you need level V of this". Really..... people just need to go out and play, level V's will come eventually and one dosent need perfect skills to go out and kill rats or do missions or trade and start learning the market.

Everytime I hear the "needed level 5" line i kick in and say "no, you dont".

Sure, a player will be less effetive, but i would rather try and die than to log in and off into a station while paying my sub.

I'm assuming new players still train twice as fast at first right?

Bots are killing eve player driven eco-system

Cheats are taking away the fun factor.

Game is too difficult to enjoy it properly. Nothing is easy except losing and getting scammed.

Graphics are so-so. Physics and game engine - unworthy of mentioning. Generic stupid gameplay, no real space action tactics.

Economy is destroyed, trust in eve too.

seen the video thanks, unless of course that was retracted?

and the revisionist history guys have changed what actually happened

And franchise had little to do with it, because the previous 3 games belonged to a different genre entirely. Warcraft I-III were RTS games. And WC1 was a relatively lackluster RTS game at that. Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty was vastly superior in complexity (sandworms, carryall/harvester mechanics, unit speed, etc.) But I digress. The point is, I know plenty of people that got sucked into WoW who have never played WCI-III, simply because they don't like the RTS genre

It's because EVE is not friendly nor inviting to newbies. Sure *some* of the playerbase go out of their way to help newbies, but most players don't. Eve Uni tries. Goons scam and hank newbies despite claims to the contrary.

No, they got rid of that as part of the pre-incursion patch that nuked learning skills. They figured that the fast training was only ever used to get the learning skills done anyway, so newbies would come out roughly the same at the end, only they could start from day one with decent attributes.

Now stop derailing the thread.

Anyone ever tell you that your Avatar looks like Odo from DS9?

Heres my thoughts

1) Community, yes eve has some decent people but 99% of them have an attitude and just dont help and troll the forums. With the usual go back to Wow BS (boring) or if you dont like it leave crap.

2) Risk vs Reward - quite frankly for new players they can be instantly killed anywhere anytime, and if they have been grinding for months only to end up back to square 1 then its an instant put off.

3) Eve is a niche game, CCP refuse to change the game to make it mainstream, goodf or bad? depends... I mean i playued a stronghold kingdoms not so great online browser type game still in beta really and its grown to 500,000 players in just a year...eve has stayed stagnant.

4) Eve is not saturated, all the major alliances own everything, and for newer people its either be a pet or a renter and pay stupid amounts of isk. You think you will ever own a tech moon? never! Thats the problem people dont have a CHANCE to get any of this stuff...