There’s no good reason for our starter NPC corporations to be random.
It ruins immersion for roleplayers or those who care about character background. At the very least, you could have made it random by default, if your reason was “not overwhelming new players that are not interested in it”, with toggle that lets players that actually want to pick their starter corporation do so.
For example, I created this character I am writing with specifically for Gallente militia enlistment. I picked Federal Navy Academy as my starter corporation for it to fit the character’s bio. I did this years ago when we had the ability to pick our starter corporation. If I had to make this type of character today, I would have to spend hours creating character until it ended up in the corporation I want it to end up in. There are zero good reasons we couldn’t just pick our starter corp when starter corps exist.
Based on what was stated in a presentation at fanfest, I expect new characters will at some point all start in one (or one of several) AIR corporation(s). In that presentation, it was stated by FC Burger that they want to push empire selection back and let new players get a feel for the flavor of each empire before they choose one. This is probably why new characters now start at the core of Exordium rather than in the empire-specific areas, regardless of character race.
I don’t know what this will mean for racial appearance traits or skillsets. It may be that “race” as a selectable option goes away entirely. That seems to be a trend of late. Modern game designers seem to find the concept itself problematic (racial determinism, etc.). Regardless, such a change would almost certainly affect one’s starting corp.
Of course, it may be that when a player selects an empire, they not only get a faction skill package, but also get to choose a new default corp within that faction. If so, that would restore player choice for RP purposes.
FC Burger didn’t give a timeframe for this supposed change, only saying that it wouldn’t be in what is now the current expansion.
It’s already bad that they didn’t made room for the military schools in Exordium. I didn’t pay enough attention I guess, as when I heard about the randomness, I thought it was only about the starting system, where the cinematic tutorial start (like Kisogo for State War Academy). So I thougth the tutorial would start in any system in the faction’s constellation, but then you would be directed to your school of choice.
Very bad design, it kills immersion and remove one of the aspect we could use in creating our story.
Thank you for telling me this, I was about to try creating an Amarr Imperial Academy character and would have wasted my time had I not heard about this.
Hopefully they don’t remove races because that would absolutely destroy character designer and portraits, unless they do it in a smart way by simply permitting every faction to pick any bloodline.
My guess would be that all the appearance options would continue to be available, just outside of the scope of “race” (perhaps bloodline would persist? IDK). You would create your character however you like (appearance wise), enter the game in the AIR training program, then choose faction affiliation at some later point. Presumably, before you leave Exordium. (Note: this is just my speculation based on a few vague statements made at Fanfest.)
I like how each faction has it’s own bloodlines though, and would be disappointed if just anyone can mix and match and come out as a Gallente Caldari-looking character with Minmatar tattoos and an Amarr robe, a Minmatar name and Gallente background.
Instead of more freedom, such a lack of constraints just throws all lore and background in a blender to one boring mix.
Let me recognize a person as having a Gallente or Minmatar origin based on their face or name. It brings much more realism and lore into the game.
I may do not much with lore in EVE, and am no roleplayer, but it is the background story and setting that makes the game feel like a coherent real universe and not just a bunch of numbers we throw at each other.
Yeah, I get it. Maybe the devs will come up with something clever, if they even proceed with this initiative at all. But when you separate race and bloodline from faction, you eliminate those clearly defined lanes early on in character creation. Things are bound to get a little messy. The question is, will having deferred faction selection be worth the trade-offs?
Just spitballing, but what if they widened faction selection beyond the four empires? Trigs? Pirate factions? What if you could graduate from AIR and join the Guristas, or align with the Trigs and go straight to Pochven? I expect for many that might be worth muddying the existing waters a bit.
Not sure if I saw it suggested somewhere else or if its sitting in my head for 2 weeks, but I’ll spit it here.
What about making the military schools still selectable at character creation, BUT the player is warned that they will spawn in regular high-sec (in the “old” career systems).
This way, veterans (and new bros) who don’t fear regular high-sec have an option to spawn directly in their empire of choice.
CCP/Fenris can still pretend they offer an option to new bros who want safety, but they’ll also have a way to directly monitor how many new accounts/characters (relative to emails, at least) actually chose Exordium vs regular high-sec.
And restore the starting corp selection, including the military school for each faction as requested by OP.
Dumbing down the character creation doesn’t serve the game.
This is a very good idea and it even makes in-universe sense. Military school giving you higher risk starting area fixes all the issues with the new system. It will give back roleplayers the freedom of choice while also giving min-maxers the ability to start outside Exordium.
This kind of system would have no downside and I wouldn’t understand the reasoning behind not making this change, other than devs thinking new players require dumbing down the game to bring them in, which is not the case. No one was quitting game because they had more than 2 starter school options and the ability to make portrait screenshot and see if tooth would protrude from their character’s mouth during character creation when making it smile instead of having to test that after creating character because new creator doesn’t let us take portrait picture right away. Unless this has an underhanded resculpt certificate sale increase goal in mind, I don’t get it at all.