A little late but well done Mike.
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Mike, you probably should mention this to CCP. Some people aren’t impressed with the CCP sponsored highsec citadel lootfest that just happened:
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I’d vote you for president of the United states, you alright guy.
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except for the fact that I am Canadian, right?
m
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No problem, I like like our snow bound brothers to the north.
Mike let me know that you got the contract please.
sorry about that, yes I have
m
Great, there’s one more contract up then just one left after that.
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I mentioned it to them on Friday.
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can confirm
congrats on getting on CSM if I hadn’t mentioned it, and also, Happy Cake Day!!!
I know that the experience for new players is close to your heart. Have started in the last couple of days a new Alpha, and thought might be worth making some observations. Granted I am not a new player, but for what it is worth…
The current NPE is a lot more streamlined than the NPE Forced Tutorial of a couple of years ago (which personally I really did not like, found way OTT, too long - often more than anyone would do in a single initial session, so if new players were not hooked - and also forced a number of actions ranging from questionable (you had to keep closing the inventory just because someone at CCP thought you should not have it open all the time - now we have blooming red dots) to downright dumb (forced use of autopilot to progress). Plus the nonsense of the new player having to take out a supposed capital ship in HS, with a T1 frigate. Talk about encouraging false expectations…
The new tutorial (which of course is slimmed down from the intermediate version which had optional sidebar missions and rewards in the form of certain basic skills) is ok-ish, but only really addresses PVE combat. In itself, understandable, but it no longer teaches how to loot a wreck, nor, even when a second gun is gifted, does the fitting element suggest grouping the weapons. Indeed, Aura simply says to use F1 and F2 now that you have a second weapon.
Similarly, some of the tutorial missions still rely on using afterburner to catch the pesky Drifters, but no longer is the player prompted to use the afterburner.
It still ends with telling you to go and do a career agent, but watching two genuine new players in local, I suddenly realised that they, at least, appeared to think that the use of terms such as “choose a career path that interests you” was actually making them think they had to choose ONE. They of course were going for Combat. I tried telling them that not only could they do all the career agents, but also that I would recommend doing so, but I am not sure that they listened. May be no issue if they enjoy the combat, but…
Lastly for now, there are the little things, that struck me as careless when I first played EVE and ran the career agents, yet have never been addressed. For example, when you do the combat mission to eliminate the outpost of the naughty Devout (or other empire specific bad boy), you are piously warned not to loot the wreckage of said outpost, lest the local plod nick you for contraband narcotics. Except of course that outpost does not drop narcotics - they are dropped by, funny old thing, the narcotics warehouse in a later mission. And in any case, possession of said narcotics is no longer the issue I think it was earlier in the game’s history.
Now, I am not saying that any new player is going to quit because CCP are too lazy to correct a few in-game text boxes. But given retention rests on creating the best possible initial experience, even such minor sloppiness begs the question of when did any CCP employee last play the Career Agents, let alone review them from a gameplay/development perspective?
Sorry for such a long post.
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Wasn’t there something on Twitch today about the NPE?
Yup, I watched what I could. Was a good rep from the devs. I took notes
m
A further thought about new players. I notice that the Rogue Cloning sites that used to be in (some? all?) the starter systems have gone fairly recently. Doubtless tucked away in patch notes.
Anyway, thinking back to when I first started, I used the rogue cloning a fair bit in the first day or two. The rats there dropped civilian class items or BPCs. Now, of course, these items are pretty rubbish, but they were easy to fit, easy to build in the case of BPCs, and they allowed me to kit out my corvette with a very basic Damage Control, shield, etc. Prepared me much better for the Career Agents in addition.
I don’t know why they were ditched, but I think a bit short-sighted. I have seen new players’ corvette wrecks in Refuges or Forlorn Hideaways that have spawned in starter systems; it would be far better if they had a less challenging area to which they can warp for initial very low reward but very low risk action.
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