Nowhere near as many as disappear before they get as far as the tutorials, many don’t log in after the first day, let alone after 30 days.
If we can keep a higher percentage of them engaged then they are doomed like the rest of us.
TBH an awful lot of people don’t want to play a game like Eve; they’re put off by the time investment, old skool mechanics and the all-pervasive PvP flavour of the game; it’s a game like those from the 1990’s, sticking out like a sore thumb in the 2020’s.
Hence it is known as a niche product, one that appeals to a small subsection of the market but almost shuns the rest of it.
Yep, no doubt, but if you like it enough to complete the career agents then you are a reasonably qualified prospect for semi-permanent servitude. Some extra effort grabbing these people seems worth it.
I think that the a little pop up in showing the corporation search function would work just as good. No need for any filaments, tbh i don’t think a new player would even know the difference randomly jumping from doing career agent missions, to randomly ending up in curse and dying in a heron.
I know and understand your point, but this will not hold. They need to come up with the idea themselves. It’s what EVE is about. The game isn’t for everyone, and tbh lately the game numbers have gone up. I bet loads of players stop playing sure, then its not for them. And the average MMO player looks for the corporation/guild thing next as soon they can i bet already.
The bridge from career agent to knowing what path you want to take, when all these (invisible) doors show up, isn’t the best i know. It certainly could be made better.
I’m not sure you are right to be honest, there are regularly posts on reddit and elsewhere from newbies asking for suggestions and help about what to do next.
There are likely many other new players who do not post, try soloing for a while but get disheartened and stop playing. More of these people can and should be encouraged to see more of eve, what I am suggesting could help with that. God knows the learning curve doesn’t stop because you got to null quicker than normal
You left your idea half-baked. They can’t just “go to null”. What are they going to do when they get there?
Here is what I would do, if my ideas meant any damned thing:
Put pirate mission agents in highsec. Start the players out on missions to attack other pirate factions, move illegal stuff, etc. Nothing particularly fancy or challenging for the noobs, like level 1 - 3 security missions.
When the player has enough pirate faction, they can use the pirate jump gate system. Pirates have their own gates. We have seen them in missions all of the time. How did the Norse move around in Templar One without getting ganked by capsuleers and the novel ending in chapter 2? Mordus has their own gates.
This allows the players to move about a little more.
Level 4 and 5 pirate missions would be low and nullsec. Pretty much like people can do in NPC null now.
So the only real difference is making some changes to form a “pipleline” of sorts.
But… nooooo. Hurrr durr you wnat null join a corp loser become a renter hurf blurf and don’t quit or be called a loser while I ask for your stuff.
That’s quite interesting actually and would undermine sov some. Pirate gate network and hisec pirate missions, I like it.
In terms of my suggestion people seem very focused on the ‘going to null’ part, the point of the thing is that the new beans would be encouraged to engage with corps first by CCP and by corps themselves, while still in empire space.
We already have a method of deathcloning out there I know, what I am suggesting is at least testing an additional level of focus on the new but partly qualified players to see if retention improves for that group.
Key reason for early quitting = impatient newbros skipping, or not reading directions during the tutorial and becoming frustrated that they can’t figure out how to do basic things.
I have long suggested the introduction of a pirate gate network that requires high standings with Guristas and Serpentis to access. I think it provides interesting terrain to the game.
I wonder what would be sufficient to avoid abuse. Abuse is easy. I go back to the fact that the user who needs to move to their null bloc already has this option in switching home to corp office then suiciding the clone out there.
At best this is a new way to move implants and ships out to null. If you restrict it to Corvettes, or blank clones, and you now really might as well use the clone service that already exists.
You need to justify new development effort that
a) could be used as an exploit
b) supports a limited subset of the population
c) does not provide new options for players, but rather a redundant option.
Fundamental question is: how many players finish all the career missions and quit within, say, six months?
If
a) this number is high as a percentage of career completers
And
b) Joining an alliance or corp early on improves retention and propensity to omega
Then, depending on estimated dev time, it might well be worth testing this. It’s quite hard to quantify much of this from the outside.
I would say though that if a) is true then the status quo is not working well (ie med cloning and current recruitment systems and methods could and should be improved, at least on a test basis)
You realize there is the one time per year set clone to remote corporate office right? A person joins a corp then self destructs and is instantly at the null corp headquarters. Nothing needs to be added to the game. Of course if someone changes corps a lot then they could get an insta warp travel ceptor and get there too.
