NPE Update: New Mining Adventure Feedback Thread

Hi everyone,

In today’s news item we talk about the new mining adventure which has landed on Singularity. It extends the storyline established in the new player experience which released last September and delves further into the mystery surrounding the attack of the AIR station.

Why not jump on Singularity, spin up a new character and try it out for yourselves? We’d love to hear your impressions and any feedback you may have.

I already sent my notes in.

(first)

m

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nope. already bashed my head against that brick wall three times already. not interested in being unpaid QA outsourcing. hire someone to do QA so they can get told “we can’t repro that” instead.

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After flying a “civilian” Astero, will the newbro fly a “civilian” Orca, as on the picture?

Maybe stop making miners the go-to for pvp activity and you’d see more new players/miners stick around. As it is, mining ships and refineries are just pvp fodder. That’s an unsustainable model given that indy is the most expensive play style in Eve.

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After skipping the intro cutscene I did not have any spoken tutorial dialoge during the first part of the tutorial right up to the point of getting podded. After that the voice over played again.

In the mining half of the tutorial I encountered several small things:

After being told to approach the first asteroid by Aura, the blue overlay points to the Orbit button. The Orbit button itself is not highlighted, instead the Approach button is flashing blue below the Overlay.
This repeats for the 3rd Asteroid and the Dramiel Wreck as well.

grafik

After arriving in the Career Agent System and continueing the tutorial up to the point where Aura tells you to accept a mission. Her 3D avatar is rendered, afterwards it disappears.

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She briefly appears just to disappear again during the skill plan part right until the final message of the tutorial.

grafik

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I am guessing since I changed my email account, recently; I am locked out of singularity until the next mirroring.

My biggest concern, is the longer we hand-hold walking players through the game, the longer it is till they are forced to interact with other players.

There is in help chat at this moment, a new player trying to find the modules, skills, rigs and implants available to affect a specific ship attribute. There is no ‘one button’ press to solve. So, a help chat discussion with other players will solve this issue. We – the help chat – will point out a variety of options, overwhelm him with our superior game knowledge, or troll him for being a noob.

Will we retain him, or will he quit in frustration?

Ah yes, new player experience to teach new players about a side of the game, where, should players choose industry, the developers continuously screw them over.

Real excellent work there CCP

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Exactly

Negatives:

:x: STILL no explanation of who AIR is or why we should care about what’s happening.
All this needs is an extra 20 seconds to provide a little bit of exposition and context in the introductory cinematic (which itself still stutters and lags and looks poorly edited).

:x: STILL telling rookies to start orbiting things from 40km out.
How hard is it to tell them to approach first?

:x: STILL not telling rookies to web the frigates, but to web the cruiser instead. LOGIC???

:x: STILL signposting rookies towards mining and missions, both of which are awful content and awful ISK for new players. Then you wonder why you can’t retain players.
And if you ARE going to signpost them to the Career Agents, for the love of BoB fix those arcs!
They’re an embarrassing mess.

:x: AURA gets bugged out when trying to get you to set the first Career agent skill plan, she doesn’t recognise that you’ve started it.

:x: Various AURA (and other NPC) interfaces close as soon as you close another window, often cutting them off mid-sentence. Keep these open until they player clicks the NEXT button.

Positives:

:white_check_mark: It looks glorious. The mining site is stupendous.

:white_check_mark: A fairly good explanation of the mining process and the difference between raw ore and refined minerals.

:white_check_mark: A pretty good quick overview of the Wallet and taxes.

:white_check_mark: Got rid of some of the meaningless guff that Aura was throwing at you. A far more streamlined experience all round.

:white_check_mark: A decent attempt at explaining the Skill Queue and Skill Plans, but it’s still rushed and should be explained a bit better other than “go here, click that, do this”. Tell us WHY.

Overall impressions:
It’s better than it was but there is still a long way to go.
And it’s taking you far too long to iterate each new part.

Fix the bloody awful Career Agents.

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:face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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Just created a new character on a new account. PLayed the original AIR intro with the station being blown up. Was placed in the starting station and told to go talk to the career agent in the station a few jumps away.

At no point was there any mining story presented or available.

What gives?

Not sure why I’m doing this to myself, but here we go.

  • The cinematic after character creation and accepting the tutorial is still super laggy. Putting myself in the skin of a new player to the game, uninstalling the game would itch me already.
  • The tutorial has no voice from the moment Aura shows up when we are in space after the explosion, until the moment we are in our new clone in the AIR station (from say boarding the Astero until the end of the combat).
  • When asked by Aura to allocate the skill points, remember the Skill window is fullscreen by default. The + sign I would need to click is hidden behind the station’s service panel on the right. Thankfully, I’m not a new player and I know where to look, and I can barely see it flash behind the bottom right of the station service panel. A new player may not see it, and… will drop there thinking they are stuck. The chat window was not presented, so technically the new player don’t know where to look for help yet. Game over. Uninstalling the game.
  • Took me 4 clicks on the blinking Warp to location button after undocking in order for the warp to start. (detail, I know)
  • Aura asks me to Stop the ship. How do I stop the ship??? I know, I know how, I got my answer months ago when I watch a tutorial video by a random dude on Youtube. But please Aura, assume I’m noob, how do I stop the ship for this tutorial to proceed any farther. The Orbit button is flashing, the Civilian Miner button is flashing… How is this going to stop the ship??? Oh, wait, that little flashy - button under the hud ? Lordy! Ok, first time I use it to stop the ship, but is it necessary to have all those flashy buttons at the same time, taking my attention away from the actual “stop the ship” tiny button? And what about suggesting the shortcut keys, like it use to be in the previous tutorial? That Aura popup window have room for this.
  • The second asteroid depleted before Elias could finish his explanation about refining raw ore, and Aura abruptedly interrupted him. So rude of her.
  • 3rd rock, as pointed out by player Larethyl Seshin, we are asked to click approach, but the card is pointing on the Orbit button, and the approach button is flashing under it. Thankfully, clicking Orbit still works, but you should fix this.
  • Again… Aura says the signal is strong and asks to stop the ship, but the card point to the Orbit button which takes my attention away from the actual stop the ship button.
  • I clicked Stop the ship, the Orbit button is still highlighted with the Approach button flashing under the card cue. Yet, Aura now tell me to target the and lock the asteroid, but the Target button is not available because of the card on Orbit blocks the process. Oh wait… I’m 59km from the asteroid… why did Aura asked me to stop the ship at 59km ???
  • What is this ■■■■ ? Elias tells me to click the Civilan Miner button, and my ship do a 180 degree and fly away, and the civilian miner stop once I’m out of reach. There is still the Approach button flasing under the cue card actually pointing at Orbit. Oh, no way, above the hud I see it says Keeping at range Elias, or something like that. When did I clicked Keep at range ? I swear I didn’t. I select the asteroid, click Orbit, the ships approach the asteroid… then at some distance the ship do another 180 and I again see Keeping at range Elias Peltonnen 5000m. Why, why why??? Why is the ship changing course on it’s own??? I’m now at 54km from the asteroid, standing at approx 4500m from Elias. Seriously, is this part of the intrigue? Wasting my time part of the intrigue??? I try to approach the asteroid and stop the ship by my own, but the ship continues to try to keep at range seonds after I click stop/approach/orbit. Not fun, not fun at all. Game over, uninstalling the game.
    After manually piloting the ship to remain at distance despit the keep at range doig it’s stuff, the asteroid depletes and the story continues.
  • Now to the Dramiel, the Keep at range stupid thing continues though, I’m trying to select and approach the Dramiel, while the cue card is above the flashy Approach button, pointing at orbit, though Elias asks that I Approach the Dramiel. Orbit seems to work and the cue card disappear, but just to be safe I then click Approach.
  • At 15km from the Dramiel, the Keep at range kicks in, and I can’t get any closer. I frantically click Orbit every 2-3 seconds because the keep at range never stop to come back, but thankfully I manage to get to 7500m and finally the ship stops and I’m asked to click Open Cargo, and loot.
  • Black box, this technology will never get old.
  • I’m asked to Align to the station, so I select the station, click Align… and the ship warp on ti’s own after a few seconds. Is this how Align to suppose to work from now on ? I don’t remember aligning was doing that. Hopefully, the new player won’t be lost if Align To don’t actually do that once the tutorial is completed.
  • There is no voice when requesting to dock and when the request is accepted. This happen again at the career agent station docking sequence, no voice. And I again, when the tutorial was definitely over, I went completing Exploration mission 1, and on my way back, no voice when requesting docking access.
  • As mentionned by someone else, Aura is not visible on the blue popup conversation window after closing the Skill window at the career agent station: at one point she says she is glad to be “our” Aura, and the conversation just before that one. After that she is visible again starting at “now it’s time for you to venture…”

Over all, I think if I was a new player, I would have quit (maybe even rage quit) at many points during this “tutorial”.

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You tried it on Singularity test server, or on Tranquility? It is not on Tranquility yet.

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Maybe… just maybe… design the game where miners are left alone to mine in peace? As long as you allow space apes to keep descending on miners for content, you won’t retain new folks.
Ads: “This is EvE. You can do whatever you want.” New player: starts playing, wants to mine and admire space CCP: “just kidding, you need to PvP. Prepare to get f*cked” New player: quits CCP: makes surprised pikachu face

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Beware, in a next itaration of the NPE, the new player will be interrupted during the mining phase of the tutorial by suicide gankers who are going to private chat the newbro, and requiring them for a mining permit. If the newbro threaten back to report them for extortion, the gankers will link them to the 8 golden rules of Eve where it says the dev not only accept, but encourage and reward bad behavior.

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If you are going to make the tutorial more tedious at least give the option to skip it yes on a character on an account that has already done it can skip but still no way to skip it on the first character you make on an account which is super irritating when trying to make new alts and whille your at it can you please give the option to close rookie help on a character less than a month old where it doesn’t open again upon relaunching the game

After the destruction of stations and the requirement for cores to build stations etc. I quit playing.
I totally agree, stop making miners the pvp go to for game content. I was a miner/industrialist.
For some mining is boring, I get this. For me, it was a way to unwind from a day filled with pain due to my disability. During the time I was playing I ran three toons all of which were omega on 3-month time spans.
I miss my friends and playing eve. But refuse to return to ingame play until I feel I will be getting a fair shake for the money I spend.

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I created a new character to see the NPE (first part too, as I had not done that one either) and I really like them both!

Some points of improvement:

  • (Not the mining part I think, but in the first part of the NPE)
    When the fleet gathers after the station’s explosion, aura mentions that hiding in the (beautiful) site hides the fleet from sensors. There is no such thing in EVE as ‘sites hiding fleets from sensors’, which is strange.
  • When asked to apply mining skillpoints by pressing the [+] button, the button was not visible and I assume out of my screen (with the skill window at full screen). Dragging the skill window to turn it into the docked version made the button appear within my screen borders. (1920x1080 screen, no scaled UI or anything)
  • The AIR Ventures in the mining fleet had no textures for me, all black except where the lights were
  • Elias’ helpful explanation about refining ore to tritanium (which is great! solves a lot of newbie questions :smiley: ) sadly got interrupted near the end when the asteroid I was mining exploded. Maybe let him continue talking?
  • After getting the Dramiel black box I got told to align to the station, but somehow my ship warped instead of align. I assume this was a fleet warp (Stratios also went with me) but how is a newbie going to learn the difference between ‘align’ and ‘warp’ when both buttons seem to do the same thing during the NPE?
  • A similar point: after starting the journey to the career agent Aura tells you to ‘initiate jumping to destination’, which again seems to do the same thing: warp your ship to the destination (and jump). Could you maybe tell newbies that ‘jump’ is a combination of automatic ‘align’ + ‘warp’ + ‘jump on contact’?
  • Aura’s character disappeared for me (showing only the empty background where she should be standing) during her ‘sentimentality protocols may need adjusting’ talk just after you docked at the career agents. She appears again in the next window.

Some things I really liked:

  • Humour in the conversations
  • The music at various parts (is it new? had not heard it before)
  • The AIR station, asteroid belt and other graphics, they’re great!
  • Structure firing asteroid-shattering lasers in the belt, impressive
  • The mention that mining fleets are better than solo if you want to get things done
  • The basic explanation of mining ore, selling ore, refining to minerals and walkthrough of selling, wallet and taxes
  • The mention that the player could aspire to buy one of those Ventures for mining once they have the ISK
  • Aura’s morbid curiosity (reminds new players that dying is part of the game :smiley: )
  • Finally, that Aura tells the player that they are not limited to one career but can do them all, should solve another newbie question

All in all I really like it, the NPE seems like a good way to introduce some basics of EVE to new players in an engaging quest with good pacing and no repetitive ‘kill these, then kill those, then kill more’ that the older NPEs had.

Keep it up, I look forward to the exploration NPE.

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What i hate, mining path is always blocked by an omega paywall on ships. I ditch this game because of that