Io seems to be trying very hard to frame a certain situation in a certain way. Not sure there’s an actually good way to interpret this “Communicate with us when we tell you to or we blow you away. For the the good of the game” approach.
It’s uncertain how you feel Crimewatch put an end to the universe being alive with sociable people. Do you have any support for your points or are you just pushing a “Shoot the noobs, it’s good for them” agenda?
Apparently being a new player automatically makes you a “Bad & Dumb” target unless you choose to allow certain randos on the internet to communicate with you on their terms and their schedule.
But hey, forcing other people to play the way you’ve decided is best for them to play, it’s all for the good of the game right?
Sincere question: do you automatically assume all incoming chats are worth your time?
So, your OP really tried hard to spin the narrative one way: “new players flying solo and being anti-social is bad, so I support shooting them until they learn better because that makes EVE great”.
But here’s a take on it which I believe is considerably more in-line with actual new player experience:
New player decides to try EVE, but is aware that multiple sources over a long period of time have stated EVE is all about the ganking, the griefing, and the scamming
New player asks some questions in Rookie chat, gets some nonsense, some toxicity, some helpful replies
Some of those replies will reinforce “everything is scam, trust no one”. Some of them will say “find what you like to do, and join a corp that does it”. It’s a mixed bag, some good advice some bad
New player gets multiple random emails, multiple random chat invites, multiple random posts in Help telling them to JOIN MY CORP or USE MY LINK FOR FREE SP! or convos in Russian, German or Chinese saying who knows what
New player gets a conversation incoming from next rando, some “Bad & Dumb” guys. Doesn’t look too promising. Ignores it because he’s trying to figure out why his camera view just got buggered
Gets blown away. All the warnings about EVE confirmed. Leaves game in disgust.
But hey, IT’S CONTENT guys! This is what makes EVE great.
Situation 1: you shoot people because they’re there
situation 2: you try to have a conversation with people and if they can’t be bothered you shoot them
It’s all getting a bit bad-tempered in here - much as it does in the real world, where ‘socials’ deprecate (elective) ‘loners’ and they, in turn, brand the sociable among us ‘needy’ or ‘dependent’. Name-calling - a relic of the playground.
Or it should be. Maturity is unlikely to gain a foothold in adults while ‘because I can’ retains its hold on their behaviour. That’s as identifiable in EVE as it is elsewhere. It isn’t going to change.
I’m not at all sure I know what the issue is. I thought I did, but then I had a short nap, and now I’m all over the place. Getting old
It’s a sign of the state of the forum community when going “hey, check out what this group is doing, I think it’s a positive for the game” and people would rather tell me what my opinion is, call me names, attempt to call mods upon me, and shut down the discussion by other means (deny, derail, disengage, etc).
Well, I think it’s just a given that if you post a public opinion on a topic of somewhat known controversy, that you’re going to get a wide diversity of feedback - good, bad, and indifferent.
Maturity doesn’t come into play by trying to limit what other people say. It comes into play by how you react to the feedback you encouraged by posting.
Not buying a mining permit because of not responding to communication is unethical, lmao.
Overall, shooting anyone with or without reason is legit game play, except in the systems listed by ccp. Do as you like. Do as you are. Do your RP thing. Do your divine inspiration, the spur of the moment thing even. Shoot them because they are in a space-shoot-them-up. Who cares. The choice is entirely up to each individual. Say the wrong thing, say nothing, get shot, shoot to kill, shoot to pod, shoot anywhere, shoot and enjoy consequences. That’s the New Eden ethic.
Now, if it’s “wise” to shoot rookies still trying to find their stuff in a hangar of a station they bought remotely at, and not give anything in return, that’s another question. It’s allowed, that much is certain. There are no “alignment” rules, no one has to be lawful good. There is no blame in a food chain, but some will undoubtedly make choices based on how they see the game, and its future players.
But you can’t force people into a convo, no. There are no valid conclusions to be drawn from someone not engaging in conversation.
Seems to me it’s a basic check to see if the other wants to interact or not. Now if they get spammed by multiple people that’s different but I’m not reading this anywhere.
Socialization is important for EVE, or for any other MMO for that matter. People will often stay in a game to remain connected to other people even when the game itself isn’t that entertaining for them.
For me, the question is whether there’s better ways to encourage socialization and player interaction than focusing newer players with a “Bad & Dumb” campaign and targeting them for destruction if they don’t play along with rules they have no knowledge of.
Is it EVE-legal? Sure. It is good for the game, or worthy of support? Not in my view. Is it something that CCP should take a look into to see if there’s actually socialization improvements that could be made to the game? Definitely.
I understand the point of the social factor being to the benefit of any prospective long term player. Some need it badly, some not at all, to succeed. Making behavioral rules in that sense, and thereby taking away personal choice ? If it came from ccp, it would be reducing the personal freedom. If it comes from players, it’s definitely some role play - for which the normal rules apply. It’s not different from selling the old mining permit… Try any of that funny business in a system on ccp’s list, and you’d very quickly know you crossed the line.
Remind people what an open pvp world entails, many seem to be lacking that insight ? Other than that, it’s the proverbial horse and water.
It’s odd but so many times when I point out that CCP needs to or should make improvements to some aspect of the game, people only interpret that in terms of “taking options away”.
Improvements aren’t about taking away. They’re about offering more optiions that are more in tune with the way people actually use a service, rather than the way someone wants them to use it.
Here’s some examples, just in case the difference between improvements and limitations isn’t clear:
CCP could add a Subject or Topic line to private chat requests, so that people could at least see what the conversation is supposed to be about before deciding to accept or reject
CCP could add a “rating” system to corps, to help new players differentiate between potentially good corps and corps that are a waste of time. This could be based on a number of things, but shouldn’t be gameable (eg. not ‘popularity’ votes). For instance, how long people who join the corp stay in it, on average. And/or what percent of the corp membership has been active in the past month. (Corps could opt out of this, of course, but that would also be informative.)
CCP could create some incentives for corps to recruit, help, and train up new players.
CCP could create a sort of in-station pub where player avatars could… OK no, forget that one.
At any rate, improving socialization options in a game is about adding ways for players to interact that make sense to those players. “Accept random chat requests or we shoot you”, I’d suggest, is not one of the better options.
What more options can one offer than total freedom or choice ? All the options are there. The more rules, the more infractions of rules, and the more manipulation of rules (in the pejorative sense). We players are not here with a responsibility to “care” and “foster” and “educate” and “train” and “do parenting”. Some players may choose to take up that role, and some genuinely do (!) and try to make the best of it (!!).
And to add a “quality rating” to that a la good/bad reviews ? I would stop whatever I’m trying to do with rookies, seriously. And probably shoot them instead, lol, on a less than perfect day.
It’s RP. It has little or nothing to do with guiding rookies to becoming long term players, except the very few who will see the irony and enjoy the joke. Not everyone shares the same sense of humor
P.S. I fully appreciate your concern about assisting new players in climbing our learning curve, and how the social factor makes it more enjoyable. In the end, however, it’s the individual who has to rise to the occasion, and do what’s best for the individual trying to be a bad ass eve player.
Well. once again you’ve chosen to interpret “add more features” as “create new rules and restrictions”. Not sure if this is just habit because it’s what CCP themselves usually do, or if some people really are limited in their ability to think of new and better ways of doing things.
I listed the options, you ignored them for some reason. Pretty sure added a “subject” line to a chat request so someone could see what the chat request is about before accepting/declining isn’t a rule, or an infraction, or a limitation. It isn’t even an “all the options are there” because the option to communicate in advance what you want to chat about doesn’t exist. Every chat request is a blind gamble.
This is the primary issue with EVE. It has a lot of promise and potential, which largely goes unfulfilled because neither CCP nor most players can envision anything better than what we have now.
It’s like a car company producing autos with no door handles and no head rests, no turn signals and no seat padding, then saying “Well that’s the way we always did it, because why take away driver’s freedom of choice?”.
Things can be done better. Players should stop clinging to some rose-colored version of the game that only exists in their head and accept that EVE is a product, and that produce needs to get better.
Indeed, I considered them neither new nor better. That’s the reason.
If one needs rules and handholding then, indeed, EvE is not a rookie friendly game. The question is if it needs to be “friendlier”, given what comes after.
Nah, sorry. You’re normally a bit sharper but you’re being disingenuous here. For instance I literally said rankings “shouldn’t be gameable (eg. not ‘popularity’ votes)”, to which you replied:
So you either totally misunderstood, or you somehow applied to the Corp rating concept to chat requests. Which also means you totally misunderstood. Either you gave the ideas no thought whatsoever or you have your own reasons for misrepresenting them as limitations and restrictions.
Still, no worries. Some people struggle with change, they prefer to live in an imagined Eden of decades ago. It’s okay to be a Luddite.
Do you really want me to give you a sermon about the intrinsic value of metrics ? About the value of officially rating corporations who only exist through the time and effort of paying customers ?
Are people even aware what the usual turnover number is in those corporations, and what the attrition rate is overall in EvE ?
This makes me think of the old tale about the US air force trying to design the perfect pilot seat when after measuring thousands of pilots they came to the stark conclusion there is no normal size.
Do we? I don’t think we or CCP have a clue, just best guesses based on limited data. There is no possible way to make a formula for something with so many variables.
