As it is now, The new player cannot learn the value of this game quickly enough to invest money and time into it. If they do somehow figure things out, they quickly find themselves at the Bottom of The Abyss of Years of Skill Training. And they have to see that it is worth it.
Push New Players to use the test server with unlimited skills and money for a limited time (about 24 hours). Long enough for them to try things out. Fly T2 Ships, Capitals, Industry, whatever. Reset all their progress after about 24-48 hours or just delete the character. Make character creation an instant random Name so they don’t have to go through that part.
Accessing the test server is much easier now that it was 10 years ago. But it is not pushed in the users face at all. There is plenty of content already, but I think noobs typically get their ass blown off or scammed in some way before they can get addicted.
It’s already free to pay, and it’s just too difficult to learn the game quickly enough to stay around.
Also in the Marketing Department, it is not mentioned that this is Primarily a game of Strategy. Trailers historically focus on massive fleet battles that is not realistic for a noob due to low skills. EVE has certainly proven it’s addictive qualities. However we are 20 years into the future now and other MMOs are getting players hooked faster.
We don’t have to have access to the server on the daily basis that we do. CCP graciously gives us daily access.
New players unless they join a week right before a mirror, won’t have access to the test server until the next mirror, what you are asking is basically a every day mirror which they cannot do, it takes several days to mirror TQ to SiSi.
all new players are alphas, and alphas don’t have access to anything you want them to have access to. If they want access to that, they should sub to become omega. This game has a steep learning curve and throwing them in to the wolves on the test server isn’t going to help them.
you could give them access to T2/caps etc but they are going to spend the majority of that “free time” that you wanna give them asking how they fly those ships or how to fit and not be ganked, or how to fit it for afk.
they need to take the time to train up…
i do think training time could use some tweaking, sure, but not a lot of skills really need to be at level 5 to use something… which is why a lot of alphas don’t have skills to 5 or 4… 3 is sufficent in most of the skills. when starting out.
Well… something other than nothing so they can see what it is to fly higher level ships. They don’t have to execute a mirror ( and probably shouldn’t as it could have bugs) but that is easier than yet another server to give noobs this experience.
Noobs Don’t know how much there is to EVE and with intense MMO competition they are not willing to just Pay to find out.
Pushing that in their face is not incentive to just PAY. The whole idea behind free to try still cuts them off from higher level stuff. I don’t know how many years it’s been (about 4 I think) but free to play has primarily resulted in people just creating new accounts all the time and using server resources.
Game competition IS A factor. User count may be up slightly but I would say the majority of this is Alpha players.
OK, so let a newbro have access to the test server day one, and have over 400m skill points and grab a dreadnought in lowsec or nullsec… and let it get blasted within 5 min undocking because they don’t know how to fit it or how to fly it.
and there are vultures on the test server who will blow a ship up for giggles and fits.
Noobs adapt or quit, there’s no in-between. I started this game knowing it would be for the long haul, I’ve barely started biting into Alpha skills and during the weeks and months it takes to top off those skills I have time to get experience in a few ships of my choice.
Noobs aren’t children, this game isn’t for 8-year-olds, there is an overall strategy every new player should adopt according to his/her predisposition, although PvP is a must, there are quite a few careers to adopt and get proficient at. A new player doesn’t need the feel of flying a battleship to decide what his life will be in New Eden.
You can train into faction destroyers within a month and master them while you learn new things, one doesn’t prevent the other. New players need to learn to walk before they can run.
Those who simply cannot wait for skill training can buy Injectors, although it won’t make them competitive for that much.
Those who want to fly battleships from the get-go will find out getting into one isn’t the same as knowing how to use it.
Those who get into the game and start moaning about the time it takes to train anything, getting blown up in a badly-fitted bling ship or start to pressure changes to a game they barely know and things core to EVE can always biomass and uninstall.
The ladder is to be climbed one rung at the time.
The last thing a new player needs is to be inundated with a larger plethora of distracting toys.
I have a friend who says he wants to make music. He has never made any music in his life, but claims that once he gets that nice new toy, then he will be enabled to finally make music.
False.
The availability of the tools themselves do not enable one to use them properly. If anything, too many tools will lead to further confusion when one finally decides what kind of job it is they want to do.
Lack of direction is a bigger issue than lack of options. Rookie Help does okay at directing new players into their desired niches. A test server full of infinite toys has no point to exist in a full-loot PvP economy simulator… except to test features.
How could a new player test something they don’t even know how to use?
That’s exactly what I’m advocating for… let new people find out what to do and what not to do so they don’t hit so badly in the real game.
Isn’t that the same thing going on with all the High-Sec GANKING in Uedama right now?
Ganking has always been a thing… But now… Freighters are dropping every 15 minutes.
News Flash Bro… it Already Does Exist.
And it doesn’t have to be the test server… just an area where noobs can have a chance before they get their ass blown off
Bro???!?!?! They’re Already doing that!???
And all they have to go on right now is a series of Grinding Tutorials.
EVE University is not pushed at new players either.
This game is too complicated for typical marketing. It’s Not just a dumb ass FPS that you get bored of after a few hours. This game has always appealed to Niche segment of people.
I was unclear on the OP. So you want test server 2.0? I just don’t see the point, when one already exists, and it doesn’t and will not serve the purposes you are desiring.
Retaining new players has nothing at all to do with mitigation of loss. If anything, the whole risk of loss is the only reaaon to play this game. Remove the risk, might as well be a different game.
New players can be guided just fine on the regular server.
Yeah, if they really cared about the new player experience, as oppsed to their own, then I would have seen them in Rookie Help by now. Nope.