I thought CCP Chair was handling community interaction these days?
It’s more like CCP Absent.
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Years later after that NPE presentation farce by CCP Rise, Hilmar actually stated facts in the 2019 Eve Down Under World Tour - Beyond The Friendship Machine - which explained the reasons for poor performance in new player retention.
The section pertaining to retention starts at 37:07 but the main point he cites is at 42:50 when a new player loses their ship for the first time, that’s ‘The Magic Moment’ of when they decide to stay or quit the game. If the player belongs to a Social group within the game, they are more inclined to stay after a devastating ship loss due to that group providing support in understanding why it happened, helping them to get back on their feet and lastly, to get revenge.
The key word in that statement is revenge. That study doesn’t pertain to Duel’s, War Dec’s, Faction Warfare or Day Tripping into Low, Null or W-Hole space. It is centered on new players with less than a week in the game who don’t belong to a Social group and are still primarily located in High Sec. Since the key word is revenge, that implies their devastating ship loss was due to non-consensual PvP.
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That was funny!
@ISD_Dorrim_Barstorlode I had asked once before if the ISD bumped possibly interesting ideas up the chain to the Dev’s but I don’t remember if any of the ISD gave an answer?
They must be, because I don’t see how my “UBI” thread was locked otherwise. It was the only thread locked in GD that day, despite being neighbored by threads in which people were straight-up calling each other “retard” and such. Obviously the order came from above, because I must’ve struck a nerve with someone upstairs.
It’s fine though, the next Destiny™ thread is in production, and will go live soon. Polish off those posting codpieces, boys, cause it’s gon’ be a good’un.
In the freemium/free to play segment of the market the new player retention rate of Eve seems to be about average.
MMO retention rates in general tend to be on the low side. It’s behemoths like WoW that skew the numbers due to their massive appeal, even so the long term retention rate for WoW actually sucks more than that of Eve; down approximately 11 million players in 2018 from their peak of 12 million players in 2010; that’s an 85% reduction in players.
While that may be true, the partial quote you posted of my statement doesn’t pertain to other games, it is about new player retention in Eve with stats provided by CCP Hilmar in 2019 which is clearly opposite to what CCP Rise said in his 2015 NPE introduction.
Regardless, the retention rate for Eve is on a par with other games competing in the same segment of the market. Calling CCP out on their poor retention rate without acknowledging that it is about average for their peers is either ignorance or dishonesty.
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Ironic that you would reference me with that just because I posted something that contradicts what Daichi Yamato posted about NPE retention.
It has nothing to do with you contradicting Daichi, and everything to do with you ignoring that CCP are no better or no worse than other developers when it comes to retention.
Daichi doesn’t control me like a puppet on a string, nor does anybody else; but do feel free to imagine that you’re being persecuted.
It’s true that EVE’s retention rate (from the numbers we’re given by CCP and the industry itself, which are by no means complete) doesn’t compare terribly with other games. However just from playing multiple chars through multiple games, I see many more new players sticking around and progressing in other games than I do historically in EVE. In fact virtually no one I’ve communicated with in EVE has stuck around for the long term (except for certain forum entities).
Back when I played WoW, Everquest, City of Heroes, heck even World of Tanks and Mechwarrior Online, player groups seemed much more stable over time than in the parts of EVE I frequent. I suspect they’re more stable in Null and certain WH corps but I don’t go there.
One thing I do feel is that the use of many alt accounts per player (and bots/AFK accounts, more so than I’ve seen in other games) artificially inflates the retention percentage.
That said, retention can always be better and there are clear areas to work on. “Other games are just as bad at it as we are” isn’t really reaching for the brass ring.
Indeed there are.
“Other games are just as bad at it as we are” isn’t really reaching for the brass ring.
You’re right it isn’t; it does however give us a metric to base our arguments on; poor retention appears to be a general malaise, not something that only affects CCP.
Pretty good post btw.
The retention rate of other games compared to Eve isn’t relevant to the topic. More importantly the only reason you continue to hound me about this is because my reply directly contradicts what Daichi posted to which you share the same sentiments, otherwise you wouldn’t be making a big deal out of this.
Maybe not, but it’s certainly relevant as a reply to your post where you say that CCP’s performance in new player retention is poor, when it’s actually about average.
I’m not hounding you at all, I’m merely pointing out that your viewpoint may be somewhat blinkered because it seems to me that you’re either ignoring or taking offence to anything that contradicts your viewpoint. You’ll be going to your old standby of accusing people of deliberately starting an altercation with yourself next; all the while ignoring your own participation in any altercations.
If anybody posted the same stuff you did they would have got the same response from me that you did; and I couldn’t care less if the “anybody” was you or any other poster on the forum, up to and including ISD and CCP devs.
If you spout crap you should expect to get called on it.
Heh, the only one posting crap here is you. I simply posted facts as stated by CCP Hilmar himself. Obviously you take offence to it since it contradicts your own viewpoint. I suggest you take that up with him.
Well no.
The economy doesn’t really care where the destruction or weapons use comes from.
The MER doesn’t either.
But since were going back to 2010…what about 2014?
The essential core concept of EVE Online is that it is full time PvP in a sandbox
environment.
Yes. In 2010 we were doing just that.
If it does truly contradict what I posted it would suggest that fewer new players are encountering a social support group in recent years than they were in 2015.
Or in other words; corps are now less effective at retaining players than they used to be.
Where did I post crap? I haven’t disputed your post or what Hilmar said, I merely pointed out that throwing numbers around without context is dumb.
Of course they are. All they do is teach their members how to be mindless worker bees who exist only to bring asteroid nectar to the hive.
The anti-PvP crowd that posts here is composed of veteran players, who have no idea what’s actually happening in those corporations, because most of these guys are asocial boomers who solo-grind PvE and industry without ever interacting with anyone.
But I’m actually sitting in the corporations that have high proportions of new players, which are usually led by pompous but clueless semi-vets who are only in it to feel like royalty in front of the rabble. It’s not the “griefing” that’s driving out the new players, but the eye-glazing, asinine advice and instructions they are given, such as:
- A laser-like focus on mining
- Not undocking (or even being required to log off) when someone with negative standings is spotted in the area (usually CODE. or Goons, but anyone who even remotely does something the CEO disagrees with gets set red, like for example if some rando salvages the NPC wrecks made by the corporate mining fleet in a belt) - then I ask something like “excuse me Mr. CEO, why are Goons bad?” and get told that they’re “evil griefers who are trying to destroy the game”
- Going to low-sec without permission gets you kicked out of the corporation (and set red)
- Criminally-bad ship fitting advice (e.g. target painter on Thorax)
- Outright lies about game mechanics, such as ganking being an exploit
- Petitioning every single PvP loss, and most PvE losses for reimbursement
- Being required to follow corporate training plans, which are extremely wasteful and hold up new player progress
It’s no wonder that new players stop logging in. They get burned out within their first month. You can always see them start playing other games more and more, before not showing up on Discord anymore at some point. Organizations like EVE-Uni, while not as efficient as I think they could be, have much higher retention than these dumb-■■■■ carebear corporations.
These boomers posting here will never admit it, but deep down inside, they know that their kin are the source of the problem, and not some ganker or pirate that makes an occasional kill against a new player, destroying some cruiser that can get replaced in half an hour, or instantly by any leader worth their salt. They’ll never admit this, because one of their core arguments has always been that (contrary to what their opponents say) “there’s no right way to play the game,” which is absolute bull-shizzle, because of course there is.
None of this is even a discussion about the merits of PvP at its core. Every single PvPer here knows that it doesn’t take much to become immune to nonconsensual PvP in very short order, but these carebear cowards are shamefully trying to save face by using new players like human shields in their arguments. It’s absolutely reprehensible.
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It’s typical that after your arguments have been shot down, your ‘facts’ shown incorrect or missing, and your importance to the game to be little more than advertising bait to lure in more suckers, that your posts would devolve into insults and imaginary fairy tales about “boomer corps” sacrificing newbies on the altar of ISK creation.
You really should start at least trying to use some accurate facts in your points. Making up fairy tales about the carebear hordes ruining the game would go over a lot better with a shred or two of reality to base it on.
It’s also ironic that you spend half your post talking about how certain corps are ruining the game for new players and leading them to stop playing, and then wrapping up with:
You seriously couldn’t be funnier and less self-aware if you tried.
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To the point, the hard part about retention in an MMO is that it requires KNOWLEDGABLE AF veterans taking an active roll in the community to essentially organize the playerbase. In Eve the most knowledgeable players are the PvPers because they typically understand both the PvE and PvP sides of the game and can provide insight from a broader perspective.
@DeMichael_Crimson mentioned revenge earlier. Who do you think teaches that PvP interested newbro how to get his revenge? Mission runners? lol. And the $9000 question. Why are we so focused on trying to keep newbro A from losing a ship when we should be focusing on retaining newbro B (the PvPer) who didn’t quit when he lost his first ship?
Why aren’t the PvPers building a community and training newbros anymore? Because we have no ways to support each other. We can’t use logistics, or remote support, as a matter of fact, we don’t even fleet with each other anymore. What are we going to do with a newbro? You think a newbro is going to have fun flying around solo? It’s not like I can logi him either if he gets an engagement. So what now. He sits on a gate in a wardec corp? That’s boring af. Suicide ganks in a fleet for lulz and no money? Not gonna really progress his character much that way.
High-sec baiting/can-flipping/suspect play has traditionally been the entry-level PvP content. If all it takes is a corporation and a community to retain a PvP player then we should be allowing suspects to once again fleet up by unrestricting the use of remote support.
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