I heard the recent podcast of CCP Hilmar, Falcon and GoodFella, and I would like to point out an obvious thing that would help to get that million capsulers per year.
Mr Hilmar says that he enjoys doing project discovery while relaxing in game, so he understands that not all eve is high adrenaline shooting or sperguing in spreadsheets, there is also place for relaxing socializing entertainment, So:
Make a helpdesk that provides a interface between trial accounts and veteran players.
As far as I understand the making social connection is the most important factor of player retention. Let the tutorial get the hand of the newbro and take him to a place where he can chat with an actual human player, so he can make connection with somebody and break that barrier.
This can be done through a interface accessible via the neocom where the veteran can mark what areas he can give advice (pvp, industry, mission running…) . So when they first undock the trial account may already have met somebody ingame that may be helping him to figure that to move he has to doble click on space and that stuff.
Im sure people will do it just because they are cool guys, but you may give some apparel or something to have an incentive.
ah, and important bonus. Make it so that people from the same country / language can meet, this is very important for those of us who are not native english speakers, since the game has no localization.
I’d say that Help chat, NPC corp chat and various other chats dedicated to specific activities already fill that role. You just ask the question and you will get the answer, most of the time a lot of answers.
You are right, but there is people who take it to another level.
I knew a guy around 2010 who made several hour long youtube tutorials in spanish explaining stuff, had a corporation where he collected donations of the spanish speaking corps to provide free stuff to newbros, skillbooks, ships… He organized tutorial fleets and coms - meetings for spanish trialers etc.
You have to take in account that while EVE does not need a high level of english, reading lengthy tutorials in a foreign language or watching long tutorials made by scottish-texan people its an easy way make somebody loose interest.
This guys impact in the game was so big that like a third of the spaniards who kept playing after trial while he was active where helped by him. Given the statistics that Hillmar gave on the podcast, I think that empowering people like this with a tool to contact with trialers is what CCP is looking for.
Please, remember, is not about the information, its about the personal connection.