tl;dr: CCP please fire your stupid web designers and give us a webpage we can easily find to download the EVE client. And nothing else.
So, dear CCP, this is ridiculous. It’s the second time now I’m trying to reinstall the game after a windows death and it is a chore only to find it !
So I go to find an install program to play EVE again, and I arrive on the EVE online portal (I guess). I clic on “play for free” and it asks me to create an account.
That already bothers me. What does it care if I have an account or not ? I only want to play. Ok, so I log in with the sign in button on the top right. I’m signed in now. I clic the “play for free” button again…
And the stupid machine now asks me to create an account again !
Ok, after 5 minutes I see the stealth button on the bottom for people who have an account already (like I didn’t tell it already…) By the way this page mixes languages, but whatever.
Another web page. My account page it seems. I go through all the menus to finaly find the download page (at the bottom of the first one).
Now I have a shiny button to download the mac client… Just under it is the EVE windows client. FINALY !
So I agree that EVE is not for everyone but come on ! Installing your game shouldn’t be a barrier if you want new players to come or old ones to come back. The website is shiny and all, and maybe I’m simply not brainready for these intricated UI and they are better for stupid users. But still. 5 clics and looking for each one in hidden places… I’m not a designer or an UI expert, but I’m definitely convince this is a completely stupid design. Like you reached the stupidity of windows with their network tools. They are not a example to follow.
The website may not be intuitive to you, I however don’t find an issue with it.
In order to help you next time you have to reinstall Windows and Client, consider to split up your drive in two parts, Part 1: being the “System” drive (Windows and all other basic programs) and Part 2: “Storage” drive where you save all your important data, Install files and perhaps you could even install your games on storage drive, that way Steam and other games, that does not require reinstall to work, can be played without going through the trouble of re-downloading them and all that.
Let’s assume you have a 1TB HDD in you PC, you could allocate the space as:
“System” ( C:\ ) - 200 GB
“Storage” ( D:\ ) - 800 GB (remaining space)
If you keep your System separate like that, even if the OS (Windows) should break, you will still retain most of your data.
I do this already. But I couldn’t run EVE again from the old install. The drives letters were very messed up so I assumed it was the problem and I wasn’t going to find how to fix it.
If there was a way to put user game data elsewhere than in the windows user directory though that would be cool for next time.
The website though, it’s nice for some things, but really finding the installer is not easy. But maybe people are not supposed to find it easily if it’s not an issue.
I think the website is designed by the same people at CCP that do the in game UI, in particular the Agency etc. and is also enjoyed by and found intuitive by the same people that also like the Agency.
On topic and on a personal note, I gave up on it. Everytime I need to re-install I just use google to get the direct link. Sad but true. eve online download client - Google Search
1st one from the top hits it dead on. I wish Eve Online website could do that …
Yeah, going to have to agree with the OP here. There’s no reason the client download button shouldn’t be front and center on the main page or something equally obvious.