I noticed that in one topic the character that is at least half a year old (judging by forum registration date) said that he is a new player. In another topic, almost a year-old character (again, by forum registration date, did not log into the game) proposed a change “for new players” that will conveniently include year-old characters in this category.
What is the point of time when new player becomes not new, how you think? I thought that “30 days” is a pretty universal criterion, but evidence shows otherwise.
Considering that many players of Eve have been around for over a decade anything less than 5 years I would consider a new player really - being a new player in Eve denotes not your lack of in game skill, but the lack of knowledge and experience of the history and story of Eve over the years.
I was a new player for over a year…because I didn’t put in the time. Days/weeks/years don’t mean sh!t if you don’t put in the hours. You could have a player that has been playing for 5 years, but only puts in 2-3 hours a week, or you could have a vet player that has been here for 5 months, but plays 6 hours a day.
I think it partly depends on your own perspective and how long you have been playing.
Personally I think it’s a question of whether the player “gets eve” or not, is it just shiny pixels moving about like any other game or do they see eve as primarily a chance to pit your wits against others and the client as just a mechanism to enable that. That’s one way to look at it.
“New” has more to do with how much you’ve played and how much research and learning you’ve put into the game, not with your signup date.
I’ve seen people create their account, play half an hour, go back to their regular game and give EVE another shot 2 years later. I’ve seen people with over 6 months of casual play time under their belt, but who’ve never done more than 2 sets of career agents, a bit of mining, some level 1 and 2 missions, maybe an easy event. I knew a guy who pretty much only played to back up his roommate on certain activities, and basically just did whatever the other guy told him. Even after 2 years in the game he wasn’t really interested in learning anything more about the game because playing on his own never appealed to him.
So in various contexts, “new” blends to “doesn’t play much” blends to “hasn’t learned much yet” blends to “played longer but very casually”. Generally for myself if I refer to “new” players in a post it’s not about time-new, it’s about “players with less knowledge and experience and commitment to the game”.
Some people take long breaks so a character may be years old but that person may have given up after 6 months and has recently come back to try it again.
I guess new players are those who never get the “contract me your stuff” reply whenever they complain about the game since well, nobody thinks they got anything of value worth contracting.
New to me is more along the lines of complete lack of knowledge combined with a relativly short playtime and character age.
When I kill a player and see they are less then 3 months, in an NPC corp, and show a lack of knowledge and capability to defend themselves i will open a chat in an attempt to
A) see how they take the loss, if they bitch i close chat,
B) offer tips to avoid getting caught again, and
C) offer help in the future if they need it.
Usually I startthe convo with “So new to Eve?” Some admit they are alts.
I guess anyone who haven’t done or haven’t done a lot of what they are about to do can be considered new in some way.
Players who’s been away for a long time
How many SP someone has
Who knows lol
Tricky to answer as it has several ways to be interpreted, most of which have been covered.
I think I would be in agreement with those who take “hours played” over “account age” as it is the most sensible. I have spoken to someone who had an account almost 9 years old but had been in the same NPC corp as they had played for about 2 weeks, then left and came back after randomly remembering they had an account around 8.5 years later. They knew nothing and in fairness if you look at the additions, changes, “tweaks” etc it is a totally different game now to what it was then. The only things the same are “it’s called EVE and it’s in space”.
I have been playing since June but, due to various reasons, I have put in a lot of hours. Almost “you may need professional help” hours and so I have learned a lot, seen a lot and learned about how much I still have no idea about. I do have a rough idea of how long I am going to be playing before I “know” even half of everything there is to know - it is a long time indeed. That said, this isn’t even taking into account any of the updates/additions etc that happen in the time I am learning stuff already here…
So only having played since June there are plenty of idiots who will say "you are still nothing but brand new until you have been playing for 5 years.
Ok then - define “playing for 5 years”. Is that “5 years of account date” but not needing to play in which case that’s ridiculous. Or is it “5 years with an average of 6 hours per week so roughly 1,500 hours in total”? Because if it is then fine - done that and more. Maybe you mean “5 years playing for a minimum of 1 hour per day every day and making 3 posts in the forums per week” - erm… wut?
Of course, you then have to define what “playing” is counted as in those hours you have to log in order to not be “new”. Is it constantly clicking without looking away and fighting everyone you see; is it afk-mining on no fewer than 4 chars; is it afk-mining in HS on 2 chars while “actively” running missions; is it only going to count if you are on comms or…
It’s a good discussion question but I don’t think it can really be answered as it is too open to interpretation etc.
The way I see it is: If you like EVE, play it when you can/want to, learn what you can as you go and generally avoid being too much of a d1ck about it then you’re “an EVE player that’s pretty cool as a person too”.
I reckon that’s the best I, or anyone, can aim for really - play a game I enjoy, keep learning as I go, try to only be a d1ck from time to time and just get on with being a bit better each time.
Eve is too complicated for 30 days. I’d say you stop being a newbie at some point between 6-8 months of playing the game. After that, you really shouldn’t see yourself as a newbie anymore.
The ones who haven’t played the game yet, or the collection of people that played for a bit but then left due to various reasons.
As far as the ones actively playing, they’re actually harder to identify simply because of alts and the character bazaar. “New players” can easily get some PLEX to buy a character they won’t know what to do with because they don’t want to wait for skill training but know what they want to do, or they could be that fresh new capsuleer that you just blew up in Uedama because they were on autopilot.
Or they could be that “new player” that corp entities want to be in critically important roles during their campaigns because they lack the actual numbers and it’d be convenient if newly created characters could easily fit those roles in a short amount of time (like that one thread).
6-12 months I guess, also depends on how much time said player actually put in. Playing a few hours every day is VERY different from just getting in 4 hours every weekend.
