An angle on EVE's New Player Experience and the game's harsh realities
by James Egan 
May 27th 2009 at 3:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Opinion
There are few MMOs on the market today that can seem as intimidating to a new player as EVE Online. Some of this comes from the infamous things people have heard about the game, tales of deception and betrayal, but there is a fair amount of complexity to EVE as well and no shortage of digital villains prowling New Eden's thousands of solar systems injecting risk into the game.
The first days and weeks of gameplay experienced by many pilots has led to more than a few descriptions of the experience as an initiation of sorts, conjuring up images of hazings, an analogy that actually holds true in many respects. Anyone who sticks with the game learns through trial and error that the setting of New Eden, by design, can be quite harsh. Even if you're not into PvP, it pervades EVE Online; at the very least players who are to succeed in the game must ultimately learn to adapt and evade the more malevolent players, if not defend themselves from attackers directly.
While EVE will likely never be as easy to get a handle on as some other MMOs out there -- the game's depth and complexity actually being a major draw for its subscribers -- CCP Games has taken steps to better ease new players into New Eden with the New Player Experience (NPE) which was part of the Apocrypha expansion launch. But is EVE's New Player Experience, which does not separate rookie pilots into a safe zone to learn the ropes, the right way to introduce players to the game? This is the focus of a WarCry article by Steven Croop titled "Aura is Aura by Any Other Name".
Croop writes: "This effort's aim has been to bring neophytes into the fold of EVE's living, breathing world; no easy task, considering the galaxy's heart races along to the beat of a hummingbird's. Action on behalf of new players is more likely to open up debate rather than settle it, and now factions wonder ceaselessly whether EVE is being softened, its values compromised in a deal with the bumbling, Ibis-bound devil."
Since EVE's New Player Experience doesn't isolate the player from the rest of the game community as some tutorials do, it has the effect of showing some players the possibilities in EVE and hooking them on the game, while quite likely driving others off. As Croop puts it, "The strong are allowed to surge ahead to triumph from the very beginning while the weak realize EVE isn't for them, or settle into a boring hi-sec livelihood and complain about the Privateers." Croop argues that despite the importance of having a good tutorial system in the game, it's really the things that a tutorial can't truly explain that are worth seeing and doing in EVE. He writes, "It is the things we're not taught about, what we're not shown in the tutorials that we are compelled to explore. If the EVE world were handed to us piecemeal, if we were comfortably acclimated to each scenario we might face out in the starry sea in an isolated microcosm, the galaxy would hold no wonder for us. We are driven by the hinting, flashing grin of the unknown."
Have a look at Steven Croop's "Aura is Aura by Any Other Name" over at WarCry and see if you agree with his views that the game should never shelter players from EVE's harsh realities, even if it would bring in more subscribers.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Andrew said on 3:37PM 5-27-2009
The Croop article is essentially a prolonged puff piece about his digital addiction, and doesn't actually key in on the problems that new players have.
The fact that there's no defined newbie zone is not very relevant - in fact Croop seems to misunderstand how newbie zones and tutorials work in other MMORPGs. (Name a mainstream MMO that prevents you from exiting the newbie zone until level X, for example?)
EVE's issue is that the massively complex interface and unintuitive controls are poorly explained by a badly designed tutorial. I started playing EVE because my buddy has raved about it for years, and he was APPALLED at the misinformation in the EVE tutorial, along with the outright omissions and bad advice it gave.
EVE has a lot of really amazing concepts and game play mechanics.... don't get me wrong.... but Croop's article manages to completely miss the mark.
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Myria said on 4:30PM 5-27-2009
I have to agree. the lack of a defined newbie zone is pretty much irrelevant. About the only thing I could see being done there that might help newbies is keeping the strip miners out of the starter systems. In newbie chat there's someone asking why there aren't any asteroids to mine several times an hour, most people are understandably unhappy when they're told it's because macro miners strip the bulk of hisec dry very shortly after the servers come online.
Sean said on 11:10PM 5-27-2009
"Name a mainstream MMO that prevents you from exiting the newbie zone until level X, for example?"
Age of Conan? Not to be contrarian but it AoC's new player experience was (and still is?) one of its selling points.
Andrew said on 11:22AM 5-28-2009
@Sean:
Alright.... there's one. But AoC is a massive exception to the rule.
Kaamos said on 4:26PM 5-27-2009
Honestly, I really just logged in to que my skills, and lost interest after the 3 months of the time I recieved with the retail box was up. I had a destroyer and the capacity to fly cruisers. Only ran missions, hardly found an opportunity to work with other players, and seriously didnt have the cash to replace my ships, even the basic fighters, pvp didnt sound like a good investment at all, especially for one so small.
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Firebreak said on 6:44PM 5-27-2009
I understand where you are coming from, when I started playing EVE I just could not understand how you could manage to get anywhere. I took a gamble and joined a newbie friendly corp with 0.0 access. The game changed for me completely. The corp would give you free cruisers and frigs in 0.0 and free Battleships if you lost one in a fleet fight. Even with those terms I was still freaked out to enter the free for all, once I did though I could not imagine playing EVE any other way. These kinds of corps are out there you just have to look for them and whatever you do get out of the starter corps.
Mr.Woodstock said on 4:54PM 5-27-2009
Well EvE isn't for all.
Only certain types of players play eve, only certain players like eve .. and out of that only a handful ever goes for pvp due to the high loss risk (high loss? meh ... ther is something called insurance).
And about this "no newbie zone" ... it's exactly what it should be, put the player into the game, as it is .. no flashy tutorials, no nooblet do this and that. The game is complex and difficult for a reason, so only players that actually enjoy playing the game play it.
I might sound a bit harsh ... don't get me wrong the game is difficult, but that's it's appeal ... the challenge, what makes you go " yeah ! i want more of this". It's a challenging game, very fun for those who get to know it / understand it.
And believe me when i say ... the first 2-3 months are hardest .. after that it's a breeze.
Embrace the mystery that is Eve ... or get podded trying.
Fly safe.
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Myria said on 5:24PM 5-27-2009
The thing is, the game isn't particularly complex or difficult. No more or less so then most every other MMO I've played for any length of time, and less so then some. It isn't even particularly harsh, claims to the contrary notwithstanding. So you lose a ship? Big deal. Anything short of a capitol is dirt cheap anyway, most of that cost (if not all) being covered by insurance. About the worst that can happen is you lose your implants, but only an idiot would fly much of anywhere with expensive implants anyway -- jump clones make doing so wholly unnecessary.
For a variety of reasons -- some having to do with basic design (the eternal SP gap), some having to do with the terribad UI (nested right click ftl), some having to do with the kind of player base you get when your primary selling point is "legal" sociopathy -- it is, relative to other MMOs, inaccessible, but that's not the same thing as the base game being complex, difficult, harsh, or any of the other disturbingly many things Eve players seem to like to tell themselves.
The Claw said on 9:58PM 5-28-2009
Myria, you handwave away all the harshness (ships are cheap! you won't lose implants unless you're an idiot!), but the fact is, it's still a lot harsher than any of the major alternatives in the MMO space.
Andrew said on 5:44PM 5-27-2009
@Woodstock:
"And about this "no newbie zone" ... it's exactly what it should be, put the player into the game, as it is .. no flashy tutorials, no nooblet do this and that. The game is complex and difficult for a reason, so only players that actually enjoy playing the game play it."
That's counter-intuitive. With the learning curve where it is, the lack of a solid and instructive tutorial means that of the ~1500-2000 trial accounts online at any one time (as of last week), only a handful will ever subscribe - the rest - especially those without access to in-game friends - will be frustrated and quit.
Again - a functional tutorial and a kid's glove newbie experience are NOT mutually exclusive. Educating players properly so that they know the mechanics of how to play the game should not be considered a bad thing.
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Andrew said on 5:49PM 5-27-2009
Correction to my above post..... clearly I should stop drinking:
"Again - a functional tutorial and a kid's glove newbie experience are NOT mutually exclusive."
Should read:
Again - a functional tutorial and a kid's glove newbie experience are NOT necessarily one in the same.
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Kaamos said on 10:24PM 5-27-2009
Unfortunatelly i boycotted mmo's for my new jobs hours, to basically get my financial prioreties strait, and ended up losing my interest in MOST games recently, just bummed out about some RL things I think, but as the previous article mentioned, MMO's are untoppable in terms of entertainment to those who have played- for me its more about competitive play, skill and intelligence, wits, so on and so fourth. Somehow Ive managed to keep playing Street Fighter 4, and I wasnt even a fan of the series until it came out and I was reluctant to buy it, but somehow I ended up getting really into it.
Its nice taking people out with 2k more ratings than myself, then again, I dont have to grind pvp gear to do it eh? Rainbow 6 vegas 2 anyone? THE BULL IS RAGEIN
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Kaamos said on 10:28PM 5-27-2009
This post was meant to be a reply to Firebreak, but since I wanted to point that out, let me put in my good points about Eve.
Its beautiful, its full of content to explore, its full of mathematical planning, full of adventure and risk, with high rewards; and consequences.
But you have to work at it, you have to want some of it to get past the noob curve or you'll end up like me, and IVE GRINDED MMO's since the Anarchy Online beta. (And MMO type games, PSO, Monster Hunter, ect.)
Mike said on 12:13AM 5-28-2009
@ Myria... Whatever come talk to us when your Box time runs out NOOBLET.... You have no f*cking clue what you are talking about. EvE is insanely complex, ive been playing for over a year and Im just barely getting a grasp of everything and theirs a ton more to learn. No other MMO on the face of the planet comes even close to the complexity in Eve.... Also try traveling out of 1.0 space before coming up with your completely uneducated synopsis of the game.....
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Chris said on 1:21AM 5-28-2009
See? Sociopath. ^^
Graill said on 1:45AM 5-28-2009
MIke, you speak of others being a nublet and you still play EVE? Now thats some big hypocrite balls!!
I remember when they carebeared missiles, collision, targeting and friendly fire mike, you were ok with that? all those years ago? Ya, i guess you would you would after typing what you did.
Graill said on 1:20AM 5-28-2009
Well gosh golly gee.....imagine another article like this about EVE on massively!!!
May i have another fluffernutter without the crust please?
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Chris said on 1:25AM 5-28-2009
In the last seven days there have been 6 posts tagged as "EVE Online". Really, what's your problem?
Graill said on 1:38AM 5-28-2009
Chris!! You are crazy man!!! glad to see your not on youtube anymore lamenting about brittany, dude that was some unreal stuff you were doing, i can see you EVE folks are crazy insane!!
I do have to ask you not post anymore youtube vids, they are a bit unsettling....ya know?
Benicio said on 2:49AM 5-28-2009
So happy there are games like WoW for all the 'Graill's' of the world.