So, during the CSM17 announcements I saw a comment come by. It wasn’t aimed at me, but at another CSM candidate who’s also tagged themselves as a champion of newbros.
What is a new player concern old players can’t fix?
Signed a Bitter Vet
This question got me to thinking about my position as a CSM candidate. What can I solve that someone who’s been playing the game since it’s conception can’t? A 2 year old vs. someone 10+ years into the game? Well, I have two things going for me that older players don’t have any longer:
- Perspective. I’m new enough to the game I can relate to new players and their frustrations.
- Not yet jaded by game changes and promises not kept.
Now, lets talk about my 4 areas of expertise and what makes a newbro better at it than a vet.
New Player Experience
On my About Me page here at Eve Rookies, I mentioned that January 2020 isn’t the first time I tried Eve. I actually tried it twice before.
The first time was back in 2015 when you still had to subscribe to even play (I don’t think there was a 7 day trial at that time). I paid my subscription plus a startup fee (think it was 19 euro all together) and set up my character. The only problem was, I didn’t know how to undock.
I quit the game and rage uninstalled.
A few years later when CCP introduced the Alpha clone and updated the “new player experience” a bit, my husband mentioned I should try it again. So for a second time I installed the game and created a new character.
And, while I did get undocked, I still had no clue what I needed to do. I drifted around in a pod until someone or something blapped me and I rage uninstalled the game once again.
Then in January 2020 I tried for a third time and obviously it stuck. I wouldn’t be running for CSM17 if it hadn’t.
What Changed the Third Time?
What changed the 3rd time, aside from the third time being a charm? I wasn’t in my bloody hanger!
At some point between my second and third time, CCP updated the NPE again. Instead of starting out in my hanger, I was out in space with Aura guiding me along. She taught me how to board a ship in space, how to navigate and shoot things.
I WAS ENGAGED WITH THE GAME! There were instructions for the most basic things! I could navigate through space and not feel useless!
Even through the career missions (and they need some big time love) I was able to figure things out with the help of my Twitch stream.
What New Player Issues Need Attention?
- Career missions such as Exploration. The missions are, and excuse my language here, crap. Not only did I have to have someone explain probing to me, but the amount of new players that end up in my stream frustrated has been staggering.
- The only ‘Event’ involving DScan is The Hunt that happens once a year. WHY can’t we have level 1 missions that need a player to DScan down a pod or ship? Why can’t this be included in the career agent missions? Why, why, why, WHY? This has bugged me since Easter 2020.
- Local is vital to situational awareness and staying alive, but most players just minimize it because they have zero clue about it’s importance. Why can’t we just mention it somewhere? Even a “are you sure you want to minimize this? and a link going to Eve Academy explaining it would be better than what we have now, which is NOTHING.
- Something talking about the market. New players, myself included, will sell things instantly for a much lower price. It may take days or weeks (even longer for some I talked to) to find out that they can sell items at a higher price over a period.
Community Development
Way back, many years ago when Everquest launched an expansion called Planes of Power, players had to get flags to progress in the content. Pretty quickly all of the elite raiding guilds got themselves flagged and then made the flags a requirement to join them. This was one of those rock and hard place situations because unless a player’s guild was doing the content, they had little chance of getting those flags. Not to mention guilds would gain people then lose them again the moment they got flagged.
Me being me, I saw a problem that needed to be solved. This lead me to spending many long nights looking up walk-throughs of the different site mechanics and I put up a post on my server’s forum inviting people to come out to a public flagging raid.
Something interesting happened after I started leading these raids. Players, regardless of their guild affiliation, stuck around to help others get their flags. This created a public raid community.
Fast forward light years down the road, the same thing happened with Eve Rookies Incursions.
A Little Shameless Promotion of Eve Rookies Incursions
Whenever a new player asks how to make isk, inevitably someone mentions incursions. Don’t know what incursions are? They’re high end PVE sites. 13 to 40 pilots jump into a fleet, complete sites and make isk and LP. The highest tier sites can earn 31.5m per site! That’s a lot of isk. However, what nobody tells these new pilots is they have to dump A LOT of SP into expensive battleships and then move those ships region to region every few days.
What if a pilot invests into a Vindicator, hates incursions and decides not to do anything where he flies the Vindi again. He just invested a lot of time (and possibly isk for injectors) into something that he’s not going to use again. That bites. So Eve Rookies Incursions became the answer to this problem.
However, the incursions are just the tip of the iceburg. What I didn’t imagine when I started this a year ago is the incredible community that I started. Pilots discover Eve Rookies for the incursions and stick around for the people. If I throw up a pvp fleet (I’m also a NPSI FC) or decide to take new players into null to gate rat, I never have to beg people to come.
AND, we have a lot of the NPSI community and the other incursion pilots that come join us. So chances are if a new player goes and joins other public activities, they’ll see a friendly face. Sometimes that’s all a new player needs to get them involved!
What Community Development Issues Need Attention?
One of the things that has built Eve Rookies (as well as my newbro roams) is consistency. Eve Rookies runs incursions every Tues, Fri, and Sunday as long as the focus runs. I FC newbro roams every other Wednesday. So players know if they show up, something is going on.
So when the new fleet finder was introduced, I was EXCITED. Except, there’s no way to schedule a fleet ahead of time.
People are busy and there’s no pause button for Eve. What makes things like Eve Rookies Incursions and the NPSI fleets tick is having a way to let players know what they need to schedule around ahead of time!
Simply adding a scheduling function into the fleet finder would be an AMAZING addition!
I’d also love to see more tools available for public communities like mine both in game and out. This includes resources for people who want to create new communities.
High Sec
Being a relatively new player, I started my career out in Highsec and I haven’t felt the need to leave. That’s the great thing about being part of the NPSI community. I can get all of the PVP I want but never have to leave Jita!
Anyways, the reason I’ve put High Sec down as an area of expertise is because this is where every new player starts. Not low sec, not null, not wormholes. High Sec. I’d like to make sure that when new High Sec mechanics are added, the players entering the game are kept in mind.
What High Sec Issues Need Attention?
- Isk generation
- New player griefing
- Things for new players to do
Missions need a lot of love. The isk vs. time often doesn’t make sense unless someone is blitzing them. New players like to kill everything, loot everything and often salvage everything. This brings isk per hour down to a dismal level (for level 1 missions it’s 2-2.7m depending on which missions are rolled over the hour).
Sure, new players can do Abyssals but first they have to learn about them, then they need to research a proper ship, finally they need the isk to buy the skill books for that ship as well as the ship itself.
Also, events. I don’t know how many times I have taken a fleet of new players out to do event sites and the big, powerful battleship comes swooping in to finish the site. It’s not very inspiring or engaging. I’d love to see new players in their ships held together with duct tape and a prayer be able to compete some how.
As to suicide ganking, this deserves an entire separate post. Keep an eye out for it!
Content Creation
On Twitch, Youtube, and Twitter I go by GamerGrrls. 98% of my content is Eve Online related with some smattering of other games. I’m a small content creator, most of my Twitch streams get about 20 consistent viewers and my Youtube videos usually get 50 to 100 views initially.
Most of my Youtube videos are tutorials. One thing I HATED when I started playing is looking up videos and then having to spend time surfing through 30 minutes of someone talking at me. If you’re going to teach me how to undock the DScan window, SHOW ME HOW TO UNDOCK IT! Don’t spend 30 minutes talking about it first! This lead to my 30 second videos (which now go up to about 3-5 minutes to go over more complicated topics).
One of the other things that annoys me about other tutorials (both written and videos) is how players use skilled characters. If you’re going to aim content at new players, don’t use a ship that costs 200m and needs implants a new player either can’t use or afford.
At the end of the day I’m nowhere near the most engaging Eve player on Twitch (especially if chat makes me sing). My videos, while my editing has come a long ways, isn’t the best. Outside of my solo hunter diaries, what I produce is only interesting to players in their first 30-60 days. And of course Eve Rookies is going to only be engaging to new players, or those looking for information on running incursions with us.
So Kshal, Why is Content Creation on Your Agenda?
I really, really would love to engage with CCP on behalf of smaller streamers like myself and see if we can do some sort of program for us. Twitch has the affiliate level before partner, Youtube has stuff for smaller creators. So there has to be something for smaller Eve creators as well. Not everyone can be a Bjorn Bee or Hateless pulling in hundreds of viewers and frankly, it would be pretty boring if they were!
And newbro streamers. I spend a lot of time going into newbro streamer chat to just support them and try to get them out to a newbro roam or join my incursion community. SOMETHING to get them involved and keep them going. It would be awesome if something could be done so they keep streaming Eve and we keep having a presence on Twitch (or Youtube once Twitch dies).
Why Don’t You Talk About X, Y, Z
There’s 10 CSM candidates for a reason. This way not any one of us have to have knowledge in all areas. We can ask each other “how do you think this affects this person or thing?” and then work our own expertise into the conversation.
So while I’d love your vote, if I didn’t talk about mining or the ESI, I’m sorry! Hopefully you can find a candidate that ticks your boxes!
