New Player Experience Part 2

In part 1 I talked about how terrible the NPE in Eve is, and in part 2 I will be talking about my solution to the problem.

The first thing we need to ask ourselves when designing a new player experience is what is the game about?  What are the vitals that every player should know?  And, how can we best teach those new to the game this information?

So what is Eve?  Eve is a PvP game with deep social and technical complexity.  Everything in Eve is a form of PvP; even if you are just a miner you are competing against other miners to sell your minerals.  This truth, first and foremost, is what needs to be shown to new players.

The first thing I would do is create a new player region or constellation.  I personally don't know how large it would need to be (it would need to be large enough that new players are around each other, but not so small as to be cramped), but all new players should spawn here, regardless of race and noob-corp they are a part of.  For reasons I will explain later, there should be an age limit of some sort on who can enter this region, be that skill points, character/account age, or something else. 

The first and easiest thing for CCP to fix are the missions.  The noob missions need to explain how the game works in an easy to understand format.  They need to keep it simple, avoiding unnecessary complexity for the new player, while still providing the information needed to survive in the game.

The first of these new player missions should focus on game play basics such as:

• Fitting your ship to it's bonuses.
• Optimal, falloff, traversal/tracking.
• Different tanking types (shield, armor, speed, signature, and distance).
• Strengths and weaknesses of different ship classes (bigger is not always better).
• The Overview.
• Mining.
• Buy and sell orders.
• The UI.
• Strengths and weaknesses of different weapon systems.
• The skill queue.
• Manufacturing.

These missions need to show the player, not tell them.  For example have the player orbit a large NPC battleship and show how even though the large guns of the battleship do lots of damage, they are unable to track the players fast moving frigate.  Overall these missions should take a couple of hours to go through.

After the player goes through the above missions their real education will begin.  Remember above when I said a new player region should be created, and that it should have an age limit?  The reason for that is this region will be null security space.  Yes, put noobs in 0.0 right from the start!  The age limit is simply to prevent griefing by older players.  While in this 0.0 environment new players will receive the above missions, and graduate onto more advanced missions such as:

• Find and kill another player.
• Pod another player.
• How to use your D-scan.
• Go fight until you lose a ship.
• Go fight until you lose your pod with an implant in it.
• Travel to highsec (outside of the noob area) and suicide gank a ship (show the sec status loss and being Concorded, refund the sec status loss on completion of the mission).
• Join a fleet and kill another player (teach about Eve Voice).
• Probe usage and scanning.

Many other missions could be created to demonstrate what the game is like.  This will start players off with a full understanding of what they are getting into.  At any point during the first set of missions these new players may come across slightly older players looking to kill them.  Explain before it all that at any moment after undocking any other player may try and attack them. Ideally these missions will take several more hours to complete.

By doing this you accomplish a few things.  First you give players a fair understanding of what the game is about before they make a decision on weather or not to continue playing.  Second, you have explained the mechanics in a logical and useful way so players are able to survive in the world.  Next, it takes its time to teach these things, and does so in a manner, so you can understand them and will be able to remember.

And that brings me to the "hook."  What should Eve's hook be?  What would make someone want to continue playing after these events they've been through?  Simple, the players.  At the end of the tutorial, CCP should highlight some of the great accomplishments Eve players have reached over the years, making special mention of recent events.

Talk about how The Guiding Hand Social Club stole a fortune.  Talk about how The Mittani runs a corporation of 8000+ players, an alliance and coalition even larger, and how half of Eve hates him as a villain.  Talk about how Morning Maniac created a University, and how Kelduum Revaan runs it now.  Talk about Burn Jita (or whatever the big news event of the day is).  Talk about the fall of an alliance.  Talk about the CSM.  Talk about Chribba.  Whatever it is, talk about the players and their great accomplishments and failures.  After all, that's what makes Eve great, the players.

Then challenge the player to go make their mark on the galaxy.