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Originally posted by Psychow
Good read. Does it really take weeks to get accepted into Eve University?

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It was around a week for me. It might be better now that the queue is ordered based on your application date, rather than total time spent online in the queue.

My Bad  Cosy,  i totally misread  that post  on which I commented. As usaal  was very inforamtive  and inciteful.  I was reading  between the lines the wrong  way

fly safe

Congrats! You have found yourself a corp, people you can relate with. Its a wonderful thing to have buddies. I don't know what I could have done in EVE without them. There is nothing more you need to research yourself when you have buddies. Now you can learn from each other and tackle problems together instead of thinking all by yourself. From now on it should be smooth sailing. The only problem I can see is creation of internal unrest in your corp. Or external invasions. Speaking of internal problems. My corp once had a couple and one day one guy decided to flirt (lol cyber flirt) with the girl and then the girls boy friend got mad and decided to shoot the other guy and the guy that flirted was kicked out of the corp. Guess what happened? The guy that was kicked decided to hire mercenaries and attack out corp. Thats how fun can start, although the start wasn't funny but the battles that happened out of it was a blast.

     This guy could make going to the toilet and watching it sliding into oblivion sound interesting and entertaining with his writing.  Glad you enjoyed it though. 

     15 jumps to get somewhere?  How long did that take?  How many hours do you sit and play on a session?  How many of these missions were carbon copies of each other?  Is this a glorified chat program with a graphical interface?  Did you follow the standard spreadsheet when creating your character so you can have said ship within said time?  These questions are on new players minds. 

Cosy

How long does it take to train 26 "learning" skills before you can even do anything?!!  I'm guessing weeks!  Holy wasted time and effort batman.  At least you are paying your subscription while you wait, that's a good thing at least. 

@ above poster:

stop trolling this thread dude, the intention of cosy's post was alrdy clarified, all you seek for is some semi-flame war...fulfill your need for attention somewhere else, thx.

Glad to see the OP survived long enough to finally get over "The Hump Of Suckage".  The story was starting to get depressing and I was sure he'd quit. ... Glad you stuck it out, bro! See you in space!

Eve one is unique because of the "sandbox". The most important thing there is the community.

The toughest part of the game is finding your goals. For now, your very first level 4 mission was fun and something new, but in a few months you will see they are easy, repetitive and you can solo them. And sadly in high sec space it is hard to find anything better.

Eve Online is a sandbox game, while CCP decided low sec should be less dangerous than nullsec, things are different, when I was new to the game some explained: nullsec can be safer than both lowsec and high sec. Why? Because concord acts after someone put a hole into your ship, while your friends will act as soon as they spot a neutral in the lands of your alliance. But in a small corp everyone has to be part of the defensive fleet. Even people who prefer industry. When your responsibilities means you have to do someting you don't like it can feel like a secound job.

If my corporation would say: if you help to train new members, willing to work on industry, donate to help others, etc. and are useful to make our systems better and help us this way, I would love that. But when even characters without jump clones should risk everything, and even if they can't focus on eve fully they have to join the defensive fleet... Now that makes me avoid 0.0 space.

If low space suffers from perma gatecamps, it doesn't have good rewards for us, and the risks are the worst even? I wouldn't consider that as an option.

Moving to other corp and leaving friends behind isn't much better.

And in high sec, it is hard to find another goal to keep me going. I see how many players see this, and that many of them retire after 7 months, and I see that even if I came back from retirement (twice) I experienced the motive to retire. And in level 4 missions, if I cannot chat (cannot do something that isn't fully eve related) I would fall asleep.

I see the potential in the game, but I also see the problems.

I wrote some entries to a contest to explain why there is a lack of women in eve:

http://forum.enerla.net/blogs/theelf/169-ladies-eve-blog-banter.html

And if you check that site you would see more eve related posts, articles, etc.

But the conclusion is: Even with good ratings, good reviews, unique features and some happy players eve online has a low player retention rate, which limits its playerbase. And it is good for one kind of players who love 0.0 (or love nullsec piracy) but for others it offers very limited amounts of fun.

A game is fun if you can have fun with many of your friends, who might have different interests. Some of them are casual players, others are carebear industrialists yet others are hardcore PVP fans, and you can find new goals for yourself. When people leave after 7 months, that isn't about complexity, but it is about lack of fun for them and their friends.

It will be interesting to see if the author of this coloumn will be in Eve Online on his 30th week.

For some even the 52nd day is a challenge:

http://forum.enerla.net/content/219-52-days-eve-online.html

Originally posted by kankikk

@ above poster:

 

stop trolling this thread dude, the intention of cosy's post was alrdy clarified, all you seek for is some semi-flame war...fulfill your need for attention somewhere else, thx.

LoL good luck with that one.

Originally posted by Enerla

But the conclusion is: Even with good ratings, good reviews, unique features and some happy players eve online has a low player retention rate, which limits its playerbase. And it is good for one kind of players who love 0.0 (or love nullsec piracy) but for others it offers very limited amounts of fun.

This is the only conclusion ? I hope not because I am neither someone who loves 0.0 or piracy. That's not to say I don't like either but I do not seek either activity as my choice of fun in Eve currently. Thanks for generalizing and lumping me into 1 of 2 groups of people of which I am neither.

A game is fun if you can have fun with many of your friends, who might have different interests. Some of them are casual players, others are carebear industrialists yet others are hardcore PVP fans, and you can find new goals for yourself. When people leave after 7 months, that isn't about complexity, but it is about lack of fun for them and their friends.

And it could never have something to do with game burnout either could it ? Eve may not have the retention rate of other games but what Eve does have is a much more loyal fanbase not so quick to jump ship to the supposed next big game. Just look at WoWs sub numbers when games like Conan and Warhammer launched, a large portion jumped ship only to jump back again when they realized those games sucked just as bad.

It will be interesting to see if the author of this coloumn will be in Eve Online on his 30th week.

He's going to be done with the game I bet, he's already working on his "Surviving WoW" article posted around here somewhere. He's playing these games for his job, not because he wants to play these games. I do think he will atleast walk away from the game with some respect for it which is what this game deserves even if it isn't "your" type of game.

For some even the 52nd day is a challenge:

http://forum.enerla.net/content/219-52-days-eve-online.html

Yay for shameless plugs to poorly written half assed blogs about some poor girl who is clearly a WoW fan being coerced into playing Eve because it is free for her. She couldn't stop whining about the tutorials and how Eve didn't play like WoW, of course she didn't like the game.

God these articles about attracting more females to Eve are just stupid. They shouldn't be entitled "how to attract more females"  they should be "how to attract the superficial instant gratification trendoids". Sure there aren't many females playing Eve  just like there arent that many people in general compared to other games. Eve is a niche market game for a reason and has nothing to do with gender but a mindset. There are girls who play Eve, they just don't advertise it and flaunt it to get guys to give them shit for free like in other games. Eve girls have a little more class and self respect and they will ram an autocannon up your ass and take your loot.

I swear sometimes the people that do not like or get Eve just turn to hating it or trying to change it into something that it isn't. Are these people jealous or something ? Sometimes it certainly seems that way when you see the amount of trolls and uninformed articles written about Eve and how it would be so much better if it had feature X from WoW. These are the same people who will bitch about how crafting in a game like WoW is so pointless but then come over to Eve and bitch about the harsh death penalty but they will never be able to figure out that its the harsh death penalty that makes crafting meaningful. Who cares about name tags on the ship you just built, it's going to get blown up anyways. People seem more content with fluff and cosmetics like mounts and pets rather than an in depth gameworld to explore and feel a part of. Just look at the Age of Conan ad at the top of this page, they can't convince people to play their game because it might actually be changed and good now, they entice people with a new pet because that's what you people want.

Stay away from Eve, we don't want these kinds of people playing. Too many of these types of people may actually give CCP some incentive to kill what they have going in favor of a few bucks. Are you people not happy with having 95% of the video game industry catering to your whimsical wants and needs ? Leave Eve for those of us that want this type of game, we know it's not for you and you hate it, we get it. Now head down to your local crapulant game store or Walmart and pick any game from the big wall of trash games, doesn't matter which game it is they are all the same and will occupy your brain for the same amount of time anyways.

Thanks for reading my mindless opinionated babble, I may be wrong but I doubt it.

good...you can shot and tackle

in eve that means its time for pvp!

havn't read all of these but might I suggest doing a little non-useful research on eve. By that I mean the backstory eve related story's and just some general stuff of interest.

http://www.eveonline.com/background/potw/   - Chronicles good for a short read while ap'ing or mining.

http://www.eveonline.com/background/stories.asp  - Short stories slightly longer (or like ruthless much longer)

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Timeline - If your into this sort of thing, the links to years down the bottom are worth a view (eg. YC 105)

Some videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwY1CgNp1fk  - The day of darkness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXWf-l71MY4    - day of darkness II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3OIcogDi5M - The angel cartel (push eject)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub0YaZoTvfI    -  War has come

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE_5E13GrMw - Tortuga Lacrimosa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v2-lAH1fg8     - Frege (Failure is not an option)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy2PJpmwoYc  - Alliance tournament fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxlpFBqDPRg - Havoc

and one final message http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVmS5uBgaEU

I just tried to get back into playing this game and was so bored.  Just takes too long to develope your character.

Originally posted by drel

I just tried to get back into playing this game and was so bored.  Just takes too long to develope your character.

 

and 25 years to max your char

Originally posted by drel

I just tried to get back into playing this game and was so bored.  Just takes too long to develope your character.

Thats part of the games charm. Leveling up a wow toon to max level in a month then hitting the cealing of the games content would suck.

In eve there is no max level and you are not limmeted to a certain set of gear by some class system. This means my eve toon is always evolving [looking foward to ruling a nice little plannet in highsec or low so i can be a true amarr lord love it if i can export slaves too.

Originally posted by choujiofkono

Cosy

 

How long does it take to train 26 "learning" skills before you can even do anything?!!  I'm guessing weeks!  Holy wasted time and effort batman.  At least you are paying your subscription while you wait, that's a good thing at least. 

You dont have to train any learning skills "before you can even do anything"  Learning skills are just optional and they dont really make much difference in the beggining when skills take a few hours.

And, just in case your not aware: it takes ZERO effort to train skills, you just queue it up and leave it, you dont physically have to do anything,  which means you can get on with doing anything else.

Originally posted by drel

I just tried to get back into playing this game and was so bored.  Just takes too long to develope your character.

lol,  posting this as a comment on an article which answers you directly is a bit dumb!

Incase you missed it:  You dont NEED character progression in order to have just as much fun in Eve as someone who has played for years.

I've got a 5 year old character, but I have more fun playing my noobie, months old alt.

Originally posted by Lordmonkus

Thanks for reading my mindless opinionated babble, I may be wrong but I doubt it.

Yes, you are wrong. Lets see from a simple perspective. You say World of Warcraft and other games lose "soo much" people when you see something new. Yet, they are able to keep millions of fans who still play the game. They might lose up to 20% of players who might get back to the game later when there are a few events that can accelerate it, but they get most of it back. So most of the players who played for more than 1 month stays with the game.

Eve Online is different. In this case you don't even need a new game release to lose more than 80% of players. Who manages to keep more players when something new is released? other games.

Even niche products can have about 20% ratio of female players. Even games that are dedicated to soccer fans, etc. can have such numbers.

Your attacks (see your last few paragraphs) shows how arrogant assholes like you are responsible for low player retention rate, and it is your failure to understand that most players play a game they can play with friends. If Eve Online caters for selfish assholes who says "it is our game everyone else should go away" then a lot will go away and your game will be small, and soon the "influx of new players" to replace old ones will dry up, and your game will die. For a simple fact: majority of gamers who see an eve add will say: "I have already played this one".  DAOC fans learned need for different players the hard way (when casual people, PVE fans, etc. moved to other games, guild fallen appart, PVP food chain seen fewer easy targets, fewer combats, fewer victories and it led to a deciline of playerbase.

Right now, it is likely that more people tried out eve online than most other MMORPGs, yet it doesn't have that many players, and while as amount of new "gamers" increase eve can grow for a bit of time (now) but the supply of new players will dry up for the game sooner or later.

While I try to help newbies, help with many projects often I need to do something else while eve runs, since eve is limited amount of fun and a lot of people I know share this problem, noone said you can't do stuff with friends, can't have fun, can't enjoy the game, I said in high sec past a 7 month barrier the game doesn't provide you more fun.

You say eve has a realistic economy Yeah, right. Without marketing, brands, product development cycles, to say a few things. Without products that try to ba a bit different to compete with each other. That is how you have a "realistic" economy. It also shows that corporations in eve doesn't compete in Research.

Feeding the masses (yes, people who live on stations, etc) is a maarket that doesn't exist in Eve Online.

Most of the income comes from loot from NPCs, bounties, mission rewards and not from actually industries. That is realistic economy and sandboxing for you.

Giving research, high sec "research outpost" a meaning and linking them to 0.0 warfare more (and also supplying the masses a source of income) wouldn't increase sandbox and freedom at all according to you, right?

Making security levels of systems (and rewards from agents) change based on how you "clean up pirates" from a system and making environment react and have dynamic missions enjoyable after 7th month would be "instant gratification".

When even CCP seen learning skill investment in the begining as an issue years ago, considering new player experience by making sure you need to learn a few other skills before learning skills to be able to enjoy the game would surely prevent you from training your titan skills, right?

(Also haad a typo, most of the piracy is in low sec)

Also CSM candidates are worried about risks vs rewards for entering low sec by players and how it hurts their perspectives (thanks to perma gatecamps at entrances to low sec) and their chances to find new goals and advancement...

And you say people experience "burnout" exactly when they reach where most goals in high sec become "unreasonable", regardless of how much time played, but it isn't related to game design but related to psychology.

You are a funny one

Originally posted by HYPERI0N

Originally posted by drel

I just tried to get back into playing this game and was so bored.  Just takes too long to develope your character.

Thats part of the games charm. Leveling up a wow toon to max level in a month then hitting the cealing of the games content would suck.

 

In eve there is no max level and you are not limmeted to a certain set of gear by some class system. This means my eve toon is always evolving [looking foward to ruling a nice little plannet in highsec or low so i can be a true amarr lord love it if i can export slaves too.

 Depends.

It takes 3 days to get past the tutorials and get to level 1 missions, which is intimidating for a few but it is good.

It takes a few days (a week or so) to be able to run level 2 missions, but in the meantime your character will feel improvement in several areas.

It takes a few weeks to be ready for safe level 3 missions in your BC, with proper skills and have enough learning skills and get some implants. It is fun.

It takes a few more weeks to be able to run level 4s...

And even at low end of this spectrum you can join fleets, read up on thigs, do some creative stuff.

But when it takes a few months of repetitive work  to get standing for a jump clone, since with your implants, etc. you don't want to run into a perma gatecamp at entrance to low sec, and see you won't even try level 5 missions... That most high sec complexes aren't rewarding. That high sec mining wouldn't add much to the game... That these tasks are repetive...

That is when you run in the wall. This is the wall where most players "bounce off" and stop playing eve. Because at this time they see a real realy grind for standing to be able to use jump clones, long advancement to be able to enter low sec (thanks to gate camps) and industrialists, etc. already have most skills and the BPOs they love most.

To "demolish" this wall: Industry (including mining) should be able to compete with agent running, ratting, etc. in most systems in terms of rewards and income. The best would be ability to create items similar to faction and officer loot with unique stats based on research that would need materials tha must be mined (cannot be refined from other loot). Rare gems from refining. This would add several long term goals for industrialists, and some development cycle that wouldn't be instant (in fact it would be slow) that lets them to continue... of course for some items mining in low sec or nullsec would be required. (Say rare gems, and rare finds in asteroids would give you new reagents?)

Open "moon harvesting" for more players and companies.

I would add more complex "industry" related missions.  

Dynamic agent missions.

More "risky" and more rewarding complexes everywhere.

Making gatecamps in low sec more and more difficult so let people go low sec space before they are ready to nullsec, and make this as a step (as planned) instead of a wall.

Things wouldn't be any faster, but would feel faster and better.