Destructoid (a gaming website) recently posted a review of the EVE Online: Commissioned officer edition box. The reviewer did a pretty crap job. As is often typical with reviews of EVE reviews he took the trial, got confused, got bored, died, didn't understand what was happening and eventually quit the game leaving a review riddled with factual innacuracies (somehow his shuttle contained all his assets and was blown up mid-warp). As can be expected the 156 comments on the review show a blend of EVE fanbois hating the review, mixed with a few people who actually had a similar experience and went back to WOW.
Now I am not saying that it was a good review. Rather the review and the comments reveal a real problem with the game. As much fun as it is to laugh at EVE's steep learning curve, it is new players that give the game life. If they are bored or frustrated then they will simply quit and move on. Most players start on a free trial anyways so there is no investment lost for them.
The Commissioned Officer Edition is an example of everything that is wrong with the way EVE tries to help new players. The main advantage to it is that it comes with an implant that boosts attributes and learning. However the implant only works for a month. If the implant is destroyed you can petition a GM to get it replaced.
That is right... CCP ships a new player friendly feature that likely requires petitioning a GM to use. What a great way help lower the learning curve.
P.S. Several more great entries in the cheapfleet challenge... but we still need more. See here for details.
Actually, I got into Eve through the Commissioned Officer boxed set. I put in the fancy implant that I had paid for, wandered into the wrong area, and got podded. It almost a week for my petition to be answered, and there was no refund of the lost skill points.
ReplyDeleteI nearly quit over that.
While Eve is a better game than WoW, it's customer service is much, much worse. That's a real turn off.
I, for one, am actually quite happy with the learning curve. I don't want to play an easy game. Chess is a lot more exciting than checkers as it were. The learning curve generally guarantees that the people I meet in game are at least marginally intelligent...or just really stubborn, one of the two. As to EVE's New Player Friendliness on the part of CCP, I was actually sent a convo by a GM on my first day of playing the game. They just wanted to see how I was doing. They asked if I had any questions, which I didn't really since I was still making my way through the tutorials which were generally doing just fine teaching me, and asked if there was anything I was particularly enjoying or not enjoying about the game. I understand that this doesn't happen to everyone, but it really stood out to me as something that showed the people running the game cared about it. I've got to say, since EVE is the only MMO I've ever played past a trial, that the hour long conversation I had with the GM probably secured them a long time paying customer. Come to think of it, I should look them up and send an EVE-mail as thanks.
ReplyDeleteI got into the game because of this review :P
ReplyDelete@Short
ReplyDeleteWhat was it in the review that made you want to play EVE?
@Taurean,
That is such fail on CCPs part (the screwing over a new player who paid extra $$). I guess this gives me hope for micros-transactions though... thanks for paying $100 for a new +7 implant... now start petitioning a GM to get it.
@FNG
This goes to show how a valuable a good first impression is. You had a good one and continue to play and add to the game. Others get a terrible impression, and quit .. EVE looses .. WOW gains.