Space Janitor, vacuum service

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , 2 Comments

A while ago “This is EvE” launched, bringing about an influx of new players to Tranquility. One of these new players was my sister’s boyfriend. He knew I played EvE, saw the trailer, asked me for a referral and made his account.

I told him to do the tutorials and ask me if he had any problems, despite me not knowing much, I still know enough to help out a “newbro”.
After the tutorials he told me that he was enjoying the fact that he could mine and play other games at the same time. I had created.. A miner.

But a miner with a backstory. While talking to him he told me that it was quite fun, he was going out in space, looking for rocks to clean, like a janitor, cleaning up space for others to enjoy.

As many new players he had no idea what the difference was between null/low and high security space, so he just set out there, finding rocks and noticing that some people would pay more for the rocks he cleaned in 0.3 than those in 0.7.

So fitting up a venture he went out there and of course, got blown up, but that did not stop him no, he went out there again, and again. Wanting, needing those precious rocks, for his job was to make sure that other pilots could fly about, not having to worry about these things.

I applaud him for doing something I haven’t done in ages. That’s the way of the newbie. You just don’t know any better and go out there.

I gave him a few dozen ventures and a tanked retriever that he could work up to. If he enjoyed mining, why would I stop him from doing that, I had all those things in my hangar and wouldn’t miss them anyway.

We need miners and most people who play the game try out different things too, so I gave him a few exploring vessels as well in case he felt like making more ISK.

Although I did warn him that I myself know absolutely nothing about relic/data sites, he’ll figure it out eventually.

But right now, he’s a miner and enjoys it, I actually enjoy hearing him tell his own space adventures, despite them being about mining “The adventures of a space janitor” are entertaining. Especially when talking about all the millions of ISK he made. I can’t recall the last time I was happy with a “mere” ten million.

I wish I could go back to those days though.. They were a lot of fun too.

This gives me more ideas

A newbie’s experience

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Please note; I have tried to make this blog somewhat comprehensive but when rereading it  I noticed that it seems like I go from one point to the next without finishing the previous. Let’s just blame this on me being sick and my medication, shall we? Good

The past week I’ve seen a lot of people try out EvE again. Friends of mine, people on forums I’m a member of.

And most of them have absolutely no idea what’s going on. It made me wonder, is this because of the fact that the tutorials aren’t that good. Or is it because in this day and age, people don’t actually read the instructions anymore.
“Do I have to?”

The last time I’ve done the tutorials was over a year ago, I made a new character and decided to kill some time doing them. I can’t remember them being too hard to understand. But are they actually good enough to let someone understand what EvE is all about. Because in the end, the only thing that they do, is show you how to manufacture, how to start a mission and how to mine.

They’re great because you get a bunch of skills and starter ships for your adventure, but then you just get cast into the deep end, with no lifejacket and a basic idea of how swimming is supposed to work.
Which is why about 2 out of 3 people (might be more, this is just a random number I am making up so don’t use this against me) stop playing once they did the tutorials.

Good thing there are people out there that enjoy helping others out, showing them the way and answering questions. When someone asks me something about industry or whatever I do in the game, I try to answer the question in a comprehensible way. I fail from time to time but I’ve had people tell me that they understand the game better because of what I’m telling them. (Do not that I never state that what I tell them is actually the correct thing, I am in fact, a noob)

“Oh, pretty lights”

It’s a shame though that so many stop playing because they don’t know what to do. Or because they’re waiting for that certain skill to finish training so that they can go out and have fun. Which is mostly the point where I tell them that they can have an equal amount of fun in a frigate as in a battleship. More so in fact due to the frigate being a lot quicker.

The problem for our newbros is the fact that they have no idea what they can do. I explain them what I do in the game and tell them that I can help them if they want to go that certain route. But there are so many options to go to, that it can be a bit too much.

Places like E-Uni are nice, but what happens when a newbie doesn’t want to be part of such a big corporation, what happens when he wants to do null but has no idea what the consequences of these things are?

I remember starting EvE without a clue what I could do, I was training everything, because the tutorials never did explain to me that sooner or later, I will regret spending time in training a skill that I will not use.
Makes you wonder though, how can you make sure, that people don’t stop playing. You help them, but where is the line for helping them. You don’t want this to be too easy a game, but you still want more people joining you in your game.

So tell me; how do you do it?