Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Mining Veld in a Bantam, and Loving It…

~or “Tur Goes Full Retread…”


Actually I’m jet can mining Golden Omber inna Reaper but you get the idea…  =]

I have been out of game for some 6 months now due to some RL>EVE. Part of that is financial and as I do not ever want to play the game in order to grind PLEX so I can play for free(ish) I have always been one of those who pays my way via CC. And I have never begrudged CCP their $13 US as I have always felt I get my money’s worth. But I have not been able to justify the cost recently due to the aforesaid RL>EVE stuff, so I have been sorely missing out on the latest goings on…

So, a few nights ago, I decided to cheat just a little, and I started a 14 day trial for TurAmarth’s younger brother, TurAdan, so I could fly again and see some of the changes that have come down the pipe, if only for a little while… And lo and behold I suck at EVE!

It has been, interesting, to say the least. You see when I was a noob the first time my sons threw me 10m ISK and told me to go do the tutorials and not darken their dock ‘til I was done. This time though, while they are still here (and so is TurAmarth for that matter except of course I can’t access him or his fat ol wallet) I have not asked them for one red iskie and I wouldn’t take it if offered… You see I am curious what it’s like to try and make it on my own… you know, like regular noobs do without a grubstake or friends inagame, you know, really go it alone for once.

Now of course I am not a real noob, meaning that while I may not have skills or ISK I still do have 4 years of experience in EVE and of course that gives me an edge on how to play the game and what to expect etc. and it also gives me a very different perspective from someone to whom it is all really new. However, experience only goes so far when yer broke and can’t afford skill books you need so you can skill up to the mods you need but can’t afford so you can fly a better ship... that you still can’t afford… sheesh this game SUCKS.

I did do the first few tutorials… and they still suck. I swear I wish I could think of a better way to teach our noobs… cause it is simply not engaging… gotta work on that one. Anyhoo, I finally decided to grind up some ISK for books n shit and… my second mission… some Quafe Recipe got stolen and they wanted it back badly… and I swear it feels like it's a burner mission… I just keep Leroyin in and dyin inna fire…

Actually I am NOT Leroying… I swear… I have 2x 200mm AC 1s loaded w/ Phased Plasma and a Small Shield Booster 1… I am managing range and transversal and cycling the Booster to manage CAP… all to no avail. This idiot NPC with the damn formula is surrounded by like 8 or 10 frigs and the combined DPS is simply too effin much for a rookie frig flown by a toon with 2 days of skilling.

It’s really irritating… and it is also something I did not expect… it is damn FUN! LOL It really is! I am challenged and I have to WORK for everything! It’s not like my first time round… but it is really really fun none the less. So I decided to get a better ship, and a Burst is only like 200k ISK and the Meta 1 mods are cheap in Rens… so I went MINING… LOL, mining… sheesh. So I went to a 0.5 system and mined up enough Gold Omber to buy the thing and then… guess what… Yup, I lost it too and to the same damn NPC frigs.

After that I quit that mission and now I am playing tag with the rats in Osoggur while I jet can Gold Omber inna Reaper… LOL.  I will have enough to get another Burst later tonight and then I will try some new missions… or mebbe keep mining until I have enough for a replacement Burst in the hangar… we’ll see. 


Fly Wreckless and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

5 comments:

  1. The free rookie ship you get for free should be capable of completing the missions required to get a better ship for free. You also get some free guns. Not sure which of the tutorials hands out the first free ships/guns/ammo though.

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    1. (warning wall-o-text response...)

      Raziel, what you say it true enough… except I was not running a ‘tutorial’ mission, which are designed for noobs with beginner skills and for those ‘free’ noob ships with those ‘free’ civilian meta modules… But I had left the toots and moved on to a L1 agent a few jumps from the starter system. This was a std mission and it was designed for players who have completed the toots and moved up at least a little bit in skills and ships etc. which I haven’t.

      The point of this is that there are many noobs who come to EVE as themeparkers… and they expect a themepark style tutorial, you know, a short and sorta fun ‘How To Move & Shoot’ followed by an immediate and quick progression into the game itself. Such a themeparker coming to EVE from WoW, Planetside 2, Titanfall and other similar games will expect the basics of how to ‘Move & Shoot’ to be similar to almost every other game he has played… “WASD moves, LEFT Mouse Button shoots primary weapon, RIGHT Mouse Button switches to 1st person sights, LEFT SHIFT makes you run, LEFT CTRL make you crouch, etc., etc.” and the rest you can pick up as you play...

      And you and I know EVE is not like that, not one little bit. WASD only works in the CQ and then it is worthless… and moving a ship and shooting? Those really different from other MMOs… EVE’s “drop down and select menus” with no common or standard 1st or 3rd person flight controls and the sheer depth and breadth of all that has to be learned and skilled up in gives EVE the prize for the steepest Learning Curve in all MMOdom… the world famous Learning Cliff. The tutorials in EVE are text dense, time consuming and TBH, not really fun and at the end, as we all know, there is no easy hand-holding guide to lead you quickly into the game and tell you what to do next…

      During my one day in the tutorials (an approx 5 hour session), I saw at least 4 or 5 noobs ask how to “turn off Aura”. These weren’t vets making new chars, they wouldn’t have to ask that in Rookie Help, and they weren’t noobs who were done with the toots as Aura gracefully exits on her own at the end of those... no, these were real new players, a day to a few days old, who were bored with the grind that is the tutorials in EVE.

      (to be continued... I warned ya...)

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    2. I wonder what percentage (20%, 40%, 50%?) of new players drop out of the toots early for the above reasons and try and get into the game the same way you do basically every other MMO out there, the same way you do inna Themepark MMO… and find out that that approach is pure death in EVE… real death… unsub death.

      So I though, let’s see what that is like… so I dropped outta the toots after I had the basics of “Move & Shoot” and needless to say, it is not working out… the noob ships with 2 day old skills and fits based on your entry ISK and 1 day of tutorial missions is simply not enough to bull your way through some std L1 missions. And I am a 4 year veteran who knows how to manually fly, how to fly tactically managing and using range, speed, transversal and managing CAP and shields, etc. all stuff that is NOT taught in the toots… and I cannot complete a particular std mission with a std Rookie frig and fit. Understand this was after I completed a number of std. L1 missions before I took this one on, but the number of rats and their combined DPS is simply too much for the skills, ship & fit available to me, an experienced player, on a 2 or 3 day old toon.

      Of course, this includes the fact that I (and any noob who drops out of the toots early due to Grinding Boredom) am missing out on the skills, mods, ships, ISK and skilling/learning TIME one invests if you hang in there and complete ALL the tutorials… but that was the point of this exercise… to see what it was like to try and make it in EVE as a drop-out… and it sucks. If I was a real noob, I can see how I might get frustrated and fed up and unsub like CCP Rise's 50% do and go play to some other easier, and hence more fun, game.

      But I’m not a real noob and as such I am having some real fun once again struggling against insurmountable odds and fighting to make my way in our unique and wonderful yet harsh and hard ‘verse… =]

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  2. Hmm yes doing real level 1 missions in a rookie ship without skills might be as easy as trying to complete burner missions with a t1 frigate.

    When I made a new alt/character I'd either send it isk or I would do the tutorial missions (standings, skillsbooks, some free ships and modules). But that's because I can't think of much more to do at the start as mine ore/run missions while you train skills. No idea how to solve the problem without throwing isk/sp at it.

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    1. Yep... it is. And that was what I wanted to find out... why are we losing 40 to 50% of our potential players in the first month or 2... and this, dropping out of the tutorials and trying to make it in EVE as a REAL noob is what I wanted to test... cause I personally think that is a lot of what is happening.

      Theme park players have certain expectations from years of similar game play... and EVE does not have those similarities so when they jump in the deep end... all they do is drown.

      I'm concerned about the real 'new' players who CAN'T throw ISK at the problem... Hell until now I didn't really realize just how good I had it back then with that little (little to me NOW) 10 million ISK my son's gave me as a grubstake... I bought a ton of books I could NOT afford on a noobs meager makings... and let them skill up as I toiled through the tutorial grind (again something I was strongly advised to do and probably wouldn't have done on my own...) that allowed me to get to a point where my skills AND experience got me through Sister Alitura's Epic Arc and out into the big bad world of EVE... that and KNOWING I had friends, real friends I could count on... without that, hell I might not be here today... so what's a REAL noob to do huh?

      As you said... No idea how to solve the problem without throwing isk/sp at it... but we NEED an idea... and badly.

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