Wednesday 4 June 2014

Wormholes and 'New bros'

I havn't posted for a while, so I'll make up for it with a wall of text exploring my thoughts on new players and wormholes. Also I hate the term 'Newbros', but it made a nice title.

TL;DR I am a new(er) player, I wish there were more new(er) players in W-space. Why don't you see more new guy corps in lower class wormholes??

Despite the whole 'Eve is dying' attitude on the forums and in space there are a lot of newer players entering and exploring New Eden, and some of them find an interest in wormholes.  I like wormholes - always have done. I like the idea behind them, the mechanics and the community. And so do a fair amount of newer players I have spoken too, sometimes however wormholes (and the people that live in them) become very intimidating.  

Before I go on I want to make three points - hopefully which will become clearer as this post develops.

  1. Eve is a multi-player game
  2. The 'progression' built into eve is rarely used 'properly'
  3. Eve is a multi-player game

I first jumped into wormholes to live and play with just over 3million SP and now having 14mil SP I am part of a C5 PvP alliance. Luckily for me I have been supported by fantastic and very experienced players. I, and many others like me are living proof that you don't need 50mil SP and a carrier alt to thrive and have a blast in w-space, sure life would be easier with those things but I am supported buy a great group of people - which brings be very nicely to point 1; Eve is multi-player.

Wormhole (J) space is hostile, very hostile, in fact I've never entered a more hostile feeling place in any game I've ever played (although there were some pretty brutal levels in Spyro the Dragon). For this reason new players need help and lots of it, Eve has a steep learning curve and wormholes have a learning overhang - but properly supported anybody can succeed.  

Stating the obvious here, but there are 6 classes of w-space, C1 - C6. I often only see PI alts in c1 - c2, and hear remarks such as 'c1 - c2 just ain't worth the time' etc., which brings me to point 2. There are wormholes where groups of supported new players could live, grow and learn in an environment that can allow them to PvE to support losses. Of course at this level you are not going to earn a fortune, but if you if you see wormholes as a place to enable to you swim in isk, in my opinion you are doing it wrong. If you catch these enthusiastic newbies early, you can help shape their SP and get them into more enjoyable stuff faster, both enhancing their eve experience, your eve experience and adding a new pilot to pewpew with/against into the wormhole community.

Of course there is a minumum level of SP to fly in wormholes - but you don't have to always assume that is a c5/6 hole with a leet PvP corp. I see a depressing amount of new players that jump to that conclusion and give up on wormhole dreams and end up in highsec, or worse as nulbears

The problem with this c1 - c2 'cresh' for learner corps are more often that not the big boys. I have semi contemplated starting up a beginner friendly wormhole PvP (PvE funded) corp that can act as a starting ground for those interested. Given the small community that live in wormholes it would be fairly easy to spread the word about this with the big corps and attempt to get them to down ship a bit to take us on. Because if 1 thing puts newer players off wormholes it's getting destroyed by 50 t3s. (Disclaimer: I know eve Uni have a wormhole campus, but in my experience they keep themselves to themselves in the wormhole scene.). 

I'll finish with point 3) Eve is a multiplayer game, if the wormhole community want to bring new players in we need to accept they need help and new players need to be aware they can get help - I would have biomassed my beautiful dreadlocks long ago if it wasn't for a few players that have helped me learn to survive and have fun in wormholes.

I am open to opinions on this post - but I feel that new players bring a level of passion, excitement and enthusiasm into a corp that can snap bittervets out of their 'eve is dying' attitude and maybe even provoke them into having a little fun.

Please discuss, 

TJ

P.S My opinion on the whole 'Eve is dying' thing is: Eve is not dying, it's stagnating due to a large portion of the community ignoring newer players.


2 comments:

  1. From the other side of the table, we wormhole corporations are doing everything we can to recruit anyone, even newbies, that appear to have potential. Just look at the interest you yourself received when you publicly declared that you were looking for a corp.

    I think the problem is connecting serious applicants to serious corps. Many newer players might self-censor, believing that we would only be interested in supervets, so they don't even express interest. On the other hand, we the high end wormholers have no clue how to reach valuable newbies. (At least without filling our corps with thieves and golddiggers in the process.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it. I agree with your points entirely. There are the right people in both camps and as you say the problem lies in connecting. I just feel the community is very much weighted towards the c5/c6 end of things. I know I am in a c5 corp now and I enjoy it immensely but I only got here because I met people that took the time to teach me where to put my SP and how to operate in w-space in lower class wspace. I learnt that it's all about making your own content.

      I feel c1 - c3 space is underused for lower sp players. I think people see them as level 1 - 3 missions (pretty useless). It'd just be great to see more new guy corps and alliances in lower class w-space. I'm sure they exist (I was in one!) but they seem to keep very quiet.

      I'm fairly tired so I can only apologise if my reply makes little sense!

      Delete