Well, to start with i would have a single player training mode (much like MAG) that runs down how to hack, drive, shoot basic small arms, through 'nades, etc. And them once they finish that they could play the academy game mode that you have in place now. I'm running short on time, more ideas to come.

Liking the suggestions, the only thing I'd like is that they be voiced by Aura (Eve Online's AI)

Also a fittings tutorial video that is in depth, where it covers the Lore behind each race's characteristics, saying Caldari(shield and Railgun/Missile) orientated because, a new player isn't going to know that,

I would like to remind our current battle AI is NOT Aura as confirmed by CCP Eterne.

Not getting heavily involved here but I will say the difference between sticking to a game and just "testing waters" whether it is an mmo or anything, is community and friends. I've made friends in games that made me play them long past when I would otherwise. I've been playing this game now for months, where normally shooters and pvp multiplayer games I normally last a month maybe, and thats if I have RL friends playing it. While I enjoy Dust, what is keeping me around isn't the gameplay but sense of community. The people I talk, discuss, argue with.

You're putting these new guys in default corporations, just need to make more use of the fact.

idk, bring NPC corp members more into FW (yeah their mercs but what are Gallante Corps selling talent to Caldari forces?), auto squading option. Make new players part of a whole without having local chat to deal with and seeing them adrift.

Refined the wording on the op a bit. What I really want from you guys is total freedom and creativity on the subject of improving New Player Experince.

Today's Scenario:

Let us pretend you are the guy in charge in designing the entire new player experience. You have a team able to make new features and major changes to the game. Your job today is to draft a plan on improving, designing, goal setting, or storyboarding the entire experience. Use whatever means possible for in the game even if it means starting from the ground up.

Remember you are trying improve a section of the game for a player who doesn't know anything about Dust 514 and introduce the player to the ins and out of this game without having to leave the boundaries of the game so that players should not have to go to a wiki website to learn how to play or download Dust 514's users manual.

This thread is being watched so be thoughtful on your replies.

If I was to make the New Player Experience? Oh God......

1> I would replace the ******** opening Message from that random Admiral Dude with a Serious Tutorial. Things like a Simulation where this Admiral Explains things like...
A] The Different types of Frames and their Specializations. Let new pLAyers have a bit of fun with these letting them Decide which frame they want to Spec Into
B] The Different Weapon Types. Teaches people that there are weapons besides the GAR (Gallente Assault Rifle), and fun little Niche Guns like the Plasma Launcher (R00K3T N00B!) and the Sniper Rifle. Broaden the New Player Horizons.
C] The Usage Of Equipment. Teach People that they can Use Equipment on Almost every Frame, and what each Equipment DOES
D] Vehicle Usage. How Physics Work with the various Types of Vehicles, and the Overall Toughness of the Vehicle types

2>Certificate System. Give a good reason to Learn to Do things beyond Kill things. More Info On what could be included in this System Here

3>Improved Matchmaking. Based a System of Steps for Matching Players in Insta-Battle. Things Like 500,000-750,000 SP and 750,001-1,000,000 SP and 1,000,001- 1,250,000 SP and 1,250,000-1,500,001 and so on and so forth.

I Believe this will Simplify the New Player Experience, however, it can be Supplemented with an Improved Version With the Tutorial we have Now.

Me-Co Out

Part 1: In the lab.

You awaken sitting on a metal bench, camera in first person. The floor beneath you is white, nondescript tiles. You can only see for a couple of meters before a dense black fog obstructs your vision. Your controller is locked, forcing you to look straight ahead at the doctor in front of you. You struggle a little but will soon discover that you have a large metal contraption bolted to your skull and held in place by cables suspended from the ceiling, so the struggling is limited by this.

You have no HUD as you are not yet in a dropsuit.

(These environmental limitations allow a single tutorial to be created for all races. The model used for the doctor can change based on race selection.)

Doctor: "Don't try to move. You've just undergone a major surgery. Do you remember your name?"

The doctor taps out notes on his mad futuristic medical notebook as the PS3 keyboard pops up on screen for the character's name to be selected. Once this has been done, the doctor continues.

Doctor: "Good. Alright. I'm Doctor [racially variable last name]. It takes seventy-two hours, for all cognitive, memory and motor functions to be mapped and routed through the neuro-interface socket implanted in your head. Don't. Move."

The final line delivered tensely as you bring your hands into your field of view and to your head.

Doctor: "A temporary solution until the procedure is complete. Try and relax..."

You sit there for about ten seconds watching him go about his sciencey business until an alert buzzes out of the machinery overhead, then a hiss as the cables and hoses attached to your skull drop to the ground, having been released from the ceiling. You wobble for a minute, threatening to lose balance before looking back at the doctor.

Aiming controls are unlocked. You can now look around freely.

Doctor: "Alright, we're done in here. Do me a favour and watch me walk around the room."

The doctor paces back and forth and the player has to follow with their view. This could be used to automatically decide whether to invert these controls.

Doctor: "Everything seems normal."

A nurse enters and the doctor and nurse lift you down off the bench into a wheelchair, which the nurse pushes out of the room and down a hallway. Eventually the hallway ends and you are carted into a room, placed on a bed and left to fade to black.

An indeterminate amount of time later, you awaken and look at the bed side table. There's a grenade, pin intact.
You lift the grenade and beneath it is a handwritten note which you lift to read. It reads "KILL YOURSELF."

Aiming controls remain unlocked and you are free to look around the room but unable to move. Your little room has no windows, the door is as good as a wall and the wheelchair is gone. It's just you, a bed, a table and a note.

Oh, and the grenade. A prompt comes up onscreen. "Hold L2 to cook a grenade."

Whether you cook it or throw it, the grenade exploding in your room kills you.

--3.THE MILITIA OFFICE--
a. After your character is created you should be ported to a militia office. This would be a governmental recruitment center that your character would first appear in.

(my thinking here is since it is your character's first time doing anything, that before you are allowed to be cloned repetetively and be shipped off anywhere you get educated here at the Terminal.)

b. The point of the office is mostly for role play immersion efforts, but from here there could be learning terminals/videos/ exercises, and a port to the academy. Other applications of the Faction Merc terminal could be implemented as well.

c. After you do what you want to do there you are finally issued your first batch of equipment that you own, given access to your portable merc quarters, and given cloning rights and resources.

(I feel a character, story immersion part is needed between character creation and ending up in the merc quarters, and that's the point of the militia office. Plus it has much unsaid potential for expansion I think. Also, the terminal part could be optional I suppose, but you would be issued better/more stuff if you go through it by your parent faction)

There cannot be a huge difference in suits, from militia all the way to prototype.

Armor/shielding needs to be much lower.

Weapons need more recoil.

Fully auto weapons should have fewer total rounds, including in the magazine.

Weapons should have similar attributes and drawbacks as in other FPS games.

These above ideas would help new players accustom to other games an easier time while not allowing players with a lot higher SP the ability to completely dominate much lesser SP having new players.


The following are just tossed in ideas others have surely mentioned.

There should be an actual attacker and defender position such as in skirmish 1.0 along with the current game mode of skirmish. That makes two game modes.

There should be more involvement between EVE and Dust. There should be a PVP free roam location for this. This would give opportunity for dust mercs to perform other tasks such as mining or running missions such as espionage while possibly competing with another corp, local wildlife, or humanoids. Red Dead Redemption had a free roam mode for such type of missions but with the addition of allowing corps see who is in which free roam for sabotaging their goals.

Education of new players is lacking right now. I have seen people confuse starter fits for static FPS classes, and not know that they could even edit them or create new ones. I have seen players generally clueless about how the market everything works. New players need to informed so that they can have a good experience in Dust, and hopefully stay and contribute to the game's growth and success.

If you are a new player, I recommend going to the help tab on the Neocom, go to tutorials, and do them all. You were asked to do the Neocom tutorial when you started Dust, but not the others. They're really short, and you might learn something valuable.


[Out of battle education]: Neocom, skills, market, fittings, & more

The "Way of the merc" video that shows up after character creation explaining various aspects of Dust 514 should not be skippable (Ten-Sidhe's idea). It contains important information that players will need to know.

ALL tutorials must be mandatory. If you already done it with one of your characters on your account, you should not have to do it with other characters on your account.

Text tutorials are terrible boring walls of texts, get rid of them. Only keep the voice guided ones.

Do not make players have to first go access different menus for the respective tutorials to activate, because players may never check those menus themselves without being first introduced to them by the tutorial.

If the tutorials are not mandatory, then an audio message must tell the new player that they will get an item or ISK reward to complete the tutorials (Ten-Sidhe's idea). This would motivate players to learn.

Since you guys still refuse to have voice chat set ON by default, then at least have a tutorial on tweaking settings that cover voice chat settings, push-to-talk settings, screen scale settings, brightness settings, and controls settings.

The uses, strengths, and weaknesses of various dropsuit, vehicles, and equipment types.

Explain the different tiers of items, and the higher skill point requirement as well as financial risk that comes with higher tier items.

[In battle education]: pew pew pew & other important things
There needs to be a gameplay tutorial simulation with some AI enemies, and AI teammates. The AI doesn't have to be smart, just move, follow squad orders (attack/defend/capture/rally), and shoot. The simulation must do the following things.

Basic movement and shooting.

Switching to secondary by tapping R2 instead of holding R2 to bring up the item wheel (like many seem to do, tapping is faster).

Switching to, and using equipment like nanite injectors and nanohives.

Checking the enemy's dropsuit tier by aiming down sights on the enemy to see the tags (MLT, STD, ADV, PRO).

Checking the efficiency percentage of their guns at different ranges, and on different targets.

Calling down vehicles.

Setting squad objectives from the map.

Setting squad objectives with the command wheel (R2+R3, select, aim, R1).

Hacking objectives.

Climbing ladders.

Calling down precision strikes.

Whatever else I'm forgetting.

Thank you for reading.

I think you're off-topic. The OP wants to hear ideas for easing new players into the game.


PS: I will be adding my suggestion to this post soon.

It's worth making the point that the biggest hurdle new players face seems to be that they just don't get that playing in a squad is pretty much mandatory right from the start if you don't want to get stomped.

Learning what buttons to press and how to build up a suit are certainly necessary. But when the new player blasts around a corner chasing a squirrel and gets triple teamed by an organized squad he has to feel disheartened.

It would be a huge challenge to introduce squad values and mechanics in a PVE training environment but if it could be brought off it would be a huge win.

Think of a cross between the weapons range and a series of basic manoeuvres -- attack and take a null cannon, defend a CRU, each "mission" would allow the player to try out different fits and different roles. The NPCs on the player's squad would fill in the other roles. The opposing NPCs would have different challenge levels the player's could choose.

This is getting pretty close to a single player game -- but if it didn't allow the player to gain SP or ISK and was limited to basic versions of all the weapons I don't think it would keep players from moving on to the full game. Especially if it constantly reinforced linking up with player corporations.

Getting back to my earlier post (#66), instead of bronze/silver/gold you could use highsec / lowsec / nullsec tiers just like in EVE =)

But the point is, to tier the match difficulty in some rough (but effective) fashion so that new players aren't getting lolstomped after 1,000 WP. There's no way to separate skilled FPS players from the unskilled, but it is possible to grade the difficulty indirectly via SP capping, and slowly bring the noobs up to the full-on PC corp PvP at the top tier, perhaps at 10 million+ SP.

to be honest gear isn't the issue, because have any vet roll a new character and even in milita gear the will stomp actual new players. and the guys who just want to stomp newbies, will do just that.

You are automatically squaded up and voice activated.

practically every weapon, and game mechanic is broken and you wanna focus on a "new player experience" ?

How bout lets adress the real issues in an honest manner? Iron wolf guy, I dont see you over on the MD thread.. or any other thread that matters.. IMHO

Maybe nobody is talking about the Mass Driver because CCP has already went on record countless times saying they know what the issue is and are currently fixing it?

wrong they are on record saying " we nerfed it because of an office party" where someone got his pride stepped on... so we nerfed it and wont rebalance it..

I dont see this as acceptable

One Dev post search for "Mass Driver" makes you look like an idiot. Read and leave this thread alone.

My God. How much space have I got to write this down!!

At work at the moment but when I get home and have the time expect an essay.

Said it before, I'll say it again. Leveled battles and a stat named something like "combat experience" (or it could just be based off SP/WP). Like security missions in EVE, when you start you are able to join level 1 battles. These battles pay like 10-20K ISK. Do those for 2-4 hours and you'll have enough combat experience (or war points or whatever) to join level 2 battles. Here's where people start using a little better gear, and the payouts are like 100-200K ISK. After a while of that, you've got the requirements for level 3 battles. These are where advanced gear starts to come in, and you can make 300-600K ISK per battle. Level 4's start to see proto gear, and you can make around 1-2M ISK in a battle. Level 5's, you'd better have all proto gear and some max skills, because everybody else will too. You're going to make 5-10 million a battle.

practically every weapon, and game mechanic is broken and you wanna focus on a "new player experience" ?

How bout lets adress the real issues in an honest manner? Iron wolf guy, I dont see you over on the MD thread.. or any other thread that matters.. IMHO

Sir, may I sharply remind you that the teams involved in fixing things and balance are separate from the team you have been given in this scenario. Your team works independently and are experts at creating and adjusting new systems. Not bug fixing, not weapon balancing, not vehicle balancing; other teams will be responsible for those tasks, your team's focus is to improve NPE.

I also read through dozens of threads on features and ideas, I don't typically always reply to them because majority of them are 'dead horse' topics. Topics that have which, exhausted all complaints, concerns, and almost all solutions and are painfully made aware by CCP. The purpose of this entire thread is to focus on a feature and stir something new up.

Also a quick search would reveal I have already commented on the mass driver, laser rifle, state of vehicles and few other choice topics and urge some level of patience, understanding, and less vitriol in your breakfast.

and what team are you on? Seems to be some missing team members

The one that may or may not take you seriously. Based on your latest comments; the latter.

ya well I see that you are trying to be constructive and change the topic etc.. fine

But maybe you need to beat a dead horse once in a while, because if you don't nobody with a cute 'dev tag' will.. and its either that or you continue wasting your time typing pages of nonsense that wont matter because nobody is playing the game anymore..

And ya the only reason im here is to make that point, now ill leave your thread alone..

Those 'nobodies' with the dev tag dead horsed the subject for us most of the time no need to re-dead the horse again for them if they're already aware and already working on a fix or the latter the fix is waiting on code deployment. My goal in FnI is to find the the one horse that is still alive to beat to death, which is far harder than you think at times.

I suggested this a long time ago in an old thread of mine:

A new 'casual' game mode where no squads can enter a battle. This will ensure that battles consist of random players and this will be very similar to the academy. One of the reasons that new players get slaughtered out of the academy is because they are now put up against experienced squads that work together.

wow this is the guy who is supposed to be supporting and liason between CCP and community? If you disagree with him or make him look like the fool that he is.. He will delete your post somehow.. then he will edit what he originally said.. You sir ar a tool, and nobody in this community thinks you are doing anything useful..

Keep on deleting stuff .. FTW

Yep - no squads, no HAVs, just basic learn the game stuff. But no (or limited) rewards though.

Then a gradual progression up to what we have today with general instant battles, FW and PC.

If you want smaller rewards to discourage the more experienced players, then I think new players should receive a bonus to rewards to make it equal to what experienced players get. Also give them a higher reward for battling in such competitive games outside of this new mode.

Something like a 1.5x multiplier to SP and ISK rewards until they reach a certain amount of SP.

No need. No one is forced to stay in the higher sec regions; if you want greater rewards, move to lower sec battles. Fights get tougher, but you get more ISK & SP. CCP monitor and tune the rewards to try and keep each of the hisec levels reasonably populated.

You shouldn't get more stuff for being new. You should get more stuff for being better. Just let people get better at their own pace, and let them have good fights throughout.

This is part 2 of my suggestion.

Here's part 1 in post #87: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=84956&p=5

Some time passes by and the player ends up in a boot camp of their chosen faction. Along with other recruits, the player is taught by a drill sergeant in a training area. The tutorial will be split into these categories:

Movement
In this tutorial, the player learns how to sprint, crouch, jump, and hurdle (if it's a future feature) in an obstacle course. After completing the course, the option to change controller/mouse and keyboard/Playstation Move Sharpshooter settings appears.

Shooting
In a shooting range, the shooting mechanics are explained and different weapons can be swapped out to try out other shooting methods and learn what is effective against shields and armor. How to use grenades will be taught here as well.

Vehicles
In an open area, the player learns how to control vehicles, how to call and recall them, and can change their vehicle settings at the end.

Miscellaneous
Squad orders, installations, hacking, melee, HUD, and orbital strikes are explained. The player is also killed on purpose to learn about the respawn screen.

After boot camp, the player is sent to their quarters. They recieve an e-mail welcoming them and suggests to start a tutorial to learn about the Neocom and chat functions. To guide the player, there will be arrows and voice recordings.

Battle
Explains the games modes and battle types in the Battle Finder, the starmap, and planetary conquest

Character
Explains the character sheet, how to skill points while suggesting what skill books to start with, the wallet, and augmentations

Fittings
Teaches how to modify fittings and gives starter fits of different roles to help decide what path to take.

Market
Shows what can be bought and explains that these items will be lost when killed in battle.

Social
Explains how to send and receive mail; how to use, create, and join chat channels; and how to create and join squads

Corporation
Explains what corporations are; how to to create, join leave them; and corporation roles

System Operation
Briefly explains that settings can be changed here

Help
Briefly explains that the tutorial is available here and can replay it at any time

*New* - Encyclopedia
Has more information about New Eden history, factions, items, etc. Similar to Mass Effect's Codex

After the player is done with the tutorial and graduates from Instant Battle Academy, he/she is free to leave a mark on New Eden.

I've seen your first post. Very Half-lifey or Dead Spacey. I kinda like anything that helps the player feel like a part of the game.
But what i like most is your suggestions about on the ground bootcamp. I made a long case last week regarding how critical this part is. Dust is different from many FPS regarding the gameplay. Ranges, efficiency vs shield armor, calling vehicle, orbital strikes, uplinks etc..

Everything needs to be explained. Not through pages of text but through actual gameplay. Every FPS out there has its own bootcamp. Even MAG, who had a very ****** NPE had a small (useless) bootcamp. Dust needs one even more. And PVE would be the PERFECT ground to set all those NPE trainings.

Overall, i'm liking everything i see in this thread. Makes obvious the fact that NPE is key to this game survival.

I'm not going to go as in depth as some of these people here, I just wanted to make a quick suggestion (which I know has been suggested before, but it's worth reiterating.

CCP: Hopefully at this point you realize that the transition from Academy to regular matches can be quite rough on new players. I've seen some disheartening posts from new players, where it sounds like thanks to the Academy they were having a lot of fun and getting a hang of the game, and then they got tossed in matches with full squads in proto gear and became frustrated.

I suggest that you smooth the transition by adding a couple more categories, like from 10,000 - 30,000 WP you go the 'Training Facility', and then from 30,000 to 60,000 WP you go to the 'Proving Grounds'. With a system like this, player will 'grow up' gradually with other players of a similar experience level before they get put into battles with closed beta veterans and the like. Maybe you could make it so they can choose their game mode in these areas, so they start getting used to the game.

And I have another suggestion, which you should take whether or not you choose to implement a system like I proposed: You should really notify players that a) they are in the Academy in the first place, and b) notify them when they have graduated from the Academy.

The reason why you would use a text tutorial is for cheaper and quicker globalization. As spoken tutorials do require revoice acting everyone

The reason why you would use a text tutorial is for cheaper and quicker globalization. As spoken tutorials do require revoice acting everyone

God, I'm glad. Absolutely NO voice acting at all. Besides, I'm deaf IRL. I have deaf buddies that play with me. I'm thankful for the in-game text chats, though.

First of all battle academy is cool and all but there needs to be public queues with gear level restriction afterward -
Highsec - Standard only, Lowsec - no prototype, Nullsec - anything goes. It only makes sense that prototype and advanced gear would be banned by Concord and fits containing them rendered INVALID in these areas.

Let players flag themselves for each security zone in the queue with ISk, SP gain, and salvage drop table bonuses for those that flag themselves for two or more - to keep the queues a poppin'.

Also, allowing players to respec at will in Battle academy would be a huge plus with one last repec at graduation. Also, battle academy should be a Higsec zone restriction on gear to keep idlers from boosting by keeping their WP low while packing on the SP to farm fellow academy members.

The reason why you would use a text tutorial is for cheaper and quicker globalization. As spoken tutorials do require revoice acting everyone

That sir, is why we have Subtitles for the folks who speak differing Languages

While true, ccp has already made efforts to localize Athena to other languages. As long as the voiced tutorials remain generic enough to be 'future proofed' it should be decent.

Today's Scenario:

Let us pretend you are the guy in charge in designing the entire new player experience. You have a team able to make new features and major changes to the game. Your job today is to draft a plan on improving, designing, goal setting, or storyboarding the entire experience. Use whatever means possible for in the game even if it means starting from the ground up.

Remember you are trying improve a section of the game for a player who doesn't know anything about Dust 514 and introduce the player to the ins and out of this game without having to leave the boundaries of the game so that players should not have to go to a wiki website to learn how to play or download Dust 514's users manual.

This thread is being watched so be thoughtful on your replies.

1. I would change the "news" window of the loading screen with every daily update. Report any changes to the game or upcoming events. Basically try to give information you currently only get from checking the forums and show new players (and old) that the game is regularly changing and growing.

2. Walk new players through in game communications. a quick video could show how to activate/switch voice to different channels and create/join squads. Teaching the use of mail, creating/joining channels and the notification tab would also be great.

3. Give new players an easy way to try all of the suit and weapon types. I would love to see prefabricated militia fittings like the starter fits only consumable (for ISK) on the market. HMG heavy, scout shotgun, mass driver logistics, scrambler rifle assault. Just buy a stack of whatever sounds good and jump into a match. This would require adding milita variants to a lot of guns, but I don't think that is a bad idea either. Skilling into a weapon (like mass drivers) because it sounds cool and deciding you don't like it is a bad and unnecessary experience.

---

Other thoughts:

The character creation/boot camp scenario at the beginning of System Shock 2 should be (re)played through by CCP for inspiration. A scripted, multi-path scenario that walks a new player through actually using weapons and equipment as well as interacting with the environment. Perhaps a coupon system that pays for the first couple of skill books (not skills) after completion of specific areas of training like Dropsuit Command, Dropsuit Upgrades and Weaponry.

Ok, I'm going to say what I would have liked to walk into the first time I played this game.
In this set of ideals I will try to present principles and points of view more than any actual #'s where they may apply, as the in game numbers and values are always changing anyhow. So here it goes.

--1. THE INTRO VIDEO--
a. The intro video should be changed. Launching the game one should meet a video that opens their view to New Eden and where DUST fits into it.

b. I imagine an outside in perspective. Meaning you open up with distant views: Solar systems, stars, suns, black holes consuming planetary bodies at a surreal distance.
Then you begin to inform the player of the solar systems, how the known systems are divided up amongst the 4 empires. Talk about how this space and the planets in these regions are important to them. (Perhaps throw in a little EVE background here to add to "Why are they fighting")

c. Then begin to show a few action scenes. I inagine a quick pacing range of images from the space conflicts of EVE down to the dirt where the metal meets the meat to a quick flash of death to a clone and the stripping force of it's conscience being spit into a new body.

(The first visual story point here being to start off from a vast perspective and begin to funnel down to what is happening. I lightly tried to apply the idea of a cycle from the beginning to the end of what you see. The concept of suns and stars, to a blackhole twisting matter into the unknown. To the end, where the life and death cycle of merc clones in conflict is seen on the ground)

--2. CHARACTER CREATION--
a. After the intro you go to your character creation much like you do now. The character creation process currently does it's purpose well I believe.

--3.THE MILITIA OFFICE--
a. After your character is created you should be ported to a militia office. This would be a governmental recruitment center that your character would first appear in. This would be the ideal place to interact with your first NPC's. I figure, faction officers, other mercs, concerned civilians. There are many possibilities.

(my thinking here is since it is your character's first time doing anything, that before you are allowed to be cloned repetetively and be shipped off anywhere you get educated here at the MO. Also this would maintain the character detail that the character you made is/was a citizen, not some conjured entity.

b. The point of the terminal is mostly for role play immersion efforts, but from here there could be learning terminals/videos/ exercises like some tutorials described in detail by others, and a port to the academy. The tutorials and battle simulators would be accessed via some neural/ virtual uplink.
Other applications of the Milita office could be implemented as well. It is a modular type of location that would provide expaination, involvement within locales of New Eden, and would help to make you feel like the game is bigger than you.

c. After you do what you want to do there you are finally issued your first batch of equipment that you own, given access to your portable merc quarters, and given cloning rights and resources. The milita office exploration and learning part could be optional with the choice upon arriving to go straight to your merc quarters, but you sould be issued better/more stuff if you go through it by your parent faction.)


(I feel a character, story immersion part is needed between character creation and ending up in the merc quarters, and that's the point of the Militia Office. Plus it has much unsaid potential for expansion I think.)

--4. MERC QUARTERS--
a. The Merc quarters is now yours. It is the habitat of your currently animated self. From here you should have access to news feeds all relevant and non relevant (immersion)

b. Within the merc quarters there should be 3 battle resources:
- CORP hiring resource. where corps could put up advertisements, applications, info, whatever you make available to them. Once you join a corp this terminal would become your corp battle finder area.
- Faction Battles. Since it was initially your chosen faction that sent you on your way there should be a division of battles so you can fight for them. I imagine loyaty points and faction discounts would work well with this idea.
- Finally a Freelance Digest, a insta battle/ pick your highest bidder battle finder. Basically a battle finding resource that doesn't fit into Corp or faction battles.

c. Essentially once your in your MQ either by direct skipping of the Militia Office services or by training in all prior exercises you are free to battle and explore the items, strategies, and play options all on your own.

d. The player should have access to information, fit and equipment resources, training videos/ tutorials via a kind of in game encyclopedia. I imagine an implanted PDA that can be accessed by thought. (there could be a neat interface that pops up with this info as if you had it indexed in your mind.

EDIT: Within the outline I see the ideas of others, myself, and what is already present in the game coming togerther to feel like you are indeed stepping into a large and expansive universe.

Backgrounds

Each race/bloodline combination should have a history that's fleshed out. Most of the background universe is just window-dressing at the moment, but I think fleshing out what the civilizations are, what they stand for, brief history, their combat ethos, and their aesthetics would help players identify more with who they're creating.

The current text blurbs are very short, and tell the uninformed little about the given factions and bloodlines. I think having the AI voice narrate an optional video about the civilization (similiar to PS-home vids) would aid in selection. I think of that as a "general" level selection. After actually making the character, a slightly longer introduction with a brief (also AI-read) description of your bloodline's place in all this would also be good.

An in-game reference kiosk in your MQ to look at the history/nature of other bloodlines and factions (with a spin given by your current faction) would also help immersion.

For instance, people can currently buy a "Khanid" Scrambler pistol in the store with a description that notes they are rarely seen outside the "kingdom". They can also pick Khanid as a race. In-game, this is mostly just confusing (Amarr Empire has a Kingdom in it? What?), but an introduction that gave an abstract-length version of the history and place in the empire would fix that. As-is, any background on the universe must be found on the net elsewhere, as there are no resources for that information in-game. The established lore is a strength of the game that should be used.

This becomes important when you're pitching something like faction warfare as well. If you're an EVE player, then you might already know what the factions are about. A new player (besides FW lacking any unique rewards or loyalty benefits) will find the FW conflicts utterly obtuse and no different from the random contractors mentioned in instant battles.

Tutorial

The current tutorials are very basic, and that's not bad necessarily. However, more complex functions of things like combat commands need to be communicated. I'd suggest a series of training missions (with no rewards) that instruct a player on basic concepts available from the same menu as the battle academy.

I'd break them up into categories, starting with something like HUD specifics (including things like range to target, weapon efficiency, and notifications). Mechanics like usage of supply depots to switch fits, ladder operation, and turret installation operation would also fit a basic mechanics sort of mission.

A mission that takes you through weapon usage would also be good, something that gives you instruction on how weapons have ideal ranges, and having them fire/aim at different static targets. That mission would also ideally introduce them to a variety of weapon types; a supply depot with a set of fittings using every weapon so they can swap out to fire at training dummies would be good here.

A mission that introduces squad orders would also be good. I'd suggest the tutorial demonstrating how to create a squad, then invite players. After a squad forms with the fake AI players, the player can be talked through executing squad orders on his/her static squad. Finally, the mission should demonstrate how to call off-map support like an orbital strike or call in a vehicle. The mission should emphasize the importance and benefits of being in a squad.

Lastly, a mission that allows players to experiment with vehicle controls might be useful. I'm not sure if "trial by fire" as far as learning vehicle mechanics is an intentional element or not. It seems... slightly odd that you can only learn the controls of tanks/dropships while under attack. If it's intended, then I suppose this one isn't necessary.

Just an off the cuff dumb idea and not a suggestion, so I hope I won't get roasted, but having some type of planet to planet transportation system, with costs based on the expected skill level, could allow people to self-segregate. The beginner would not have the coin to get there (to high level planets) and would get owned if they did. Also, due to the risk/reward concept the ISK and drops in those areas would attract higher level folks who wouldn't want to waste time stomping newbs.

Good players will go play for higher stakes as soon as they are able to pay for the entrance fee and not get stomped. If stomped, they can return. However, it might be necessary to deny access to some of the beginner "planets" eventually.

To me, this is a lot more fun that slapping people into a battle academy. It has the chance to add to the concept of the game itself (another type of progression) while serving a purpose. More fixes should end up with this type of effect instead of breaking something or acting like a clunky barrier that gets in the way of enjoyment.

I have to diagree.
The game gives you no information on a character, other than a back story before character creation.
My idea allows new players to: Test any race, and weapon prior to the SP dump that dust is, this would infact decrease the amount of mistakes made, by allowing players to see wether something is what they thought it would be or not. Take the medic(starter fit), it is in no way shape or form a preview of what a medic/logi is, a new player won't know this, unless he spends x amount of time looking thru every suit (implying that he understands the symbols for slot alocation).

After the academy, you then are put into the full game, where ISK, SP have to be carefully managed. I don't think we should force people to understand everything from scratch, without any real knowledge other than skirmish/ambush, and mispending.

The more players that leave the academy with understanding and a plan, the better our fights will become, what helps them, will also improve our game(to an extent, some people are just stupid)

Easy implement 3 mode which will get players ready for indebt fighting but taking steps:
Militia mode: were player can only use militia gear
Mercenary mode: players can use standerd and advanced gear, while restricting prototype gear
Elite mode: players can use any gear including prototype, this will be the only mode that will have PC, FW and all other good modes

This will balance the playing field and let new players adjust while they unlock more andvancd gear. Instead of being overwelmed by prototye players. Because new people tend to quit on this game when this happen

I Agree with this 100%, Many other players do as well.

I strongly disagree. We have about 7000 players at max online at the same time. Making 3 different modes would split these 7000 players not only between 5 modes, but between 15 modes. This means you would have about 470 players on every mode. You should also consider that only a few players have prototype gear and most of the player base probably only uses militia or standard gear.

He's right. Better matchmaking would be nice, but splitting them up completely probably won't work out. My fitting is mixed with a variety of ADV, PRO, and STD gear. Where would I go? What about the people with multiple fits of different gear?

I strongly disagree. We have about 7000 players at max online at the same time. Making 3 different modes would split these 7000 players not only between 5 modes, but between 15 modes. This means you would have about 470 players on every mode. You should also consider that only a few players have prototype gear and most of the player base probably only uses militia or standard gear.

He's right. Better matchmaking would be nice, but splitting them up completely probably won't work out. My fitting is mixed with a variety of ADV, PRO, and STD gear. Where would I go? What about the people with multiple fits of different gear?

I strongly disagree. We have about 7000 players at max online at the same time. Making 3 different modes would split these 7000 players not only between 5 modes, but between 15 modes. This means you would have about 470 players on every mode. You should also consider that only a few players have prototype gear and most of the player base probably only uses militia or standard gear.

This ^

You can't create additional modes or the playerbase will fracture too much.

We would be better off remaking the existing matchmaking options.

Something Like:

[Academy] - Open to all players regardless of SP, militia gear only
Queue Options: None - randomly selects match. (i.e. functions exactly like it does now)

[Instant Battle] - High Security Contracts, CONCORD bans the use of experimental prototype gear in High Security space.
Queue Options: Ambush, Ambush OMS, Skirmish, Domination.

[Faction Warfare] - Low Security Space - no restrictions.
Queue Options: Caldari, Gallente, Amarr, Minmatar. (this suggestion gets rid of the merc tab interface, which doesn't work very well imho. However, allowing team queue for this would be sweet!!

[Planetary Conquest] - Low Security/No Security Space - player driven content - no restrictions.
Queue Options: player driven content... no queue options.

Well, to start with i would have a single player training mode (much like MAG) that runs down how to hack, drive, shoot basic small arms, through 'nades, etc. And them once they finish that they could play the academy game mode that you have in place now. I'm running short on time, more ideas to come.

This ^

You can't create additional modes or the playerbase will fracture too much.

We would be better off remaking the existing matchmaking options.

Something Like:

[Academy] - Open to all players regardless of SP, militia gear only
Queue Options: None - randomly selects match. (i.e. functions exactly like it does now)

[Instant Battle] - High Security Contracts, CONCORD bans the use of experimental prototype gear in High Security space.
Queue Options: Ambush, Ambush OMS, Skirmish, Domination.

[Faction Warfare] - Low Security Space - no restrictions.
Queue Options: Caldari, Gallente, Amarr, Minmatar. (this suggestion gets rid of the merc tab interface, which doesn't work very well imho. However, allowing team queue for this would be sweet!!

[Planetary Conquest] - Low Security/No Security Space - player driven content - no restrictions.
Queue Options: player driven content... no queue options.

This ^

You can't create additional modes or the playerbase will fracture too much.

We would be better off remaking the existing matchmaking options.

Something Like:

[Academy] - Open to all players regardless of SP, militia gear only
Queue Options: None - randomly selects match. (i.e. functions exactly like it does now)

[Instant Battle] - High Security Contracts, CONCORD bans the use of experimental prototype gear in High Security space.
Queue Options: Ambush, Ambush OMS, Skirmish, Domination.

[Faction Warfare] - Low Security Space - no restrictions.
Queue Options: Caldari, Gallente, Amarr, Minmatar. (this suggestion gets rid of the merc tab interface, which doesn't work very well imho. However, allowing team queue for this would be sweet!!

[Planetary Conquest] - Low Security/No Security Space - player driven content - no restrictions.
Queue Options: player driven content... no queue options.

This ^

You can't create additional modes or the playerbase will fracture too much.

We would be better off remaking the existing matchmaking options.

Something Like:

[Academy] - Open to all players regardless of SP, militia gear only
Queue Options: None - randomly selects match. (i.e. functions exactly like it does now)

[Instant Battle] - High Security Contracts, CONCORD bans the use of experimental prototype gear in High Security space.
Queue Options: Ambush, Ambush OMS, Skirmish, Domination.

[Faction Warfare] - Low Security Space - no restrictions.
Queue Options: Caldari, Gallente, Amarr, Minmatar. (this suggestion gets rid of the merc tab interface, which doesn't work very well imho. However, allowing team queue for this would be sweet!!

[Planetary Conquest] - Low Security/No Security Space - player driven content - no restrictions.
Queue Options: player driven content... no queue options.

He's right. Better matchmaking would be nice, but splitting them up completely probably won't work out. My fitting is mixed with a variety of ADV, PRO, and STD gear. Where would I go? What about the people with multiple fits of different gear?

Something Like:

[Academy] - Open to all players regardless of SP, militia gear only
Queue Options: None - randomly selects match. (i.e. functions exactly like it does now)

[Instant Battle] - High Security Contracts, CONCORD bans the use of experimental prototype gear in High Security space.
Queue Options: Ambush, Ambush OMS, Skirmish, Domination.

[Faction Warfare] - Low Security Space - no restrictions.
Queue Options: Caldari, Gallente, Amarr, Minmatar. (this suggestion gets rid of the merc tab interface, which doesn't work very well imho. However, allowing team queue for this would be sweet!!

[Planetary Conquest] - Low Security/No Security Space - player driven content - no restrictions.
Queue Options: player driven content... no queue options.

See the opening tutorial for MAG, how it walks you through things. That would be helpful for fittings as well as in game objectives from hacking to counter hacking to reping to reviving to throwing a nano hive, basically everything you can do.

Another great intro and highly under-appreciated game is Shadow Run, get a copy of that game and do the tutorial, great example.

This ^

You can't create additional modes or the playerbase will fracture too much.

We would be better off remaking the existing matchmaking options.

Something Like:

[Academy] - Open to all players regardless of SP, militia gear only
Queue Options: None - randomly selects match. (i.e. functions exactly like it does now)

[Instant Battle] - High Security Contracts, CONCORD bans the use of experimental prototype gear in High Security space.
Queue Options: Ambush, Ambush OMS, Skirmish, Domination.

[Faction Warfare] - Low Security Space - no restrictions.
Queue Options: Caldari, Gallente, Amarr, Minmatar. (this suggestion gets rid of the merc tab interface, which doesn't work very well imho. However, allowing team queue for this would be sweet!!

[Planetary Conquest] - Low Security/No Security Space - player driven content - no restrictions.
Queue Options: player driven content... no queue options.

I would like to remind our current battle AI is NOT Aura as confirmed by CCP Eterne.