Although I don’t play like I used to I still keep up with what’s going on in the game. My eyes popped when I saw the patch notes.
All new characters will now start with approximately 400,000 skill points rather than 50,000.
I remember as a new player being all hyped to play. I got my noob ship that I thought was the bestest ship ever. I’m eagerly playing the tutorial, and I got to the point where you had to buy a skill book and train it. Come back in a couple of hours.
Wait, what? I wanted to play NOW! I was like, “well, um…what do I do now?” While it is a learning lesson that the player will spend LOTS of time waiting on skills before he/she can do what they want to do, the tutorial is way too early to teach that lesson. The skills new players are getting now are nothing compared to veteran players and in truth, veteran players should be excited for new players to get in the game and STAY. EVE has a horrible retention problem that needs to be addressed.
Another benefit is the ISK saved from not having to purchase the skill books. More ISK for ships! Again, it’s an amount of ISK that veteran players shouldn’t be jealous of. It’s approximately 10M ISK.
Things can’t stay as they always were otherwise the game will never evolve – while everything else does. It’s not realistic. It’s not a good business decision. Nothing stays the same.
CCP has the unique problem of having a player base with disposable income. Many will pay for their account as long as the game is open to keep their skill point advantage. Not because they love to play…I know many who are paying for their accounts, never logging in, and playing other games. This will cause the game world to be empty even though the game is generating income. I’m hoping this move will cause new players to stay and PLAY more and perhaps entice new players that once played and stopped to try again.
