I've seen many times that people in VO have wanted more new people to stick around, to increase the VO population to around 100-1000+. There are a few things that keep newbs from understanding the ay VO works, which I will list below:

1. They don't know how to talk. I've seen 100's of newbs just floating around doing the missions, and they must just ignore the chat board because I tell them to press t to talk and they don't. This happens with approximately half the newbs I meet.

Solution: Have the tutorials *require* a typed message on the global chat (100), something titled "Announce your coming to VO" or something. You could even give a required message like "Hi VO".

2. Implement targetless into VO. I've seen people who go around for days and days without even knowing how to use 'u'. If you don't know how to use 'u', and you don't have targetless, the game becomes *extremely* confusing and hard to work with.

If you do these two things, VO will become a lot for newb friendly.

EDIT: As mentioned by someone else, most newbs will use advanced combat training to up their combat licenses. However, there are more profitable methods that give more xp (think 3+ here). As for getting from combat 2->3, I think its a bit too much grinding for most people, especially if they don't know how to fight bots properly AND haven't gotten used to the controls (which is probably most people). For someone experienced it takes about 15 minutes... but for a newb it could take hours, at which point some will probably just give up. Alternatively, this could be fixed with having a real mentoring system, in which players can interact with other players. Ive heard a lot of newbs rage quit because they hadn't met a single player. Missions that would teach how to dodge would certainly help, but only if they are mandatory. Most people are too stuborn to learn these kind of things on their own.

I disagree about forcing people to talk on 100, though I think having an NPC bot in the training sector that teaches them how to talk to sector chat and send private messages would be a good idea.

I have a hard time communicating with new players because when I attempt to talk to them in-sector they tend to reply on 100 (which confuses everyone else on 100).

I think our nooblets are pretty retentive already - e.g., you, Alloh, and Polelickin'Lancemelots.

I do believe that newbies are asked to leave 100 in their training. Asking them to talk on sector or private chat - yes. Asking them to talk on 100 - no. We have enough newbies chatting away on there, already.

+1 Lecter

I think Crusader meant REAL newbies, such as the ones which come into game, stay for a day or a week, and leave because they don't know what to do.

For them, the game may be very n00b-unfriendly. Especially the main interface (Missions/Character/Navigation/Whatever) is difficult/unintuitive and could use a lot of improvements.

EDIT:
Also there could be a few of small-but-visible buttons called "chat", "chat to target", "chat to group", "chat to sector", which can be (of course) hidden by advanced players easily.

And they should have tooltips explaining what they do. The game would become much easier to learn this way.

Not sure about 1, but 2, for sure. Targetless, or at least the Sector Alert or whatever from the Toaster Crush Suite should come with the game. As a newb, I had no clue when I was near other players, or what most of the ships surrounding me were.

Despite it directly affects Guild's business plan, it seems to me that a longer trial period would favour a lot the retention of newbies.

Something like 1 week, limited to 6h/day.

If they want a crowded server, just make it free to play with severily limited resources available, like only basic ships and stuff. It was already proposed many times.

Also, MANY plugins should be incorporated to VO, or at least be made a very way to add them, like include plugin installation option to the game updater... and Guild host the plugins...

These options have a direct impact over GS business model, not likely to happen soon(tm)...

Some people aren't understanding this from the point of the newb. I repeat, about 50% of them never even talk on 100 throughout the entire trial period, and probably don't see anyone in sector.. even if they do, they have no way of knowing how to contact them while in space unless they read the controls. You can't expect all newbs to be geniuses who know what every interface means at a glance. ( like us :) )

What makes you think they want to talk on 100? I didn't when I did my trial. (Granted, I tend to be somewhat asocial.) I do agree the tutorial should at least tell them how, if it doesn't already (it's been a while, I don't remember anymore). But making them say stuff would get annoying for the rest of us. If they must be required to speak, have it be either sector-chat or some non-100 channel.

As far as retaining newbies goes, I do think that turbo-toggling should be a built-in command. "How do you toggle turbo" is a question that a lot of newbs ask. I worry that having to set up a bind for something that simple might make the game seem half-baked.

Have then speak on channel 1 then! Seriously, some people simply *Dont know how to chat*. They don't all read the tutorials, nor do they consult the controls to find which exact button to press to chat while in space (which is where they will be the majority of the time).

They don't all read the tutorials, nor do they consult the controls to find which exact button to press to chat while in space (which is where they will be the majority of the time).

So what's the problem? They're idiots, and life in general has an anti-idiot bias.

I would say that there are many aspects of the UI that need serious tweaking. The interface should be like a good (contemporary) poem: no extra fat, totally lean, almost minimal, clean, and striking. The interface should be inviting and simple to use, but at present I think it can be a little discouraging. Without oversimplifying the interface, I think it should be intuitive--because most people will never be bothered to read a tutorial, or read at all, for that matter.

As an example, the numbers next to items in the inventory screen ("j" in flight) are a little cryptic, at best. I know I risk the attention of the trolls when I admit that I still don't know what the hell they even mean.

The mission system is also clunky and boring, and the advanced combat training mission needs to be taken out or fixed. When I started, I must have played it for hours before finally concluding that it was broken, and someone on 100 confirmed it. In my opinion, the advanced portions of the game--PvP, for example--are very well balanced and wonderfully designed, but the early part of the game is seriously lacking.

Missions that teach noobs how to dodge would help, and so would a greater variety of missions that offer combat experience, and more quickly at that. More detailed training missions could be integrated into this idea to produce an introductory set of missions that is simultaneously interesting, brief and informative. At present, the beginning of the game is neither of these.

Something also has to be done, I think, about the remoteness of Deneb. I decided to play this game because it claims to be an MMO, when in fact it is quite small. Placing Deneb in contact with gray would encourage vets to participate in the skirmishes there more often, and in my opinion this would make the game seem larger early on (thus attracting the attention of noobs), while also tapping the incredible and exciting potential that Deneb combat offers in the way of massive, story-oriented, objective-based PvP, which I think is something that most people would like to see more of.

Above all, the game needs exciting, adaptable structure of the kind that the nation conflict promises--that is, after all, what defines a game as such. The upcoming manufacturing system, conquerable stations and capships offer a goal-based means of advancing towards this kind of structure, but they won't help noobs.

the numbers next to items in the inventory screen ("j" in flight) are a little cryptic

If you don't have at least a strong suspicion about the meaning of numbers next to items listed in an inventory screen, you need to file a complaint with the Creator of your choice, demanding you be issued the part of the human brain that's normally found above the pons.

Lecter,

If you expended as much effort in producing a valuable thought as you do in cultivating an uncivil and inarticulate demeanor, then you would allow for the possibility that I am not referring to the numbers that indicate the quantity of an item currently in the cargo hold, but to the numbers that describe the current maximum worth of an item within a given sector.

As an aside, ad hominem argumentation is probably the fastest way to neutralize your own capacities of persuasion (doubtful as those are), so if you value trolling as much as your behavior suggests, you would do well to develop a fresher approach to insults. As it stands, yours are elementary at best, and at worst, a total betrayal of an especially defunct, petty, and adolescent approach to thinking.

I would also add that you aren't adding anything to the conversation.

Please keep the blatant trolling out of Suggestions.

If you want to use big words, you really need to work on your context and syntax more. For example, you meant to say at worst, betrays an especially defunct, petty, and adolescent approach to thinking (n.b., the use of defunct here is not quite right; asinine would work much better). What you wrote instead is, at best, only awkwardly comprehensible and, at worst, completely contradictory to your intended meaning.

Moreover, you misunderstand the concept of an ad hominem argument, which would in fact phrased in the form of (just by way of hypothetical example) comradeseidl is a smelly, ugly, godless animal and, therefore, must be wrong. What is not, however, an actual ad hominem is to describe your claim in the context of other factors (as I did) and then indicate that it is a poorly supported/wrong claim in light thereof. The fact that I called you a brain-dead slob for saying what you said is merely a way of indicating that I think yours was a poorly supported claim, not the premise on which I rest that statement.

Hugs & kisses.

Sigh, flame flame flame. I know I'm guilty at this point. Sorry for jacking the thread.

Defunct, in the context: ineffective, inoperative, borrowing from the sense of "dead," having ceased function ("extant" not being the only definition).

Also, my grammar is correct. Your conjugation, "betrays," does not agree with the plural, "yours [i.e. your insults]." Were my grammar incorrect, pointing that out would not be a substitute for civility.

Ad hominem: "to the man." Drawing conclusions about the person based on the argument that he delivers is ad hominem. Implying that I am stupid, which is erroneous both in its conclusion and in its misapprehension of the facts (I wasn't talking about cargo quantity), is both ad hominem and tasteless.

Lecter aside, I would appreciate some meaningful and relevant response to what I originally said.

1. They don't know how to talk. I've seen 100's of newbs just floating around doing the missions, and they must just ignore the chat board because I tell them to press t to talk and they don't. This happens with approximately half the newbs I meet.

It's much the same with shift-t for sector chat, 90% of the time newbs don't know what the green text is, or if they notice it, they don't know how to respond, and so PM me back instead. I don't even think sector chat is covered in the tutorials.

I would say that there are many aspects of the UI that need serious tweaking. The interface should be like a good (contemporary) poem: no extra fat, totally lean, almost minimal, clean, and striking. The interface should be inviting and simple to use, but at present I think it can be a little discouraging. Without oversimplifying the interface, I think it should be intuitive--because most people will never be bothered to read a tutorial, or read at all, for that matter.

I agree, it wouldn't hurt for the interface to be reworked. At first it can be confusing.

Missions that teach noobs how to dodge would help

Oh. Yeah..

/me goes to rewrite those PCC missions he started once long long ago.