I wanted to maybe speak from a newbs perspective about the game. I see alot of high end posting about different things that should be added into the game and most of the stuff looks great well except the whole lawyer post ;) . I professionaly write reviews for a few sites and buy about 6 games a month to either review or enjoy playing on occasion just as some basic background. Even though I am sure there is going to be a ton of flame to me and my post I figured I would throw that out.

I read through the current work list and the todo list, which basicly has many things that will make this game great. But maybe a thought on priority of somethings may help to expand the user base. The overall layout and engine of the game is great. I couldn't have had a easier time of knowing the controls and the tutorial was extremely helpful in establishing travel in the game.

Starting as a newb the first hour or two was great but beyond that your stuck in a ship with a pea shooter doing really boring tasks over and over again. I see that the lowering of inital points is going to happen at some point. I would say rather then bring the points down a little for the low end user, why not bring them extremely far down. This allows for newbs to feel like they are making progress and if you allow them to buy items at a more rapid rate it will also add some excitement into the game for tring out new weapons and such. Maybe another thought that would work is, after the first level make 3 cheap ships that will allow a player to start heading towards their goal in the game weither its to combat/mine/trade. By allowing newbs to use anything other then the "bus" very early in the game you are also capturing them into some progress. And progress bring interest and more players deeping into the game workings right away. Also when is the last time you have tried out the newb missions? I had a mission, it was my second of the game where I was to retreive 2 items from a station and bring them back. Along the way I hit a storm and was attacked by I would say a fairly high level group of bots which destroyed my ship within a few shots. Now I tried the mission again this time knowing it was going to happen and repeated the same thing I did the first time which was not to fight but to run and got away. Only 20% of my ship hull left. I would definately say that needs to be tweaked a little, or move that mission up to a level where your ship is either alot faster or you have something other then a pea shooter to fire with."just a thought" By hour 3 and 4 I was still running in circles getting small amounts of points and showing no progress my mind set at the time was extremely board. I talked to other users and newbs while doing this who basicly all said the same thing. Yes I know here comes the flame from all the players who went through the same thing and probably say we should stop bitching etc... Well I am just saying more interesting creates more buzz and more paying/end users for the project. I think there are alot of improvments needed just for the low level player inorder to really get the game off the ground. I would probably guess there is a good portion of new demo users that will just stop playing after a few days because there is really a very small draw for someone to keep playing. Primarly the main draw is the community.By far a really lively and great place to hang out and chat no doubt about.

Just a newbs thought :)

just out of curiousity, what is your current license levels for your "newb"?

Looking for my points level? I think I have at least 300 to 400 to go on all levels to level. I have destroyed some 40 bots and been transporting for a while. To not get confused more or less I am suggesting lesser rewards per level for the first few levels but to allow the new user to level to show progress may be better stated.

this is not a flame so don't take it as such…

The first pilot I created I had all the same ideas you had about how the low end was, but, when I started a second pilot and third, and so on, the lower level really went by quite fast. It might be that the tutorial covered all of the basics of the univers but that it doesn't really give you any kind of strategy as to how to progress more efficiantly. If you just stay in your "Beginner Combat Mission" and accumulate the bonuses untill it is maxed out the first 3 levels come very quickly, in a few hours even. Trading is a bit different, and really requires a ship with a large cargo bay to advance quicker, but if you don't do multipule chained deliveries, and stick to low jump trade route it too will go much quicker. For weapons they come more easily then any other license in the game and should not be a problem for you at all.

It really does help to ask questions and get a mentor early on to find all this out. I've never liked that the devs give point for people to help out, it just seems that they put the responsibility of teaching people how to play the game less on the developers (though tutorials) and more on the player, which can lead to frustration from new players who are not aware of "Mentors" and how to even use channels to ask questions.

Even a few hours to level is extremely long for any massive online game. Thats kinda where I was going with this. I can pickup any game and at least get level two with doing the tutorial in the first hour. The problem I see it is that the system is to slow which makes people loose interest.

As you said, they are going to be changing the lower end requirements soon I think so hopefully some of that will be address.

I fear its going to be a minor bump which really won't address the issue completely. In reality your looking at something that needs total reworking on the beginer levels.Oh and thank you for not flaming my thoughts I am sure we will see some later today.

"I tried the mission again this time knowing it was going to happen"

btw, have you figured out that ion storms are located in specific sectors, and that once you find out where they are, you can route around them?

it took me on the order of a week to discover this - i had previously thought they were unavoidable.

I figured that out the first time I hit one after reading what the yellow writings said. But I wanted the extra action at the time so I hit it again.

I couldn't agree with you more, maveric7911, and as you said I think the devs are aware of this problem. Hopefully we will get some new missions soon that will allow newbs to do more interesting things. I would also agree that there should be more equipment options as a newb.

hmmm...

I'm interested in a few things maveric:

a) are you under the impression the ion storm was generated based on your accepted mission?

That's how I interpret your post, and if so... The ion storms are randomly generated as well as most (if not all) of the trade missions. It's entirely possible you could have received a different route, or even the same route without a storm in your path, at that point in play. There is no sense of "difficulty" in the trade missions, and other than making the lower level missions require less traveling distance there is no way to make it easier.

b) "Maybe another thought that would work is, after the first level make 3 cheap ships..."

This already exists, the first combat level will get you a Centurion, which is a great fighter and will last you right up until you get a Vulture (level 3?), which is an extremely capable fighter. At trade level 1 you gain access to the Wraith, which is a step up from the EC-88 in cargo and weapon capacity. Your 3rd desired ship doesn't exist, there are no specific low level "mining" ships in the game yet, I assume the wraith would cover that task well, although it would require you to do a little trading on to gain access to it.

You are correct that missions need to be more entertaining, but I don't think the game needs the kind of instant gratification you suggest. This afterall is designed for the long term. I think the bot combat is pretty entertaining, or at least challenging, for most newbs. The beginner combat mission passes pretty quick, and with the coming level points adjustment it will get even quicker.

He also gets access to the EC-99 and the EC-101 :) Really, they're not bad ships, despite sharing the same design lineage as the EC-88.

I agree with you Cam that MMO's are not about "Instant Gratification" they are slow progressions to the good stuff. I can see both sides, but I think that the newbs get frustrated because of the learning curve of the game. I personally didn't feel comfortable with the game until I had at lease 16hrs of play time, and I'm still not 100% up to speed on all the working of the game. Anyone trying the demo will have a hard time at it since the documentation on how to play the game is quite sparce and these postboards are groosom to look through.

I at least think there should be more variety than a plasma cannon when you first start out. The yellowjacket launcher is fairly pretty to look at (and not much else) and for a brief period of time it was available to buy at license level 0. Why not make this weapon available at level 0 once again? I think allowing newbs to have a choice between a basic blaster or a basic missile weapon would make them feel a little less constricted.

maveric7911:
Thank you for your well thought out post. Most of the points have been covered so i dont have much to reply to, other than to confirm that the ion storms are totally random. they are in no way linked to the trade missions.

Additionally: For a long time I have advocated adding 2 more levels before the current level 1, one at 400XP and one at 1200XP, each with some slightly better weapons than those currently availible at level 0.

I would also like to propose (now that we have badges and rewards from those) a "Tutorial badge" with a slightly upgraded free, EC class vessel (the EC-89 anyone?) give it a few extra cargo slots or something, just some kind of a reward.

Additionally, I would like to see the basic gatling gun made into a level 0 L-port weapon, as Heavy weapons are IMO far too difficult to gain levels in using stingrays.

I am tending to agree with the tail end of this post.. That's the problem with a lot of games today is that if you can't advance as quick as possible, then it isn't fun. A few hours is not long at all. I agree that we could throw some variety in there, but that's part of an evolving game type such as this. Don't forget that part of a role-playing game is playing a role. "Real" entry level traders don't go from pilot to tycoon in a couple hours..

Yes but you can't even trade with the bus. So a entry level trader should have a trader ship.You shouldn't get rich quick or have a huge cargo hold or anything but the current hold is so small that you make so little money from a hour of going back and forth. I can combat and make money quicker then tradeing at this point. And if my point and desire in the game is for the economy side why do I want to spend all my time in combat? As for the ion storms I was under the assumption that they where randomly placed but not changed so thank you for letting me know that. I basicly just was at the wrong place at the wrong time. As for the ships I was refering to if the levels where fixed up a bit so level one isn't feeling more like level 5 in most normal games. I completely agree with spell that there should be at least two levels before level one. And some kind of ship really any ship other then the bus would be great you can literly do nothing of use in that ship.Even better after some thought it may be a good idea after you finish the tutorial to allow any of 3 newbie ships that allow you to go into different areas of the game once again combat/trade/mine abilitys.Not as good as the current ones but not as bad as the bus. Thus allowing you to start right off in the game doing what it is you want to do probably for at least the begining of the game.

actually the bus makes a very good trade ship. 18 cargo is decent, considering that the best ship in the game at an extremely high license level only holds 56.

Trade routes are hard to understand at the moment, which is the largest problem with trading. Even with the best trade ship in the game, finding a profitable route is more important than the cargo space.

As the economy dynamic is only tied to the price goods sell for, with no link between those goods and the products a station sells it is possible to totally exhaust all the trade routes in the game, making profit extremely difficult to come by. For the initial trade missions the bus has enough cargo capacity to complete them, even if it is slower travel time than the better ships later in the game.

well I would hope that once the economy is actually online and crafting at some point maybe changes would be made the cargo. Haveing only 56 spaces at a max would mean either one casting would be close to impossible for any low level person to help out with by normal mmorpg standards for building, or two it would be entirely simple.And it would have to be a extremely good trade route for anyone to trade if thats all the space you have. Devs should really totally revamp that aspect to ships. At the very least the extreme high end ship should have 500 to 600 cargo space in order to make real profit from such a profession. And just bump the small craft to around 30 - 50. That would once again help the economy actually work. This current version really is fully based towards pvp looking at the economy. I was hoping this was a mmorpg.

Don't forget that we're still playing around with fighters. Some of them are large fighters, but they're fighters nonetheless. Just wait until the mid and large sized ships are released before we think about "revamping" how much cargo each ship should hold.