Monday, February 20, 2012

Blog Banter 33: The Capsuleer Experience

This month's blog banter is about the new player experience, for better or for worse.

Some new players get lucky. They have been referred by an experienced player and as such have someone to ask all those silly questions we all ask when we first get started. I know I'd still be pulling my hairs out a year later were it not for my friend Asander and the rest of BSC Legion.

The rest of the newbies, well, they get to try their luck in Rookie Help and pray there is an ISD or an experienced player training a new account to answer their questions (and prey they aren't being trolled). Tie this in with the general feel of being in something completely new and it's pretty obvious why most don't finish the trial. There is little/no easily accessible data and those organizations that promote helping new players aren't able to be on the forefront since Rookie Help disappears after 30 days.

I've had a hand at helping out in Rookie Help recently while starting my fifth account and I keep telling myself "There must be a better way to explain this to people." So, in response to the cliff still posed by the new player experience I've decided to start making Youtube videos with in-game footage and commentary.

The channel such as it is (no videos, yet) is established here.

Feel free to leave suggestions regarding topics you'd like covered there by sending an email to Urziel99 (at) gmail (dot) com. or by contacting my Twitter account: @Urziel99

I intend to do the very basics first, maybe even cover some of the tutorial missions in detail. Anyone with an idea feel free to let me know.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Deklien: There and back again.

After some consideration, and a few months of eye-blisteringly awful isolation I have returned to the fold and rejoined my first corp; BSC Legion. All the old mates were glad to have be back and I noticed some new but familiar faces in the corp chat, including Quivering Palm, the executor of our previous alliance.

That night I set up some jump clones in various systems and bought one of the new DrakeFleet setups in VFK. An op was called with DBRB as the FC, so I went.

http://tnt.killmail.org/?a=pilot_detail&view=kills&plt_id=819229&m=2&y=2012

It's good to be back. My absence made me remember who my friends were, and retaught the lesson I thought I had learned the first time. Eve is harsh without allies.

I'd like to take this opportunity to give a shout-out to Shevai Asan, CEO of The Night Crew and his directors for annoying the living shit out of me in their recruitment channel and reminding me just how valuable it is to have people who know you for who you are, and who don't try to glean a person's character from a comment on a blog.

Without them prodding me to a near homicidal rage I would have never had to confront the fact that people can be total bags of dicks, be somewhat justified in doing so, and to not bother dealing with them if they can't respect you for who you are.