The brand new player experience

[CaseyMarie]

Hi everyone.

I'd like to create a discussion about how it currently feels to be a brand new player to this game. Now before I start I'd like to admit that I am a complete and total noobie and this is just my opinion.

I'm quite new to using video games as a tool to roleplay with. However I am not new to roleplay as a whole as I have been a dungeons and dragons player. I have only attempted role playing in 3 games:
Vanilla world of Warcraft years and years ago on the official server long before even the first expansion. Roleplay was non existent back then. It was all about progressing in game rather than character. Perhaps the roleplay servers have matured a lot since then but that's how it is.

A private wow roleplay server. Progression was completely non existent here. Every character started at max level with infinite gold and server commands, the roleplay was unbelievably strict, there was no PvP, fights were solved rock paper scissors style. However the server probably had an entire population of 50 people and I never saw double digits online.

Discovery is my third...And as progression goes it kinda feels like it's in the middle. There is a lot of very strong roleplay and there is a sense of progression. I honestly really enjoy this balance it keeps things interesting when you log on and see that you are the "only person" (not that that has ever happened) there is still a little bit of pve to do.

The observation I have though is that as a new player you kinda have the progression idea drilled into your head especially if you have come from other RPGs and exponentially more if mmos. I have heard both in and out of roleplay that the starting ship is worthless and should be replaced as soon as possible (as a side note here probably the most glorious thing I have seen so far is a sunburst go 3 against 1 and somehow win, which is the motivation to me making this post, teaching me that no ship is awful if your skill is high enough, a lesson I learned coincidentally being in the right place at time) and where you start really doesn't help with that...

So everyone spawns at Pennsylvania.
I think that this is a good and a bad thing although mostly good.
I like that it has the helium cloud although I will touch on this again later.
I like that it's very very close to the centre of the map, new York where a large amount of the roleplay happens.
I like the fact that it isn't in the path of a mega trade lane which keeps it mostly being a place for new players and only new players as the potentially high standard of RP not to mention unlawful activity which may be seen as greifing for a new player finding their feet. (Quick question actually is there some unwritten rule about not pirating there because of the newbies?).

However there's potentially a little bit of a downside here:

I've spent a bit of time reading the forums about trading and I have noticed that there is a little bit of a hostility towards new players who decide to start trading. I see derogatory terms thrown about such as: powertrading, lolcaps, silent trader, lolberty etc etc.
However are we sending new players mixed messages a little?

When I started I flew around a little bit and I saw the liberty navy and I made an assumption that I'm sure a lot of other green players make and that is ooh look at the end game. Indeed this is the criticism I see thrown at traders, after all the only reason anyone trades is to fly a cap right? Was I wrong to assume that? Well I'd argue no...

Undock from planet Erie and immediately in your face is battleship Gettysburg. Now even if I've never met a navy character the very first thing this game has taught me is that battleships exsist. It may sound silly but video games design often has an element of player training and there are lots and lots of games that show you early on what you may become as motivation and framing to the theme of the game. This idea of progression is unfortunately now amplified by the new player guide and the concept of being a helium miner.

When I started mining helium I didn't get have the concept of the ship and the character being one and the same like I do now. No it felt a lot more like leveling up and swapping ship as soon as possible. First 4 million? Great! Immediately buy a Gull! 10 million? Thank goodness you don't have to fly that useless thing anymore get a mammoth. Every time I bought a ship I was looking at 1 thing and 1 thing only, cargo space. I didn't understand most of the other stats (and to be honest still even now I probably don't know what everyone means) but it felt very much like a vertical progression system.

If you are a completely new player you won't have a credit to your name and you will most likely start trading because it's the simplest thing to get your head around.

I have spent a little bit of time as a trader and I'm currently flying a 3600 ship. It was expensive! In fact I think I could probably reasonably outfit 10 other ships for the same price (another potentially missed lesson, ships are generally a lot cheaper than transports but it takes a conceted effort to notice this as a new player if you are just trying to get those first few million credits). I completely understand why, it's supposed to be an investment and it effectively generates money for you outside of a player economy. However because it's such an expensive investment I found myself in an (arguably) incorrect mind set where I had to "power trade" to at least get this investment back and during that time I realised that the best way of doing that was to never get robbed and I caught myself pressing "y" a lot and looking up tags to see if I needed to go around or not use the lanes... I don't think that this is strictly against the rules as some people would say it's meta gaming and others would say it's smart trading, it's a bit of a scummy grey area... But in any case it's avoiding RP and that really feels against the overall spirit. Although you have to admit as a trader the best way of surving a pirate is to never bump into them. Is this me being a "power trader" or is it part of the way that the design of the game teaches new players subliminally? Being charged 2 million on my empty Camara stang a hell of a lot at the time perhaps if I had let them shoot me instead I would have felt better about it.

I'm sure this is something that will change as I get a little bit more experienced. Something space games have in common is a steep learning curve which is always going to be steeper when there are RP restrictions that you have to remember to enforce as the programming can't do it. All in all I've really enjoyed my time as a new player and I really really hope this doesn't come off as whiney! I'd be really interested in hearing your thoughts!

Casey x

tl;dr great game, mind blowing good mod but steep learning curve!