Join your fellow F13ers as militant deep-space warriors!

[rk47]

I think they should actually let players design and raise flags on the ships, on a mast somewhere towards the stern, animated to be billowing in the space-wind. 

[Falconeer]

I remember why I never subscribed to Eve now.  Amateur hour bullshit annoynaces like this.  Oh, and did I mention that the teeny, tiny unreadable fonts blow goats.  Fuck you, CCP.

Amateur hour?
I strongly disagree. The UI is lovely, unique and nothing more distant from "amateur". Too much GENERIC-DIKU#7483 for you recently? Many complains about it for different reasons (hey, EVE is not a simple game) but to call it amateurish just because you couldn't find the chat channels sounds nonsensical.

As Caladein pointed out you couldn't even scroll up a few posts, or read the the opener, to look for infos about the chat-channels. I guess that means that F13's, or any other forum, user interface SUCKSx4 too?

Maybe your personal UI sucks more than CCP's. But I agree with you after all, real life isn't user friendly.

[Big Gulp]

Amateur hour?
I strongly disagree. The UI is lovely, unique and nothing more distant from "amateur". Too much GENERIC-DIKU#7483 for you recently? Many complains about it for different reasons (hey, EVE is not a simple game) but to call it amateurish just because you couldn't find the chat channels sounds nonsensical.

As Caladein pointed out you couldn't even scroll up a few posts, or read the the opener, to look for infos about the chat-channels. I guess that means that F13's, or any other forum, user interface SUCKSx4 too?

Maybe your personal UI sucks more than CCP's. But I agree with you after all, real life isn't user friendly.

Any time I have to open a manual, dig up an FAQ, or wander about aimlessly looking for the solution to something that's an obvious problem YOU HAVE FAILED AS A UI DESIGNER.  And yes, the tiny fonts suck.  Digging around to find out how frequency crystals work sucks.  Not being able to find the lasers in the market sucks.  Not having stargates listed on the nav window sucks.  The universe map and the inability to navigate it sucks.

It's like this; you want me to play your game and send you my money.  Every time you make something obtuse, difficult to get to, or just plain hard to find you make me less likely to do so.  If you can't entertain me without me delving for information you have failed.  Furthermore, half hour travel times where I do absolutely nothing = not fun.

I play games to have fun, not to dig through nested, difficult to read windows and drool on my keyboard while my ship travels through a void with no input from me.

[Viin]

If you did the tutorial you'd probably have less problems. 

[Big Gulp]

If you did the tutorial you'd probably have less problems. 

Done it before (3 years ago), and I remember the pain quite well, thank you!  I'm not going through it again.  And besides, the tutorial doesn't fix shitty fonts and boring gameplay.

I'll go back to Sins of a Solar Empire, thanks.  At least that game has the good grace to be entertaining.

[rk47]

'now head to the asteroid and fire your mining laser'
'collect the minerals and return to the space station to sell'
'now you can see what your ships look like in the hangar'
'click launch again to continue the tutorial' yawns
*sniff sniff is something burning?*
BSOD

Reboot.
Failed.
Uh oh.
Gfx card blew up. The year was 2005. I am still  about this game. It happened twice too. Not my cup of tea anyway based on what the tutorial taught me.

[Endie]

If you did the tutorial you'd probably have less problems. 

Done it before (3 years ago), and I remember the pain quite well, thank you!  I'm not going through it again.  And besides, the tutorial doesn't fix shitty fonts and boring gameplay.

Eve's certainly not for all.  That said, both the game and the tutorial have changed totally in a year, let alone three, so you'd always have been struggling without it.

And FAQs aren't the place to find out info, the F13 channel is.

[Hoax]

'now head to the asteroid and fire your mining laser'
'collect the minerals and return to the space station to sell'
'now you can see what your ships look like in the hangar'
'click launch again to continue the tutorial' yawns
*sniff sniff is something burning?*
BSOD

Reboot.
Failed.
Uh oh.
Gfx card blew up. The year was 2005. I am still  about this game. It happened twice too. Not my cup of tea anyway based on what the tutorial taught me.

You should try it again if you have a non-flammable gfx card these days.  Its much different once you get the basics down flying w/ people you know who will help out.


@Gulp:  I dunno man, your logic leads to every game has to just be a clone.  Because if they do anything different you have to GASP learn how to play the game.  A bit hyperbolic?  Sure but your being a whiny bitch because you couldn't even look through the set of 16 buttons on the left hand side (the only buttons on your screen in space) and read what they say?  The eve newb learning curve is stupid, we all know that, but finding the f13 channel isn't that hard if you know its called f13.  But yeah you do have to learn how game systems work in eve, and feedback and basic documentation is HORRIBLE.  But the ui outside of combat feedback isn't that bad and certainly isn't amateur hour.

[TheWalrus]

This game really strikes me as love it /hate it. Either you love it and stick around, or hate it and bugger off. Complaining about it in a forum really isn't going to change your feelings or ours, but your input is always appreciated. Or not.

[Reg]

The tiny fonts do suck though.

[Megrim]

One CAN increase the font size, you know.

[Phildo]

Yes, but we need a guide book to show us how 

[Falconeer]

One CAN increase the font size, you know.

What? If you don't put the font size slider in an immediately and clearly visible spot in the UI then YOU HAVE FAILED AS A UI DESIGNER.

I'll spare you the green.

[Der Helm]

Every time you make something obtuse, difficult to get to, or just plain hard to find you make me less likely to do so.  If you can't entertain me without me delving for information you have failed.

Also, I agree.

Finding the fun in EVE is HARD.

[eldaec]

It's 'escape' for options, then select 'fontsize' on the menu that appears centre screen btw.

You know, like every-game-in-the-history-of-existence.

Or for that matter there is the enlarge/shrink font button on the chat window.



In case anyone was wondering.

[Morat20]

It's 'escape' for options, then select 'fontsize' on the menu that appears centre screen btw.

You know, like every-game-in-the-history-of-existence.

In case anyone was wondering.

First time I played it, it took me 15 minutes to find the "quit" button. (Escape brings up the options screen, which has a large button labeled "quit game" -- however, I didn't know that escape brought up the options screen).

However, the UI is fine. The game itself is complex, but the layout of buttons and options is pretty straightforward. It's certainly simpler than, say, a raider's UI in WoW. And if you do the tutorial, they don't even SHOW all the buttons -- they add them in one at a time as the tutorial asks you to use them.

[Quinton]

There's a lot that could be done to improve the UI.  Better keyboard control of things jumps to mind immediately -- if anything I do is going to give me RSI, it's all the damn clicking on stuff in EVE.   I enjoy the game quite a bit, but I think the interface could be made nicer in plenty of ways.  Lots of little things like just making focus and scrolling and selection better would go a long way.  I expect that's hard to justify compared to adding new gameplay/content/etc.  I'm sure the fact that there is *so much* interface is part of the problem, but I wouldn't want CCP yanking features and "simplifying" things either.  Not an easy problem to solve. 

The complexity is part of the appeal but it also makes it hard for people to get started.  It looks like they're trying things to help that, like the overlay help stuff.  I'm not sure I like the implementation exactly, but points for trying *something* to bring the documentation closer to the UI in hopes that it'll be less baffling to people.  Better documentation on gameplay/mechanics could go a loooong way.  When stickied threads on the official forums or external websites are where people go to learn how things work, that would seem to indicate that docs could be improved a bit.  Again, a balance between spoon-feeding everything to people and making "discovering how it works" an actual exploration-type activity, I guess.  At this point, I think better docs on the core mechanics (propulsion, defense, weapons, etc) would be good to bring more people into the game less painfully.

The EVE UI is "Spaceship Game OS Desktop", more or less.  It makes me want to hook up a second 1920x1200 24" LCD to my win32 gaming box so I can have more windows open and still see the main display!

[Phred]

One CAN increase the font size, you know.

You mean you can increase a tiny subset of all the fonts used in the game. Try increasing the size of the autopilot list and ship names on screen for instance.

Font size adjustment is limited to the chat display and the context menus only. At 1200x720 on a 19" glass monitor the screen font is basically barely readable.

[Phred]

It's 'escape' for options, then select 'fontsize' on the menu that appears centre screen btw.

You know, like every-game-in-the-history-of-existence.

Or for that matter there is the enlarge/shrink font button on the chat window.

Try actually reading what font you are sizing in that menu.  On my settings screen the only adjustable font size is clearly (well as clear as anything in Eve) labeled Context Menu fontsize.

[Falconeer]

Font size adjustment is limited to the chat display and the context menus only. At 1200x720 on a 19" glass monitor the screen font is basically barely readable.

Disgareed.
I have a 19" glass monitor and your same resolution (or 1200x960, not sure) and I have no problems at all. And I wear 5 years old glasses to play videogames.

[nurtsi]

Edit: made a whine thread.

[apocrypha]

Font size adjustment is limited to the chat display and the context menus only. At 1200x720 on a 19" glass monitor the screen font is basically barely readable.

Disgareed.
I have a 19" glass monitor and your same resolution (or 1200x960, not sure) and I have no problems at all. And I wear 5 years old glasses to play videogames.

Hmm, just because you personally find the font size OK that doesn't mean that there isn't a problem for someone else!

The joke with the EVE UI has always been that you just eventually learn to work around the problems with it and that's part of the game. Woohoo! I'm trained to level 5 in Crappy UI Management! I remember one forum thread in the distant past asking for some way of sorting items in your station hangars and a dev replied telling players to just use large cans in their hangars as storage bins. EVE is full of these examples of clunky, awkward, limited solutions to obvious UI problems that CCP simply can't be bothered (or just don't have the expertise) to fix.

If WoW is a highly polished turd then EVE is a diamond dipped in shit.

[Falconeer]

Font size adjustment is limited to the chat display and the context menus only. At 1200x720 on a 19" glass monitor the screen font is basically barely readable.

Disgareed.
I have a 19" glass monitor and your same resolution (or 1200x960, not sure) and I have no problems at all. And I wear 5 years old glasses to play videogames.

Hmm, just because you personally find the font size OK that doesn't mean that there isn't a problem for someone else!

That works the other way around too, doesn't it?
Just because he has a hard time reading it doesn't mean they are actually too small.

[Endie]

Goddammit this is the Bat Country recruitment thread, not the "I want to whine about Eve features" thread, which you're welcome to start.

[Phred]

Font size adjustment is limited to the chat display and the context menus only. At 1200x720 on a 19" glass monitor the screen font is basically barely readable.

Disgareed.
I have a 19" glass monitor and your same resolution (or 1200x960, not sure) and I have no problems at all. And I wear 5 years old glasses to play videogames.

Hmm, just because you personally find the font size OK that doesn't mean that there isn't a problem for someone else!

That works the other way around too, doesn't it?
Just because he has a hard time reading it doesn't mean they are actually too small.

I just want more rants about how even a blind person could find the font size menu in the ui.

My prescription is 2 yrs old but at 58 that seems to be pushing it I guess.

[Grand Design]

For anyone who reads this and decides not to play based on the UI, you're missing out.  When everyone first starts Eve, they spend a ridiculous amount of time finding things in the UI.  It is far from intuitive, but I'm not sure how they could make such a complex UI more intuitive.  The real solution is, like Endie suggested, to ask in F13 when you don't understand something - there are many people who like to give answers and often someone (like me) learns something new from just reading others' responses. 

Trust me, F13 is there to give you money and answer questions.  We want you in a better ship flying with us as soon as possible - which is within days or even hours in a game like Eve.  If you are frustrated and / or poor, just speak up.

To the complaint that Eve combat is point and click - if it weren't point and click when you engaged in a fleet battle, you would be bitching more.  When I was starting out and fighting rats in high sec in a ship I didn't really understand but could afford to lose, I was a little amazed that combat was so simplified.  It seemed like a cop out by CCP.  But when you're in a fleet battle or fighting anything in 0.0, you're attention is not on the battle, but on local chat, fleet chat, Ventrilo, your tank, your distances and angles, what enemies are there and what order to engage them in, who you are fighting with and what they are doing, electronics warfare modules, your mess of drones, etc.  If you had to also target and fire, it would suck supremely.  And I don't ever recall Kirk grabbing the joystick and blasting the klingons from the sky one by one with his elite FPS skills.  He had bigger decisions to make, as do you as captain of a ship.  Now Zapp Brannigan, on the other hand...

[Morat20]

And it's fun! I went out into 0.0 last night and killed things. For money. Sadly, however, my attempt to get into a roving defense force met with failure.

By the time I was even close (I was in the middle of a mission, had to finish it, loot it, salvage it, turn it in, jump clone, set up my ship, start flying out, realize I had the wrong ammo, go buy some, start flying out) the naughty would-be harassers had seen a giant gang of angry death happily waiting for them to come into Providence and play "Whose internet spaceship is better?" and decided to go play WoW or something.

Admittedly, 90% of that is my fault. If I was based in Providence, instead of halfway across the galaxy, I'd have been with the gang in 5 minutes instead of 45. But that's the price I pay for being a carebear.

Once I was there, though, I got to go ratting (damn good money!) -- I played dedicated salvager/looter to a nice fellow in a battleship. I got a chunk of all the bounties and loot.

[eldaec]

Don't get me wrong, the UI does suck. I have my very own whine thread about it in the eve forum.

But a lot of people bring the font thing up, and I find it amusing, because it is almost as if the shittyness of the rest of the UI simply makes people assume they can't fix the font. That probably tells you something in itself.


Still... space... and you know, no elves. Plus Shild's JRPG Emporium, solo friendly, and a 24-hour bat country guild that has lasted more than two weekends. Its all good. And as most others have said, you never need mine unless you really really want to, and the newbie changes last year mean you are in a proper spaceship within a couple of evenings.

[Phunked]

So say I want to join this. I know nothing of EVE, but am not retarded and will probably learn fast.

Would I be useless for like a year before I got skill training? Or would there be a possibility of not being a throw away scrub?

[eldaec]

You'd be useless for twenty minutes until someone gave you enough money to fit out a tackling frigate.

A week to a month later you'd be fine for one or more roles you actually chose.

There's plenty of threads of stuff for noobs to do in the EVE forum.


EDIT: Oh yeah, you'd need propulsion jamming and warp scrambling skills too, so more like an hour or two.

[Hoax]

I'd say uselessness scale goes like this:

2 weeks:
Your competent at dying in a t1 frigate that is helpful to the cause.  You are still mostly buying skill books and asking questions in f13.

6 to 8 weeks:
You can now pilot a t1 cruiser very well, or at least well enough to not be ashamed flying it one on ops.  You also have a BC/BS fitted for pve activity.  Your now answering some questiosn in f13.

2 months+:
Now your working on advanced things, have 20 skills you want and are working on longer train times.  If you wish you can have mastered a particular ship fitting, everything t2 except the guns for example.  While you don't have the flexibility of a 5 year pllayer you can shine in your particular skill niche.

[TheWalrus]

Wow. I'm behind the curve.

[Endie]

In GF, particularly during the recruitment drives, newbees often come on ops on day 2 or so, once they've got through the tutorial and moved to GF space.  One famous incident saw a newbee's first words on TS turn out to be "two points on the Moros" (ie a dreadnought capital ship worth over a thousand times his ship and fittings).

[Phildo]

Hey folks, wanted to drop an update in this thread so everyone knows what's been going on.  We've shuffled most of our membership over to BAT now, with a heavy focus on PvP.  As of a few months ago we joined the Aegis Militia alliance and have been living in their space in 0.0 ever since.  Aegis Militia is an old and respected alliance with a great deal of interesting history and some of the best damn pilots in the game.

We just finished a multi-front empire war with The Wings of Maak corporation and Ushra'Khan alliance.  Ushra'Khan is also an old and respected force who are at odds with Aegis Militia for a variety of reasons, both RP and otherwise.  They are larger than us, more experienced and better equipped, and we gave as good as we got.  In fact, according to the BAT killboard, we had over 75% combat efficiency (which is awesome!)

In the last week we've returned to Providence, the region of 0.0 that we inhabit along with our allies, to earn money and regroup before we sally forth again.  Many of us can frequently be found in local defense gangs fighting off the enemies that come through our space attempting to harass our people.

Now is a fantastic opportunity for anyone who has been hesitant in the past to sign up and see what life in 0.0 space is like.

[Endie]

For those who are not currently playing but used to enjoy Frigate Club ops, or who are in different corps from Bat, I'm running an old school Frigate Club op on Saturday 5th July at 20:00 Eve Time.

There is a thread here if you have Super-Sekrit BAT forums access.  If you're not in BAT/F13 and don't have forums access but fancy joining in, evemail me.  Spies who I have never heard of need not apply.  Spies I am aware of welcome.

There will be a few more of these, weekend-permitting, coming up.