It's true that the tip box doesn't really give out good tips. However, I enjoy the mood that it encourages and wouldn't want to see that go away. Some tips are amusing, some tips give background world information that's interesting, basically it's inviting me to take an interest in the game.
What I would suggest having two separate tip boxes, one for new players and one for people who don't want actual tips. Start out the new players with the actual tip box. I'd go even further and have this tip box give out only tips related to the player's selected class. When the new player reaches some sort of level that officially makes him not a newbie anymore (let's go with 10 so we have something to work with) Then the tip box shows another suggestion regardless of the class the player's in. If you're tired of being taught how to play, you can go into settings to change this tip box into an unhelpful tip box.
This wouldn't change the tip box I'm used to and it'd help new players.
Interesting ideas, but making any form of tutorial non-mandatory would mean that newbie players would switch it off (in most cases) as soon as they know that's a possibility. I mean, hell, "unhelpful tip box" piques the curiosity.
The thing is with the Tip Box with 'tude is it is really a waste. I've seen every tip so far so the humour is now gone, it's temporary, and now I just feel bitter that it could be so much more useful. Perhaps helpful advice could be overlaid with the same sort of tone the tip box currently has, or the ratio of dumb stuff to useful stuff shifts massively, to make it mostly useful with the occasional little joke thrown in there to encourage that mood you're talking about.
The hefty sixty-second load in would benefit hugely from the tip box.
Oh, and 10 is too low in my opinion. I can still see people with levels past 20 that take ridiculous ammunition/tool choices for the ship they are on. The problem with these people isn't that I want them to play the game my way, it's that they are nerfing themselves and their team by doing so.
What would bring more enjoyment to player; random, unrelated jokes about dirty keyboards and moonshine being toxic to drink, or players being given advice that actually helps them not lose all the time, spend years repairing with spanner/rebuilding with mallet, feel like some guns in the game have no effect because their ammunition/target choice hugely hampers the damage output, etc.?
The fact is, if players know more about the games mechanics and how to use them to their own ends, they are going to be a benefit for their team as well as find more enjoyment from seeing their input making a difference. A brief chuckle at some asinine joke with no relevance to game play whatsoever can't remotely contest to increased enjoyment from the actual game itself.
