Aging Operators

[Lazarow]

Warframe has been out for some time now and operator play a big role in the game's lore. The only thing I don't understand is why not have them age and grow up, seperating from The Lotus and following their own path which only would change them in lore but not in gameplay. My idea is to have them age lets say a year after each main quest completed after the Second Dream quest. With the aging system it will show operators going from children to adults, having developed in mentaly but physicaly as well.

Mental(behaviour) changes:

-Change in operator voice: voices should become slightly deeper or somewhat be changed to show they are aging

-Noticable change in operator monologue during missions: The operator will have changed speech depending on which quests have been completed they will say things that seem suitable(example: Its not likely for operators to say "For the Lotus" after completing the sacrifices at least form this current view we have) also as they grow up they would speak with less excitement

Physical Changes:

-Changes to faces: Less smooth face and barely noticable spots, undereye lines with little expression, more depth to the face around the cheek area

-Have their bodies develop further: More bulky males, and females with more expressed feminine attributes(example: for males something like Nezha's deluxe model, for females: like Nova model ). As well as them becoming somewhat taller.

I feel this is required in the game to show that the tenno have developed since awakening from their sleep, and that they do not remain children forever but they grow and develop further. This will also allow to express the weight they carry with them from what they been through as they have not had it well for them as seen from the main quests.

 

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

How would this work for new players? Would everyone's operator have their own age?

[Lazarow]

6 minutes ago, (XB1)Erudite God said:

How would this work for new players? Would everyone's operator have their own age?

Yes, all operators will be different. The more main quests you complete the older the operator gets.

For new players they begin as the youngest tenno(what they currently are now for everyone) when they unlock the operator. Then when they do the main quests they age more and more. The older the tenno is shown by how much expirience they have.

Edited January 21, 2019 by AwkwardLazarow

[Gabbynaru]

Sorry, but I prefer my Scarlet the way she is now, so I'll only be fine with this if it was optional.

[Chewarette]

We haven't aged for thousands of years though, probably due to our Void specificity.

Edited January 21, 2019 by Chewarette

[denis-ldv]

8 минут назад, Chewarette сказал:

We haven't aged for thousands of years though, probably due to our Void specificity.

Due to being in stasis

[SirTobe]

The community is very divided about this. The only thing DE can do without pissing a LOT of people off is to make it part of the customization.

Personally I like my Tenno as she is. The operators looking like kids is half the charm of the game imo. I always imagined that Tennos don't age physically due to the void energy, and even during stasis on Lua they were actually in the Void, where Lua was hidden, constantly getting even more exposed to void energy. They also obviously went through a lot of training after the Zariman incident, through the war, and up until going into stasis, which I can't imagine would fit within just a few years. The wiki even states that the Zariman incident happened a "long time before the war, during the void-era". At least their aging should be very slowed. 

It makes sense, to me at least. It would however also make sense that they could be of different ages within 10 years or so, anything not considered adult. So I wouldn't mind some tennos looking older than others. 

Ultimately however it's likely all more about technical difficulties. It's not a small task to add such a system this late in game development, with all the customization and items we already have. Just stretching and deforming current models as we've seen in various bugs is not a very professional way to go and will just mess up animations and various metrics. Now with the current roadmap for 2019 presented I'm sure no one would want DE to cut any of that out to fit in "aging of tenno". I mean, half of the community already hate the tenno anyway 😄 

 

The dialogue could definitely improve though, and certainly needs an update. It would make sense that they expanded this a bit for the New War quests. 

Edited January 21, 2019 by SirTobe

[Zanchak]

1 minute ago, SirTobe said:

The community is very divided about this. The only thing DE can do without pissing a LOT of people off is to make it part of the customization.

Personally I like my Tenno as she is. The operators looking like kids is half the charm of the game imo. I always imagined that Tennos don't age physically due to the void energy, and even during stasis on Lua they were actually in the Void, where Lua was hidden, constantly getting even more exposed to void energy. They also obviously went through a lot of training after the Zariman incident, through the war, and up until going into stasis, which I can't imagine would fit within just a few years. The wiki even states that the Zariman incident happened a "long time before the war, during the void-era". At least their aging should be very slowed. 

It makes sense, to me at least. It would also make sense that they could be of different ages within 10 years or so, anything not considered adult. So I wouldn't mind some tennos looking older than others. 

Ultimately however it's likely all more about technical difficulties. It's not a small task to add such a system this late in game development, with all the customization and items we already have. Just stretching and deforming current models as we've seen in various bugs is not a very professional way to go and will just mess up animations and various metrics. Now with the current roadmap for 2019 presented I'm sure no one would want DE to cut any of that out to fit in "aging of tenno". I mean, half of the community already hate the tenno anyway 😄 

 

The dialogue could definitely improve though, and certainly needs an update. It would make sense that they expanded this a bit for the New War quests. 

They added operators to begin with - and pissed a lot of people off.

If they added aging customization, many would be less pissed off. It's legit creepy walking into the quills, little duck or anywhere and being surrounded by things that look like children. It is also legit creepy how people speak about them in region. Neither of those things used to happen.

When I started, I was (as far as I knew) a badass warframe, not a lost kiddo. If they DID add customization, it should only go in one direction.. OLDER. Seriously, some members in region are sick.

[SirTobe]

2 hours ago, Zanchak said:

They added operators to begin with - and pissed a lot of people off.

If they added aging customization, many would be less pissed off. It's legit creepy walking into the quills, little duck or anywhere and being surrounded by things that look like children. It is also legit creepy how people speak about them in region. Neither of those things used to happen.

When I started, I was (as far as I knew) a badass warframe, not a lost kiddo. If they DID add customization, it should only go in one direction.. OLDER. Seriously, some members in region are sick.

Creepy? You sound very old fashioned, lol. It's no secret that Warframe is very influenced by manga/anime, where the heroes and warriors are usually kids. It's a thing, and a road that DE decided to go with the game. It does kind of stand out for a violent game like this outside of asia, but I don't really see that as a bad thing. There are plenty of other games doing the expected thing with older characters/operators, so it's an opportunity to be different.

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to in the region chat, but keep in mind that a lot of players are very young, in some cases even younger than the looks of their tenno 😄 So I wouldn't jump to conclusions just because someone's acting inappropriate about their tenno. But then again region chat is what it is, mostly a lot of weird and confused people. I'm not defending anyone here.

And it is one thing to add a new system like the tenno, but a completely different thing to drastically change it years later, especially when people are so obsessed with their fashion. DE has mentioned several times how they never expected customization would become such a big thing for them, and that the metrics for that were flawed to begin with. That's why they struggled half of last year with converting and updating all the related cosmetics pre-Fortuna to make it all fit better together and make sense with new and upcoming stuff. They actually added more defined shapes to the meshes as well, adding like 2 years to their "age". Hair is now fleshed out too and old ones are getting updated. Next step is hopefully to update the face textures, and with some luck maybe we'll get a shader of some sort to add more age to their skin with a slider. 

 

I do agree though that if age was added as a customization option, a lot more people would be happy about them. Question is when the time would be right to do it. I don't feel like we use them enough yet for such an update to make sense, considering everything else DE is working on right now. They need to become more relevant in day-to-day missions, not just an optional playstyle that most players ignore. I'd put it on a note for 2020, after New War and revamped alerts.

Edited January 21, 2019 by SirTobe

[5H4DE]

The operator models we see on devstream already seem to be a WIP update to their bodies to me. Now I dunno about aging them to adulthood, but somewhere to the limits where they can still be considered teens. 

Regardless of aging or not, I do hope we'll eventually get updated animations for the operators, especially to im-mission idles and that atrocious running animation.

Remember in the lore there were talks of some Tenno being so strong and proficient with their power that they didn't need to use a Warframe in the war? Hope we do get there and our animations can reflect that.

[(PSN)Apoleon_amarr]

Yeah, aging shouldnt even be possible, demonic void forms would make more sense imo

[Dabnician]

With as off topic region goes we do not need aging operators... If you all could talk about JUST the game in region chat then maybe but honestly thats just going to be one more "how can i get banned by not talking about the game in region" game.

[(XBOX)ZenithLord 42]

I’d be fine with it if it was a slider based appearance option only. 

[Zanchak]

9 hours ago, SirTobe said:

Creepy? You sound very old fashioned, lol. It's no secret that Warframe is very influenced by manga/anime, where the heroes and warriors are usually kids. It's a thing, and a road that DE decided to go with the game. It does kind of stand out for a violent game like this outside of asia, but I don't really see that as a bad thing. There are plenty of other games doing the expected thing with older characters/operators, so it's an opportunity to be different.

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to in the region chat, but keep in mind that a lot of players are very young, in some cases even younger than the looks of their tenno 😄 So I wouldn't jump to conclusions just because someone's acting inappropriate about their tenno. But then again region chat is what it is, mostly a lot of weird and confused people. I'm not defending anyone here.

And it is one thing to add a new system like the tenno, but a completely different thing to drastically change it years later, especially when people are so obsessed with their fashion. DE has mentioned several times how they never expected customization would become such a big thing for them, and that the metrics for that were flawed to begin with. That's why they struggled half of last year with converting and updating all the related cosmetics pre-Fortuna to make it all fit better together and make sense with new and upcoming stuff. They actually added more defined shapes to the meshes as well, adding like 2 years to their "age". Hair is now fleshed out too and old ones are getting updated. Next step is hopefully to update the face textures, and with some luck maybe we'll get a shader of some sort to add more age to their skin with a slider. 

 

I do agree though that if age was added as a customization option, a lot more people would be happy about them. Question is when the time would be right to do it. I don't feel like we use them enough yet for such an update to make sense, considering everything else DE is working on right now. They need to become more relevant in day-to-day missions, not just an optional playstyle that most players ignore. I'd put it on a note for 2020, after New War and revamped alerts.

I don't have to jump to conclusions about what people mean in region lol, its often very very forward. Some regions need more mods though to remove the people who think that kind of thing is "amusing". The report function works for those who go over the top. I do remember them considering the option to make them look older, which would be appealing for those of us -not- interested in been a child warrior, so I hope they go along that path eventually. Even a shader as you mention would be a start. As for in-mission, personally, I hope they don't become more relevant in day to day missions though, I play warframe to play with my warframes. 😄

[peterc3]

17 hours ago, AwkwardLazarow said:

This will also allow to express the weight they carry with them from what they been through as they have not had it well for them as seen from the main quests.

This can be done without explicitly adding weight to them.

None of this requires anything but writing new lines for existing VAs.

[Xzorn]

Seems like this could be mostly accomplished with a height slider and some new faces.

Perhaps some slider options like melee holster has so the player can fix clipping issues on their own.

 

10 hours ago, (PS4)ZERO_ghost90 said:

Yeah, aging shouldnt even be possible, demonic void forms would make more sense imo

Like this?

[(NSW)RoyalSnek]

Honestly I just want more than 2 voices to choose from and to be able to modify my height.

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

39 minutes ago, (NSW)RoyalSnek said:

Honestly I just want more than 2 voices to choose from and to be able to modify my height.

but there's 4

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

On 2019-01-21 at 1:36 AM, AwkwardLazarow said:

-Have their bodies develop further: More bulky males, and females with more expressed feminine attributes(example: for males something like Nezha's deluxe model, for females: like Nezha's base model ). 

*fixed*

[Birdframe_Prime]

Eh, I'm going to chip in with a 'Wait and See' (tm)

Honestly, the main reason that we haven't aged in game is because there's only been (in the timeline) a few months at most between the quests of The Second Dream, The War Within and The Sacrifice. We're not even a year older, yet.

After The New War, though? Let's wait and see.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

On 2019-01-21 at 5:48 AM, denis-ldv said:

Due to being in stasis

Has the story specifically confirmed that or is it just assumed? I'm sincerely asking because I don't remember and Warframe doesn't exactly blurt out straightforward confirm-able lore without a million other questions very often..

@OP, do we know for a fact that the Operators aren't aging currently, but because it's irrelevant to the story it's just not shown? I haven't seen Nakak age a day either...if we age then she should've been growing up too, which leads me to believe that time isn't a relevant factor in the story or this game. That's typically the case in 99% of games, considering you don't age a day while completing journeys that could take years in the real world.

If we really started aging at set story points it would then suggest the rest of the solar system is immortal and we are rushing to our graves because even the children are never changing. That creates more questions than people already have about the Operators now...

[Shadow-Spawn]

And while we are at it - DE should make the operators sit down in the focus chair, when they are being customized by us. Their faces are being zoomed in - up close - at a different angle, because they are suddenly standing up instead of sitting down, so it's impossible to make actual eye contact with them like before - no matter how much you move the cursor. They now look tired or on drugs.

[kgabor]

On 2019-01-22 at 4:26 AM, Xzorn said:

Like this?

This is beautiful. 

Imagine this as a Vauban skin: Second ability renamed to McLayer.

[Elementalos]

more customization options are always good but an automatic aging system tied to quest progression sounds weird.

[(NSW)RoyalSnek]

22 hours ago, (XB1)Erudite God said:

but there's 4

2 for guys

2 for girls

 

Sure you could use them either way but still