Cross Progression / Account Merging - when?

[IIDMOII]

Have they mentioned any timeline on when we can expect to merge our (up to 4 different) accounts? 

I refuse to play or give any cross platform developer another cent until this happens. 

Hi-Rez studios (smite, paladins etc) has proven that the "hurdles" with cross progression are entirely self imposed by developers. Sony, Microsoft nor Nintendo aren't stopping them. 

They've proven that the entire process works and only takes the user a single button click on their website. 

No more quadruple dipping and then making false claims that platform holders are at fault.

When?

[Uan91]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cross+platform+warframe

[Orblit]

Love when people go to forums without researching first.

[Letter13]

The answer to "When?" is "Don't get your hopes up."

Although DE has expressed interest in cross-platform related things, there is a mixture of technical and contractual hurdles; clearing said hurdles would require breaking promises and getting the platform makers (Sony/Microsoft and probably Nintendo too) to agree to it... which is unlikely because it would mean a potential loss of players on their platform as well as a potential loss of revenue (players would simply hop to PC, buy platinum with discounts, and hop back to a console--with a huge quantity of platinum that said console maker did not get a cut of the sales of). 

[(PSN)xtharbadx]

7 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

The answer to "When?" is "Don't get your hopes up."

Although DE has expressed interest in cross-platform related things, there is a mixture of technical and contractual hurdles; clearing said hurdles would require breaking promises and getting the platform makers (Sony/Microsoft and probably Nintendo too) to agree to it... which is unlikely because it would mean a potential loss of players on their platform as well as a potential loss of revenue (players would simply hop to PC, buy platinum with discounts, and hop back to a console--with a huge quantity of platinum that said console maker did not get a cut of the sales of). 

I don't buy this argument that seems to push blame to platform owners, when we all know they are doing that with other f2p games driven by in game purchases, way bigger than Warframe. Like, say, Fortnite.

Yes, I'm sure there are hurdles. But if DE *really* wanted to push this, they would do it. It's on them to make that step, IMHO.

[Xaelroa]

12 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

The answer to "When?" is "Don't get your hopes up."

Although DE has expressed interest in cross-platform related things, there is a mixture of technical and contractual hurdles; clearing said hurdles would require breaking promises and getting the platform makers (Sony/Microsoft and probably Nintendo too) to agree to it... which is unlikely because it would mean a potential loss of players on their platform as well as a potential loss of revenue (players would simply hop to PC, buy platinum with discounts, and hop back to a console--with a huge quantity of platinum that said console maker did not get a cut of the sales of). 

Phoenix studios is handling this aspect with an interesting idea: They are attempting to fix it so that whatever plat you buy is restricted to the platform it was bought on, while still allowing cross progression. That would solve a huge part of the plat sales issue, however it wouldn't solve other aspects of cross progression, so I agree with the general statement of "don't get your hopes up".

They'd have to have all versions patching at the same time, which would ultimately cause problems given how often they tend to hotfix after new updates versus how long cert tends to take for console versions. There are some actual technical issues related to this for DE as well, though I can't think of them offhand.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Xaelroa

[Letter13]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)xtharbadx said:

Yes, I'm sure there are hurdles. But if DE *really* wanted to push this, they would do it. It's on them to make that step, IMHO.

Well on one hand, they could do it... and as a result cause potentially irreparable harm to their reputation (read: the part where I say doing it would require breaking promises).

Just now, Xaelroa said:

They'd have to have all versions patching at the same time, which would ultimately cause problems given how often they tend to hotfix after new updates versus how long cert tends to take for console versions. There are some actual technical issues related to this for DE as well, though I can't think of them offhand.

This is the technical hurdle which would also result in a broken promise I alluded to in my original post and my previous statement in this same post (specifically the promise that PC development would never be slowed, halted or put on ice for the sake of console development).

 

It would also mean that consoles would get much buggier builds than they already do; a lot of the bugs that come along with updates get squashed on PC before they have a chance to get to consoles. 

[(PSN)xtharbadx]

1 minute ago, Letter13 said:

Well on one hand, they could do it... and as a result cause potentially irreparable harm to their reputation (read: the part where I say doing it would require breaking promises).

This is the technical hurdle which would also result in a broken promise I alluded to in my original post and my previous statement in this same post (specifically the promise that PC development would never be slowed, halted or put on ice for the sake of console development).

 

It would also mean that consoles would get much buggier builds than they already do; a lot of the bugs that come along with updates get squashed on PC before they have a chance to get to consoles. 

I don't argue any of that, only with what you mentioned about:

17 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

getting the platform makers (Sony/Microsoft and probably Nintendo too) to agree to it... which is unlikely because it would mean a potential loss of players on their platform as well as a potential loss of revenue

.. which is implying that what is blocking the adoption of cross platform / progression is the platform owners agreeing with it.

I don't have any evidence thou, just going by what we've seen with other games that are way more relevant than Warframe. Happy to be proven wrong if you have any information that you can share.

[Koldraxon-732]

Account mergers? Maybe, but only regarding inventory sharing between own accounts (which DE hinted at, which is what DE technically does when they do an 'account transfer' across platforms - this would save people like me, too, a lot of time when trying to get our console-side accounts up-to-scratch).

Builds all being the same all the time? Not always possible; hotfixes and certification processes will prevent this.

As well as the companies owning the other platforms having complex wording, constraints, and other unwritten rules aside from the cert process denying DE from making Warframe across all platforms rely on a singular version. Not to mention Panic Button are compressing it for Nintendo Switch, so there's already code inconsistencies there.

In a nutshell, the best you or I can hope for is a button saying 'link account' to the other platforms, allowing you to use your PC (or chosen platform you linked, which would be a 1-time action) as the 'main' for all others to base their inventories and progression on, so that if you do go on another platform, everything from your 'main' platform of play is available.

The first caveat is that nothing you owned that you carried over thanks to the inventory merger, not even the plat, can be traded. This would save having to carefully sift through and delete items from people's inventories who've crossed to or from another platform which would've given them a monetary advantage.

The second is that if PC/platform is a build ahead, it cannot update the inventory of the platforms that are behind to reflect any changes done to it until they are updated to a build that allows for another inventory sharing phase.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Koldraxon-732
Hotfix 2

[TARINunit9]

36 minutes ago, (PS4)xtharbadx said:

I don't buy this argument that seems to push blame to platform owners

Who absolutely deserve the blame. Like, in every situation, even unrelated to video games. I'm sure I can find some way to blame them for the continued existence of anti-vaxxers, but let's stick to video games.

You mentioned Fortnite, yet I am surprised you are unaware just how POSSESSIVE Sony is about Fortnite. If you sign up for an Epic Games Fortnite account through a Playstation, that account is perma-locked to Playstation, even though Sony doesn't own the account or Epic Games. In a similar situation, Rocket League's developers have stated they could activate cross-platform play on Playstation in an instant, but Sony refuses to play nice with Microsoft

[(PSN)xtharbadx]

29 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Who absolutely deserve the blame. Like, in every situation, even unrelated to video games. I'm sure I can find some way to blame them for the continued existence of anti-vaxxers, but let's stick to video games.

You mentioned Fortnite, yet I am surprised you are unaware just how POSSESSIVE Sony is about Fortnite. If you sign up for an Epic Games Fortnite account through a Playstation, that account is perma-locked to Playstation, even though Sony doesn't own the account or Epic Games. In a similar situation, Rocket League's developers have stated they could activate cross-platform play on Playstation in an instant, but Sony refuses to play nice with Microsoft

I'm sure they deserve lots of blame for lots of things, but I think that if DE really wanted to make this a priority, they would, it's on them to make that step imho. The assumption that *Warframe* can't be cross platform/progress because of Microsoft/Sony/etc is just guess work. Do we actually know this to be true on the case of Warframe? Because so far, I haven't seen anything or heard anything from DE that supports this assumption. Happy to be proven wrong thou.

Personal opinon, I think there's a larger issue at play, which is simply that maybe there is no business case for DE to justify that investment ( which is probably quite a lot ) as a priority at the moment. I can understand that, if it's the case. Cross platform/progress isn't necessarily going to result in more players/revenue. 

Edited April 11, 2019 by (PS4)xtharbadx

[TARINunit9]

31 minutes ago, (PS4)xtharbadx said:

but I think that if DE really wanted to make this a priority, they would, it's on them to make that step imho. The assumption that *Warframe* can't be cross platform/progress because of Microsoft/Sony/etc is just guess work. Do we actually know this to be true on the case of Warframe?

Yes, we do. There is literally nothing technologically incompatible between versions, it's entirely red tape. Warframe runs on DE's private engine, Evolution, and all account data is stored in DE's private servers. We saw this during the Switch migration: all anyone had to do was log in on the Switch, and they had a perfect copy of their PC progress. And before that, DE had stated multiple times that if Sony and Microsoft could stop whining for five minutes they would absolutely be open to another PC -> console migration. It costs DE nothing

X-bone and Nintendo already have limited cross-platform play in certain games, so the infrastructure exists to actually let the games play together. Technologically, there is NOTHING standing in the way. It's all about the lawyers, all about the bureaucrats hiring those lawyers. I take a look at your words, "if DE really wanted to make this a priority", and all I can say is: it's not how much work, it's the kind of work. It's not about development, it's about negotiation

[(PSN)xtharbadx]

2 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Yes, we do. There is literally nothing technologically incompatible between versions, it's entirely red tape. Warframe runs on DE's private engine, Evolution, and all account data is stored in DE's private servers. We saw this during the Switch migration: all anyone had to do was log in on the Switch, and they had a perfect copy of their PC progress. And before that, DE had stated multiple times that if Sony and Microsoft could stop whining for five minutes they would absolutely be open to another PC -> console migration. It costs DE nothing

X-bone and Nintendo already have limited cross-platform play in certain games, so the infrastructure exists to actually let the games play together. Technologically, there is NOTHING standing in the way. It's all about the lawyers, all about the bureaucrats hiring those lawyers. I take a look at your words, "if DE really wanted to make this a priority", and all I can say is: it's not how much work, it's the kind of work. It's not about development, it's about negotiation

The only thing I've heard from DE in regards to cross platform/progression was "we're thinking about it".

Not aware of them taking any actionable steps beyond just brainstorming the idea. Like, say, actually committing to work on it, or let us know that they are working on making that a possibility. Nor, for that matter, have I ever heard that platform owners are blocking it ( since they started opening up for cross-* ). Which is why I don't think we should outright blame those platform owners for a process that ( apparently ) hasn't even started from DE's side - AFAIK, happy to be proven wrong. 

Account migrations is an entirely different thing.

 

[TARINunit9]

1 hour ago, (PS4)xtharbadx said:

Not aware of them taking any actionable steps beyond just brainstorming the idea. Like, say, actually committing to work on it, or let us know that they are working on making that a possibility

Devstream 113: Nintendo Switch migration was in development, and migration to X-bone and Playstation was perfectly ready to go in all ways except Sony and Microsoft not actually letting them do it

There's the "actionable steps", you are now aware of them

They don't NEED to work on it, the work is already DONE. They just need Sony and Microsoft to LET THEM

[Firetempest]

The thing to take away from their answer I think is late console life negotiations the other publishers had doing cross progression/play. You might not see anything starting to happen tell next gen depending on contracts which we will more than likely never know the details of.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Firetempest

[(PSN)xtharbadx]

18 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Devstream 113: Nintendo Switch migration was in development, and migration to X-bone and Playstation was perfectly ready to go in all ways except Sony and Microsoft not actually letting them do it

There's the "actionable steps", you are now aware of them

They don't NEED to work on it, the work is already DONE. They just need Sony and Microsoft to LET THEM

Again, you are mixing two different topics. Account migration is not the same as cross platform/progression.

But that's fine, we can agree to disagree on that, no point keep going in circles.

[TARINunit9]

24 minutes ago, (PS4)xtharbadx said:

Again, you are mixing two different topics. Account migration is not the same as cross platform/progression.

But that's fine, we can agree to disagree on that, no point keep going in circles.

Ignoring the fact that their differences are largely irrelevant, take a look at Firetempest's post above me. While Steve confirms they're not working on it, it's solely because Microsoft and Sony have given them no reason to work on it. No talk of technical difficulties, only the "negotiation environment". I'm not just repeating myself, Steve is talking specifically about cross-platform play

Edited April 11, 2019 by TARINunit9

[(PSN)xtharbadx]

44 minutes ago, Firetempest said:

The thing to take away from their answer I think is late console life negotiations the other publishers had doing cross progression/play. You might not see anything starting to happen tell next gen depending on contracts which we will more than likely never know the details of.

Yup. This was the conversation I remember hearing on the Devstream, thanks for sharing, I wasn't sure which devstream was it.

Some key takeaways from that conversation:

1) It's possible and they have been thinking about it

2) They don't have anything planned at the moment

3) It would imply taking a big risk associated with contracts renegotiations ( doubt we will ever know what they actually mean with this )

4) It would be a big technical challenge for DE to maintain synchronised versions across all platforms

Yes, of course that it would imply renegotiation of contracts. But going from there to "DE wants to do it but can't do it because Microsoft and Sony don't let them" is a big stretch, which is what I'm disagreeing on this thread.

The assumption that DE isn't doing it because Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo are blocking it, is incorrect IMHO. They didn't mention any of that, which is not surprising since the process hasn't even started yet ( read 1,2 ).

 

[TARINunit9]

59 minutes ago, (PS4)xtharbadx said:

The assumption that DE isn't doing it because Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo are blocking it, is incorrect IMHO. They didn't mention any of that, which is not surprising since the process hasn't even started yet ( read 1,2 ).

Did you even read your own number 3?

(Yes, I'm basically just being very public about how vindictive I am about Sony and Microsoft. I will shut up now)

[(PSN)SlothGirly]

I just want my progress to carry over to PC, I couldn't care less about crossplatform play, once I dont lose progress after making a jump from console to PC I'm happy. 

[Ham_Grenabe]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Alpha_Jackson said:

I just want my progress to carry over to PC, I couldn't care less about crossplatform play, once I dont lose progress after making a jump from console to PC I'm happy. 

That would have been nice when I switched from Xbox to PC. I abandoned an MR18 account to start over, and that was a bit painful. 

[EmberStar]

On 2019-04-10 at 5:10 PM, Letter13 said:

Well on one hand, they could do it... and as a result cause potentially irreparable harm to their reputation (read: the part where I say doing it would require breaking promises).

This is the technical hurdle which would also result in a broken promise I alluded to in my original post and my previous statement in this same post (specifically the promise that PC development would never be slowed, halted or put on ice for the sake of console development).

 

It would also mean that consoles would get much buggier builds than they already do; a lot of the bugs that come along with updates get squashed on PC before they have a chance to get to consoles. 

If it's only sharing progression, it wouldn't necessarily require each platform to be on the same version.  If one platform had content that wasn't available on the others and you earned it, it could (potentially) flag your account as having that thing unlocked and simply add it when it was patched into the other versions.  Of course, this and platinum purchases are really the part that would make the console owners freak out.  People could do all their progressing and purchasing on their PC accounts, with no need to even play on the other systems.  I don't think it would really satisfy them if they made it so that cosmetics had to be re-purchased on each system.  And doing it that way would annoy a lot of players.  Not all, since some ignore fashionframe anyway, and some would just be content to use their preferred platform to collect all the costume bits and just have the versions on other systems so that they can play with friends.

I know that personally, I went ahead and copied my account to the Switch.  Then realized that none of my Tennogen purchases carried over, most of my rare mods had been stripped, and none of the Fortuna content was unlocked.  Since I had zero interest in re-grinding Fortuna, and even less in spending money for costume parts I feel I already paid for, I just sort of stopped playing on the Switch.  And now that I've missed all the Nightwave progress and couldn't catch up even if I wanted to, there's even less reason to log in.  The farther behind that account becomes, the less incentive I have to play it.

It'll just sit there. I have a cousin who is a massive Destiny fan, and maybe someday they'll visit and I can log in and hand them the controller so they can give Warframe a try.  I doubt it though.  First, they never visit.  Second, that's probably considered account sharing and could get me banned or something.