Chekovs Gun store - ammunition not included

[0_The_F00l]

For those that are not aware,

‘Chekhov’s Gun’ is a concept that describes how every element of a story should contribute to the whole. It comes from Anton Chekhov’s famous book writing advice: ‘If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.’

In other words, everything that is introduced in a story needs to have a function.

I started playing warframe almost three years ago.

It showed me many oh so many things, I always had this “oh wow that is so cool” thought in my head for the first few months. Everything was new and had this “it will make sense later” feel to it.

Fast forward to now, many of the things did reveal themselves but a lot more things are still just sitting there, with no function, only form.

There are enough of these Chekovs guns for DE to sell them from the back of a shady truck in an alley.

Was it oversight? Pure negligence? They simply forgot about it? Or the concept is just no longer applicable? or has their scene still not come?

I would like to remind the team of these things if it's one of the first three, if it's the later two… maybe just remove them? What's the point of keeping them in and keep people guessing?

I am listing these things, will update them as I remember more or other players highlight it.

1. Unum - the whole reason for the existence of ostrons and cetus, that big tower is just there, can't even get near it, the only vague hints you get are from the comic.
2. Helminth - granted this is actually used but not in its entirety, there is the bed, the food, the aquarium, the actual voice in the room. .
3. The transference synapse - what the hell is that giant white tree in the transference room? What does it do? Can I lick it?
4. The bones of the Eidolons - on the plains they are just there, they don't do anything but provide a scope of the battle (is that enough?) i am ok to drop this as per comments below.
5. The orbiter - where was this for a thousand years? How does it look from the outside? Why can't we explore the other floors of it even after getting enough salvage and alloy plates to build our own dreadnaught? (not to be confused with the landing craft)
6. Orokin maw- wow cool tech demo, so we can control orokin automata on only this select location.
7. Alad V - This is kinda reverse issue , this guy has been fired so many times that i dont know what to expect when he turns up in any dialogue. The has been fired multiple times but there are no bullet holes. 
8. Synthesis (non daily) - this was a means to get some lore and back story on characters I loved it in the beginning, I thought more entries would unlock with MR or as I progress the game. Now it's just an abandoned console. 

I know there are more but I am tired for now, will add later.

Edited May 12, 2019 by 0_The_F00l
added synthesis

[Drachnyn]

Chekow's advice was just that: advice, not a law of some kind. It's his oppinion on how to write a story. That doesn't mean everyone should view it the same and it would get pretty boring really fast if everyone would follow his advice all the time.

[0_The_F00l]

1 minute ago, Drachnyn said:

Chekow's advice was just that: advice, not a law of some kind. It's his oppinion on how to write a story. That doesn't mean everyone should view it the same and it would get pretty boring really fast if everyone would follow his advice all the time.

Did I mention it's a law? No. 

Did I mention it is applicable to a lot of the props in the game that are introduced but have no function ? Yes.

 

 

[Walkampf]

Dear god, you should read an actual Story instead of flipping randomly through the urban dictionary.

1. If you'd consistantly stick with Chekovs idea, any story whould feel extremly hollow.

From background characters over world building elements to little fun things like eastereggs and injokes.

if you remove all this and only stick with what is needed for the story, the story itself becomes stale and boring.

There is a very good example in the current pop-culture to explain this:

"Imagin if, during Ironman 1, Tony Stark had not ased for a cheeseburger, after he got back to civilisation."

This was a throwaway line, which not only made Stark more relatable in the situations, but it also opened up the possibility for one of the greatest scenes in recent movie-history during Avengers Endgame.

2. Chekovs idea is only supposed to be applied to a finished story to check for possibilities to streamline.

It is NOT suppoesed to be appield to a story during it's conception-stage and since Warframes story is basically written in realtime, something that simply did not exist during the time Chekov pruposed his idea.

 

So, yeah, just read an actual book, OK?

[Nitro747]

OP makes a post citing a bunch of floating forgotten ideas and "teases" that makes the game feel hollow as heck. People respond complaining about the example he used as to why authors of any story shouldn't do what DE is doing with Warframe. This is the biggest problem with this community, every single problem written in posts goes completely r/woooosh on people.

 

Either way, I couldn't agree more, DE has this HORRIBLE tendency of either pretending they didn't add anything about certain topics of the story or they finally answer our questions 4 or 5 years later. It's just poor story writing. I think that we will finally get some closure about the Orbiter in itself when Empirean comes out God knows when. Took them over six years to finally do that (if they do that). Meanwhile, there are people who still think that the Liset and the Orbiter are the same things (don't ask me HOW they are capable of thinking a tiny landing ship that can barely fit a warframe lying down is capable of having 3 floors with big rooms and enough space to bullet jump around).

[Drachnyn]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb 0_The_F00l:

• Unum - the whole reason for the existence of ostrons and cetus, that big tower is just there, can't even get near it, the only vague hints you get are from the comic.

• Helminth - granted this is actually used but not in its entirety, there is the bed, the food, the aquarium, the actual voice in the room. .

• The transference synapse - what the hell is that giant white tree in the transference room? What does it do? Can I lick it?

• The bones of the Eidolons - on the plains they are just there, they don't do anything but provide a scope of the battle (is that enough?)

• The orbiter - where was this for a thousand years? How does it look from the outside? Why can't we explore the other floors of it even after getting enough salvage and alloy plates to build our own dreadnaught? (not to be confused with the landing craft)

• Orokin maw- wow cool tech demo, so we can control orokin automata on only this select location.

1. Unum and Quills are strongly connected. Quills are intefering with the story on a few occasions now but it would be a waste to reveal the true scope of the Unum just yet.

2. Helminth was mentioned in the Sacrifice in the reveal how warframes were created.

3. You can place Clem noggles all over it. IIRC the plants give energy to whatever they are connected to.

4. That is enough. Gara's backstory told us that the bomb reshaped the landscape and shattered the Eidolon so the bones should be there. This doesn't mean they cant be used again though.

5. We actually know how it looks from the outside from concept art.

6. We used the same trick to control the Maw on Umbra. 

Quest take a tremendous amount of time for DE and with their tendency to make up new things all the time, it will take a while.
 

[0_The_F00l]

33 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

Dear god, you should read an actual Story instead of flipping randomly through the urban dictionary.

1. If you'd consistantly stick with Chekovs idea, any story whould feel extremly hollow.

From background characters over world building elements to little fun things like eastereggs and injokes.

if you remove all this and only stick with what is needed for the story, the story itself becomes stale and boring.

There is a very good example in the current pop-culture to explain this:

"Imagin if, during Ironman 1, Tony Stark had not ased for a cheeseburger, after he got back to civilisation."

This was a throwaway line, which not only made Stark more relatable in the situations, but it also opened up the possibility for one of the greatest scenes in recent movie-history during Avengers Endgame.

2. Chekovs idea is only supposed to be applied to a finished story to check for possibilities to streamline.

It is NOT suppoesed to be appield to a story during it's conception-stage and since Warframes story is basically written in realtime, something that simply did not exist during the time Chekov pruposed his idea.

 

So, yeah, just read an actual book, OK?

I understand your view, but perhaps you should maintain the context of the topic. 

I am talking about very specific elements which are present in the game, things that were intentionally added but have no function at the current moment. 

I am not arguing storytelling methodology, I am arguing leaving things incomplete for years or forgetting about it. 

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

Hmm, not a bad point, but let's see:

1. The story of Cetus has not finished, the gun does not need to be fired the next chapter over, but at some point in the story. Considering that the Plains, Fortuna and even upcoming places like Duviri, are not done and still have the opportunity to evolve... they can leave it as landscape until that happens.

2. Helminth; see above. I would expect this sooner than the Unum, though, as it may well be used in The New War for our Operator in some regard.

3. The white trees are actually used throughout the Orokin tech and are thought to be living power conduits very similar to our own nervous system. It's well known, thanks to the Unum history, that the Towers are/were living constructs that grew and repaired themselves, thus the white trees must function as part of that. It may even be that the white tree in our Orbiter is the synapse that allows us to use Void Transference before our innate Transference ability is mature and also as a living power conduit throughout the ship. The 'living' part may also attest as to why it appears to have grown a little over the edges of its pit, as this is what it would have been doing for thousands of years.

4. Yes, having the eidolon bones be a simple setting for scale is enough, we have actual Eidolons wandering the plains as it is.

5. See update coming 'soon', Empyrion (I would guess).

6. See update coming 'soon', Planes of Duviri (I think).

[Guest]

Some things are actually just there to add more meat to the overall world, really. Chekov's Gun is actually something that should be sparingly applied and based on the entire context, not applied to every single thing in a story. I propose a counter example:

There's a guy living in somewhere that is NOT Japan who has a rack of katanas in his house. He is Japanese. He eats Sushi. Ok, so if we are rigorous about the usage of Chekov's gun, then he has to draw one of the katanas and attack someone/defend his house from a gunman/kill his wife in cold blood/face a zombie apocalyse, despite the obvious reason of him buying the katanas being a reminder of his heritage (or chuunibyou nature). Point is, things that contribute to the overall atmosphere of the world have every right to be there, without them being used tangibly in the main storyline. It's like garnishing food with flowers - you don't eat the flowers and they don't serve any purpose in the dish, but they are important as presentation elements.

Form is important in a story as well, as part of worldbuilding. Having function in everything makes a story look overly ambitious, and as previously mentioned, hollow. Many things in our real life are just there. Real life is full of clutter. In that case, why would a fantasy world not have random clutter and information scattered everywhere that serves no purpose other than being part of the world? Some of these elements, maybe DE has some idea for them later one, but others, most likely they are just there. They simply are, and they do not serve a purpose in the main narrative, but rather as peripherals to make the world seem richer and more fleshed out than it really is.

Therefore, is it not possible to accept that DE perhaps added those things you talked about simply because they fit the context? Is there a necessity for them to be part of the story when they are part of the world instead?

[Walkampf]

vor 11 Minuten schrieb 0_The_F00l:

I am not arguing storytelling methodology,

Yes, you are arguing storytelling methology, and badly, since you don't understand that Chekovs Gun cannot be applied to an ongoing writing process.

vor 30 Minuten schrieb 0_The_F00l:

or forgetting about it. 

So, I can take it, that you are actually a DE employee, who knows the direction Warframes story is going?

Because if not, that whould mean that you assume things and to assume means to make an a$$ out of you and me.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

Yes, you are arguing storytelling methology, and badly, since you don't understand that Chekovs Gun cannot be applied to an ongoing writing process.

To correct you and be pedantic, actually Chekov's Gun cannot be applied to the framework and key events planning of a story, but it CAN be used if you have a clear idea that the element you have introduced MUST be used in the future. Only after you have resolved the key events, then you can consider Chekov's gun. But you can consider it before the finished story - you only need to know the story UNTIL the Chekov's gun is used.

Again, I use my example above, the Japanese guy not in Japan misses Japan. Bam, Magic, he's thrown into another world outside of his will and his rack of katanas follows him. So he uses the katanas to fight his way through the other world. Doesn't mean you have to have planned as far to the guy killing the demon lord/big bad/flying spaghetti monster for you to use Chekov's gun. Chekov's gun has already fired, yet it's still ongoing.

Not to say that I agree with OP (I actually do not), but using Chekov's gun in Warframe is NOT as impossible or wrong as you make it out to be. You do not need to know the end for Chekov's gun to be successfully used, and your assumption that Warframe's story is in the conception stage is actually flawed to begin with - DE is always a few steps ahead of us regarding story.

Edited May 10, 2019 by Guest

[Teridax68]

So, to be clear, Chekov's Gun typically applies to significant elements in a story that are given attention -- in the given example, a gun on the wall. It is also used in the context of theater, i.e. an environment where props and background tend to be used sparingly, and thus where props named in the play need to be significant in some way. By contrast, Warframe is a video game that immerses the player in a wholly new environment -- the fifth rock to the right of the player's landing platform in Cetus does not need to kill Vay Hek in order to have its presence justified. It is okay for elements to be added for purposes of worldbuilding, as is prominently the case in the Mass Effect series, for example, without needing to directly contribute to the plot.

If there is something I agree with, however, is that many elements in Warframe are discarded as soon as they are used -- the Ravenous Golden Maw is a good example, because it's this rather interesting creature that raises question about the nature of Ayatan, yet we never see or hear from it again, nor do we gain any knowledge about Ayatan. The Transference synapses similarly don't seem to make any appearance in the Kuva Fortress, not even in the Queen's chambers where they presumably know how to transfer into other bodies. In other cases, like Helminth, the Unum, the Orbiter, and so on, I think it's simply a case of DE not getting to them yet, as the game is still under constant construction.

Warframe is a game with a lot of moving parts, but while it's okay to not have them tied up in a neat little bow at all times (which would be impossible, given that the story and world are evolving), it's not so great when some pretty significant elements get brought to the player's attention then ignored, which I think is what the OP tried to get to. In this respect, I think the Infested are actually the element suffering the most now, because it feels like many of their key themes have been taken over by the Sentient, and while we've seen both the Grineer and Corpus fleshed out significantly in recent years, the Infested haven't really evolved in the lore, not even with Helminth. There are a lot of loose threads to pick up, and while it's okay for some world elements to not be plot-relevant, even in the case of worldbuilding it helps to use the same component more than once (which should also make sense from a design economy viewpoint).

[Walkampf]

vor 5 Minuten schrieb Datam4ss:

- you only need to know the story UNTIL the Chekov's gun is used.

True, but if the OP isn't coincidently part of DE's staff he can't know if the gun was forgotten or if it just hasn't been fired yet.

 

vor 9 Minuten schrieb Datam4ss:

DE is always a few steps ahead of us regarding story.

This is exacly my point. We are onlookers, who only see the outside.

To rephrase my previous statment, it is pointless for us, as outsiders, discussing Chekovs gun.

It's basically Schroedinger cats.

We have no way to look into the box. Only DE-inserders can reasonably discuss this topic.

[Steel_Rook]

After nearly a decade of City of Heroes storytelling, I can safely say that this isn't Checkov's Gun. It's ad-hoc writing. I don't know what DE's internal structure was throughout the years, but their storytelling very much feels like they're planting "seeds" of stories only vaguely outlined with no real plans on following up on them at the time of introduction. That's a decent way to do worldbuilding as you're introducing apparent depth without actually putting in the legwork of actually filling that in, but there are severe diminishing returns on this. Sooner or later you need to go back to some of those seeds and grow them, lest you end up with a fictional world a mile wide but an inch deep.

It also causes teething issues with continuity. Without extensive plans on how various story seeds will pan out and interact in the future, you end up having to ret-con a lot of stuff. With how vague and "user-generated" Warframe's story is, that's a bit less of an issue since it mostly means we end up arguing with each other, but again - that builds up over time. DE's obsession with "cinematic quests" is to blame, I think. Rather than blowing massive amounts of time, effort and money on one quest which tells a fraction of one story, maybe go with text-only quests constructed out of the kit elements the game already builds its random missions out of but make 15 of them, instead.

There's obviously something to be said about quality over quantity, but quantity has a quality all its own. The reason I bring up City of Heroes is because that game used fairly basic storytelling mechanics to create an utterly COLOSSAL amount of storyline content easily enough to support multiple characters the entire way from level 1 to level 50. That worked up until Cryptic Studios decided to forego the simple mission design of the past and start making these overly-scripted, overly-cinematic missions whereupon their output dropped to a slow trickle. We don't need cutscenes and orchestral music spoken dialogue from multiple characters for every little quest. In a lot of cases, simple text will do. It already does, in the various Cephalon Simaris stories and the various short stories in Warframe descriptions.

Long story short, more narrative content doesn't necessarily need new gameplay systems, new locations or new cinematic quests. You can resolve or at least address a lot of the story seeds in a much simpler manner.

[0_The_F00l]

36 minutes ago, Datam4ss said:

Some things are actually just there to add more meat to the overall world, really. Chekov's Gun is actually something that should be sparingly applied and based on the entire context, not applied to every single thing in a story. I propose a counter example:

There's a guy living in somewhere that is NOT Japan who has a rack of katanas in his house. He is Japanese. He eats Sushi. Ok, so if we are rigorous about the usage of Chekov's gun, then he has to draw one of the katanas and attack someone/defend his house from a gunman/kill his wife in cold blood/face a zombie apocalyse, despite the obvious reason of him buying the katanas being a reminder of his heritage (or chuunibyou nature). Point is, things that contribute to the overall atmosphere of the world have every right to be there, without them being used tangibly in the main storyline. It's like garnishing food with flowers - you don't eat the flowers and they don't serve any purpose in the dish, but they are important as presentation elements.

Form is important in a story as well, as part of worldbuilding. Having function in everything makes a story look overly ambitious, and as previously mentioned, hollow. Many things in our real life are just there. Real life is full of clutter. In that case, why would a fantasy world not have random clutter and information scattered everywhere that serves no purpose other than being part of the world? Some of these elements, maybe DE has some idea for them later one, but others, most likely they are just there. They simply are, and they do not serve a purpose in the main narrative, but rather as peripherals to make the world seem richer and more fleshed out than it really is.

Therefore, is it not possible to accept that DE perhaps added those things you talked about simply because they fit the context? Is there a necessity for them to be part of the story when they are part of the world instead?

Yes some things are just "ambience" , it would indeed ruin the story if every single thing had function.

But when you show a tall tower in the starting of a cinematic , not giving players the ability to enter it would cause significant disappointment.

Am willing to remove things from the list if i see a convincing enough reason to term them as ambience props.

but i was hoping that people would add their own observations to add to the list though.

23 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

Yes, you are arguing storytelling methology, and badly, since you don't understand that Chekovs Gun cannot be applied to an ongoing writing process.

So, I can take it, that you are actually a DE employee, who knows the direction Warframes story is going?

Because if not, that whould mean that you assume things and to assume means to make an a$$ out of you and me.

My feedback is for them to complete these incomplete things before starting on more, an ongoing process cannot be kept up indefinitely, especially if you are making new things with the same limited resources.

It needs to be closed or written off as not viable in which case drop a meteor on it or let the players know its still something to be done later.

Making an assumption right before making a comment about assuming does not help your argument.

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

True, but if the OP isn't coincidently part of DE's staff he can't know if the gun was forgotten or if it just hasn't been fired yet.

This is exacly my point. We are onlookers, who only see the outside.

To rephrase my previous statment, it is pointless for us, as outsiders, discussing Chekovs gun.

It's basically Schroedinger cats.

We have no way to look into the box. Only DE-inserders can reasonably discuss this topic.

Then why do people whine about nerfs, the powers of Wisp or whatever DE has not trotted out yet? They still comment on it. Whether their comments are valid or not is another story.

If your government has X policy, do you have no right to criticize X policy because you are not part of the government and don't know the budget/political climate? Because you don't know how X policy will damage/help the country you just let it play out?

So no, actually. OP has the right to be concerned about the elements and voice out his concerns, and we have the right to disagree, but to say it is pointless and only to be discussed by DE is wrong.

[Guest]

Just now, 0_The_F00l said:

But when you show a tall tower in the starting of a cinematic , not giving players the ability to enter it would cause significant disappointment.

To be fair, if that tall tower was actually a nuclear reactor/filled with plasma/completely empty and useless inside I think its pretty safe to say we won't be allowed into it and we lose nothing by not going into it.

 

[0_The_F00l]

2 minutes ago, Datam4ss said:

To be fair, if that tall tower was actually a nuclear reactor/filled with plasma/completely empty and useless inside I think its pretty safe to say we won't be allowed into it and we lose nothing by not going into it.

 

Actually if i was told a nuclear reactor is empty and there is nothing inside iand i am still not allowed inside would assume they are hiding some secret alien tech which would give me super powers and i would try to break in with a lot more gusto 😛 .

[Guest]

Just now, 0_The_F00l said:

Actually if i was told a nuclear reactor is empty and there is nothing inside iand i am still not allowed inside would assume they are hiding some secret alien tech which would give me super powers and i would try to break in with a lot more gusto 😛 .

And if you went in and it is actually full of plasma that kills you instantly?

Anyway, back on topic, it just seems like you are expecting far too much from DE. I mean, I lowered my expectations of them a lot ever since the latest few updates so maybe you are just hoping for things that won't happen here.

[Walkampf]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb 0_The_F00l:

an ongoing process cannot be kept up indefinitely, especially if you are making new things with the same limited resources.

*cough*World of Warcraft *cough* Marvels Cinematic Universe

Yeah, those two were massive bombs, since their intertwining stories are really, really unatractive to the endconsumer.🙄

[0_The_F00l]

8 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

*cough*World of Warcraft *cough* Marvels Cinematic Universe

Yeah, those two were massive bombs, since their intertwining stories are really, really unatractive to the endconsumer.🙄

Emphasis on "starting something new when the earlier things are not done with limited resources on hand" , are you telling me DE has the same budget and resources as Marvel and WoW? Especially marvel? whose movies have a clear beginning , middle and end? I am starting to feel you are missing the point.

[Walkampf]

vor 3 Minuten schrieb 0_The_F00l:

Especially marvel? whose movies have a clear beginning , middle and end? I am starting to feel you are missing the point.

Dear god... and I know that youa re missing the point, as I already wrote way in the beginning.

Yes, each movie in itself has a clear beginning, middle and end, of that one episode of the complete narrative.

And each movie also features plotpoints which are not resolved in the episode itself and which have an impact later down the line, after other things have happened in the meantime.

Even Endgame, which is supposed to wrap up the current phase has several unfired gun.

For example:

Spoiler

Alternate timeline Loki taking an alternate timeline Tesseract.

According to Chekov, this whould be a problem. But with the modern options of storytelling it isn't an issue anymore, since it's impossible for the audience to know if or what will become of this.

Just as it is impossible for DEs audience to know what will happen in the future of Warframes story.

[0_The_F00l]

1 minute ago, Walkampf said:

Dear god... and I know that youa re missing the point, as I already wrote way in the beginning.

Yes, each movie in itself has a clear beginning, middle and end, of that one episode of the complete narrative.

And each movie also features plotpoints which are not resolved in the episode itself and which have an impact later down the line, after other things have happened in the meantime.

Even Endgame, which is supposed to wrap up the current phase has several unfired gun.

For example:

  Reveal hidden contents

Alternate timeline Loki taking an alternate timeline Tesseract.

According to Chekov, this whould be a problem. But with the modern options of storytelling it isn't an issue anymore, since it's impossible for the audience to know if or what will become of this.

Just as it is impossible for DEs audience to know what will happen in the future of Warframes story.

Its convenient that you only quote the parts that suit your rhetoric and ignore the rest of my comments.

My topic: DE has done a lot of things but has left a lot of loose ends, if they have done this out of negligence and extra work needed elsewhere they should focus on it now before something else that will have the same problems of being overlooked or ignored. If there really is something coming some sort of indicator would be nice.

You: OP has no understanding of DE thought process so is not entitled give feedback.

[Nitro747]

I've never seen a topic derail so effing  bad. OP is talking about lots of missing links and the way DE "writes" their story, and people go full pedantry mode and decide to discuss philosophy and muck of the sort.

[0_The_F00l]

5 minutes ago, Nitro747 said:

I've never seen a topic derail so effing  bad. OP is talking about lots of missing links and the way DE "writes" their story, and people go full pedantry mode and decide to discuss philosophy and muck of the sort.

Guess it is partially my fault for quoting a concept in the beginning and basing my title on it.