Idea pitch: Warframe Chat app

[(NSW)ShinNL]

Hi DE,

Love the game, been playing it for quite a while on Nintendo Switch. I've made some good friends there, but there always has been a hurdle of communication. The more chatty the person, the more we're stuck with the full on-screen keyboard and slow typing. Thus most people try not to chat as much as possible. I was talking with one of these friends how the lack of social interactions hurts all of us in the long run.

Several times I've invited people to Discord, exchanged usernames just to be able to chat normally. In case of no headsets, even an external third party app just to chat was easier to use while playing the game, than actually in-game.

You've done a great job with the current implementation and even support headsets on Switch. However, I was brainstorming and I said to my friend: Wouldn't it be nice if Warframe had a similar phone app like Animal Crossing where you can type on your mobile and see your message in-game?

Then... I remembered the Warframe app does allow chatting with people in-game. But there are limitations, so I booted it up to test it.
1. It let's you talk in clan and to your friends (though lack of any tabs makes switching hard and switching back to clan chat impossible)
2. While logged in app, you can't progress or see chat anymore (basically as good as logged out in-game, while seeing in-game assets)

The chat tech... is there. You can type on mobile, to communicate with someone in-game. It just lacks a few final touches to be functional. So my pitch:

Warframe Chat app (or whatever name), that mirrors the in-game chat of the game. Same style, same front, same tabs, same PMs.
Value 1: keeping players engaged even when not playing, like reading clan chat. Better retention.
Value 2: allowing people to ask friends if they feel like playing without third party apps / third party friend lists, thus more activity. Better retention and possibly even growth in user base.
Value 3: console players can use this to chat (not everyone has a wireless keyboard, and even with wireless keyboards the full-screen keyboard gets in the way). Thus will tremendously boost social interactions on all console platforms, retaining and regaining a lot of players. Better retention and very likely growth in user base (brings consoles much closer to the social aspect of the PC version).

Question: Why a separate app?
The current app is a highly functioning one, but that means it's also forced to lock people out of progress, making it impossible to be a 'chat companion'. The current app also disables in-game chat if logged in at the same time because of this, so what is there now doesn't fit this idea.

Question: Won't this be hard?
From my testing and understanding what is happening in the background, the tech is basically already there, isn't it? You can already communicate to each platform with a mobile app and you already have the authentication and linking correct. It's just that the current app does a lot more, forcing the described functionality to be impossible to be implemented in the current chat system of the mobile app.

The Minimal Viable Product could even be just the current friend & clan chat system from the main app, but as a separate app that doesn't log you out in-game.
Then milestones ranging from almost Must Haves to Nice To Haves would be:
- Squad chat (probably the most important use for console players)
- Offline notifications (this enables things like invitations to play)
- Remaining chats (relay chat, trading chat, global chat, all will highly increase interactions especially on consoles). Though linking stuff will probably not be a thing done from the app.


Imagine a world where we can have this, running alongside while playing the game (or even when not playing the game):


You could even go ham on the naming. Warframe Life Link, Warframe Transcendence, Warframe Reflection, etc. The world is endless!

If you can make something like this happen, I'll go to your next Tennocon and personally thank you... :')

[Laxmibai]

I would like to have this. I have a pretty big group of in-game friends but none of us ever have the incentive to talk. 
Unless for when we're waiting for kill codes up on the Murex lol

[Liv.Somik]

I would love to at least have region chat in the warframe app. Non of my friends play warframe so I really wanna have region chat on my phone so I can join random in game conversations. I'm so lonely...