I feel that DE is wasting the potential of Warframe's lore and its characters.

[MorteNexus13]

As everyone know, DE has the habit of forget about old content. Among them events and tactical alerts that were vital to developing the Warframe story and giving more participation to some characters. It's a shame that the current in-game story is a nonsense full of plot gaps that doesn't respect the chronology. Let's see some examples:

Alad V

You can read his lore here. Being Alad one of the most important characters in Warframe, his current in-game story is a complete mess.

1. The first time we hear his name is on the disruption mission on Mars (Alad is supposed to be working only on the Zanuka Project at that time)
2. The disruption mission in Jupiter is available after completing Natah (taking into account that The Ropalolyst is available after complete Chimera Prologue, the disruption mission should have the same requirement, specially if we take into account all that it had to pass Alad from the Gradivus Dilemma to Shadow Debt, or the experiments with the Wolf of Saturn Six).
3. After Alad helped us in the Second Dream, we faced his Mutalist version on Eris (this is where the story loses all sense. There is no in-game hint that Alad has been experimenting with the Infestation except for the Patient Zero quest, unless DE tells us that Hunhow is capable of manipulating the infestation)

Operation: Scarlet Spear

During the event I created a new account, and to my surprise after finishing Vor's Prize I received a message from Little Duck advising me of the Sentient invasion, without even progressing through the story. It's not for nothing, but I still believe that this event should be exclusive for those who have completed at least Chimera Prologue, not only because of the lore, but also because the mission got complicated as you reached the last waves. Regarding the story, I have three problems:

1. With this being the beginning of the Sentient invasion (post-Erra cinematic), it would have been great to see Sentients invading the Origin System (except the Void), like those "random" encounters in Orb Vallis.
2. What was Sargas Ruk doing on Earth if Vay Hek is supposed to be occupying that planet?
3. TESHIN SHOULD HAVE BEEN PRESENT.

Operators

How is it possible that the main Warframe's protagonist doesn't say a single word in most of the quests post-Second Dream? The only times the operator spoke were at the end of Second Dream, The War Within, and The Sacrifice (Apostasy Prologue doesn't count because it only said one word).

They don't even flinch during Octavia's Anthem quest where we face Hunhow and Ordis decides to face him to prevent him from infecting other cephalons. As for the fight with the Ropalolyst where Natah appears, the operator said absolutely nothing. NOTHING!

Another thing: I don't know if you receive this message in your inbox after complete Sands of Inaros, but you should do this quest only if you have completed The Second Dream instead of reach Mastery Rank 5.

Syndicates

Probably those most in need for a rework, these groups lack development as they continue to send us their Death Squads despite the fact that we help them. What's more, they have the potential to develop their story (like Amaryn did after complete The Silver Grove) and change the environment of the game as you progress through the story, for example:

• New Loka: After completing The Silver Grove, you may encounter various New Loka operatives in Cetus, interacting with its inhabitants and learning their habits. You could even "hire" a few operatives to help you out on the plains.
• Cephalon Suda: After completing Octavia’s Anthem and Heart of Deimos, Suda could contact the Entrati so that she could quench her thirst for "curiosity" and be with who used to be Orokin (and perhaps see some Suda operatives in Necralisk). I know it sounds a bit absurd but Cephalon Suda is the syndicate that lacks lore the most, and I'm not sure that Nihil's revelation (the Glassmaker) can expand it.
• Steel Meridian: Killing one of the Grineer Queens at the end of The War Within shouldn't go unnoticed by Cressa Tal, who is a Grineer defector. She could congratulate us for accomplishing such a feat and could even replace Lotus in the Kuva Siphon and Kuva Lich missions. What's more, the Steel Meridian could go on the trail of the Wolf of Saturn Six and its fugitives.
• Perrin Sequence: After helping Ergo Glast destroy the Animo and rescue the Triuna (regardless of your choice), he would realize that diplomacy is not always the solution and would help us face the Corpus, starting with Fortuna. Ergo could contact Ticker to pay the debts of the Solaris, so we would see most of its inhabitants with their full bodies, better tools and body augmentations, but we will also see hidden Corpus weapons, hinting that Ergo helps them in the revolution.
• Red Veil: After freeing Rell, the leader of the Red Veil could send his operatives to hunt down some of the fanatics who spread throughout the Origin System, and some of them would even join the Arlo's Followers, starting a rivalry between those groups. As for Palladino, she could be the mediator of the Red Veil, Arbiters of Hexis and Cephalon Suda, so we would see their operatives interacting with each other in Iron Wake.
• Arbiters of Hexis: Being this syndicate the most interested in the power of the Tenno, they together with Teshin could motivate them to be more independent and more powerful in order to become the guardians of the Origin System and prepare them for the New War against the Sentients.

Honestly (and I say it as someone who has played Warframe since mid-2013) I feel bad that DE doesn't give the importance it deserves to the story (and more so knowing everything that has happened until the Second Dream).

What I've enjoyed the most is the lore, the characters and the soundtrack. I never expected such a game to be free, with so much to give even to this day with The Deadlock Protocol, Heart of Deimos and the stories of Parvos Granum and Albrecht Entrati. It's very noticeable that DE still has the potential to create good stories.

But it is a shame that newcomers don't have the privilege that we, Warframe boomers, have had to enjoy an excellent and coherent in-game story, and have to turn to YouTube and the Wiki to learn about Warframe' story. That's what prompted me to post twice on Reddit and the Warframe Forums the idea of bring some events and tactical alerts back to the game, but as quests (if you're interested, this is what I proposed)

And if you think about it, "renewing" the Warframe story could be one of the most significant changes in the game: as you progress through the story you will unlock new content, instead of increasing the Mastery Rank whose only function must be to let you use more equipment, earn more daily standing, focus and void fissures, etc. And not only that, DE should have a new and improved "structure" that allows them not only to identify newcomers and experienced players, but also to respect Warframe's chronology, because being realistic it's completely absurd that you only have to complete Mars Junction to start the Heart of Deimos quest.

One example is Path of Exile, which in The Fall of Oriath update went from having a campaign with 4 acts and 3 difficulties (like Diablo) to a new campaign with 10 acts. And not only that, in the Conquerors of the Atlas update, they completely renewed the endgame story. If Grinding Gear Games (the creators of Path of Exile) were able to change the story of their game, then Digital Extremes can too.

And yes, I know that would be a lot of work for them (especially because of Covid-19) but I want to remind you that even though this pandemic started between February and March if I remember correctly, DE was able to release The Deadlock Protocol and Heart of Deimos updates. Think about it.

[Dauggie]

DE people reading this going r/whoosh

[HoustonDragon]

The lore is kinda the wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing in Warframe, since stuff ends up jumbled together especially for newer players. Meeting Little Duck in Scarlet Spear before I'd EVER seen or knew her in Fortuna was absolutely baffling, and she remains a rather pointless character given the difficult grind for Vox Solaris rep.

 

Same with Teshin showing up abruptly for the War Within stuff, when unless you'd done Conclave stuff before, had zero connection or introduction to the player beforehand. It's nice to see him pop up for Steel Path, but would like to actually have more interaction. Maybe since Lotus/Space Mom is gone, shuffle up some of the voice over mission reporting?

[JackHargreav]

Yup. Even tho I love world the characters. I always end up being disappointed as they just abandon characters or concepts.

Nef Anyo, we never him and never beaten his has. Parvos comes out of nowhere and probably for a long time we won't hear about him either. Alad V, again he just reappears and what happened to him who knows.

Ballas is interesting tho his story is weird. First he was a victim and now for whatever reason he wants to command the Sentients. Lotus turned against us but now she doesn't even now where she is or what happened.

The story is a mess and on top of it there isn't enough of it. I'd easily sacrifice this whole cinematic whatever just to get a finished stroyline but DE can't even update the Leverian. And that doesn't even need that much work. Just put down some already existing assets and make up some short story. It's incredibly frustrating.

And the Lotus left us like 2 years ago now. And when we will get the next quest for her who knows again.

[OniDax]

DE's wasted their story potential since Day 1 of Warframe. They're really bad at storytelling, imo. The story is inconsistent and contradictory, and the game's progression system betrays the story. It only makes it more of a jumbled mess. The problem is, at this point, there's no way of fixing it unless they uproot everything and start from scratch. I wouldn't even expect DE to be able to start from scratch. The end result would probably be even worse than what we have now. DE needs help from another, experienced studio, in crafting a better Warframe (imo). IMO, it's not just the story that's an issue, but the progression system, the way we acquire content items, the map design, the sound design, the visual design of weapons, the animations, the core gameplay experience of how we shoot and move while shooting, the way melee works. All of it needs to be improved, imo. It doesn't need to be radically different in terms of art styles and stuff like that, but it needs to be improved, and at this point, 8 years in (development time), I don't think DE has the will to really improve all of these aspects of the game. I think they need another studio to come in, look at the game with fresh, yet experienced eyes, and help them make it better.

[SilentMobius]

VO costs a lot of money, DE is lucky to have some of their VAs in-house, but when they need to contract outside talent it's especially difficult. Also, if you happened to get someone with a nice voice in the existing team to do VO work, that's great but are you sure you want them pulled off whatever they would have been working on to do extra VO work?

Oh and Operator VO is at a *4 cost to everything else because it needs to be recorded 4 times for the different voice options.

When developing new content DE absolutely must cut the VO down to the bare minium, that's just the way it is, drawing in unneeded characters and thus their VO is asking for less content and longer gaps between content, and content drives sales.

I would love to see DE tie more things together, I've been a lore hound from day one. Hireing Cam Rogers was a good start and took a lot of work off of Steve's shoulders (from what were seen Steve wrote a lot of the Script/Lore on top of all his other roles) but we need to be realistic.

The order of Alad V's introduction is an issue that needs solving, Deimos does now give us oppertunities for early-game introduction for an infested area.

But we also have to acknowledge that DE need to err on making new content available to new players even if it uses characters that the new players haven't seen yet

[SilentMobius]

18 minutes ago, HoustonDragon said:

Same with Teshin showing up abruptly for the War Within stuff,

Teshin is the driver for the Natah quest, which begins TSD and then leads to TWW, sooo, that doesn't really stand up.

[VoidArkhangel]

Where is the stalker btw 

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

36 minutes ago, MorteNexus13 said:

How is it possible that the main Warframe's protagonist doesn't say a single word in most of the quests post-Second Dream? The only times the operator spoke were at the end of Second Dream, The War Within, and The Sacrifice

Voice actors are not cheap, and some quests it's not really necessary for them to say anything

[OniDax]

On 2020-10-06 at 11:16 AM, (XB1)C11H22O11 said:

Voice actors are not cheap, and some quests it's not really necessary for them to say anything

DE isn't poor.

On 2020-10-06 at 11:09 AM, SilentMobius said:

Teshin is the driver for the Natah quest, which begins TSD and then leads to TWW, sooo, that doesn't really stand up.

What's abrupt about Teshin's appearance in TWW is that he has no prior connection with the Grineer (and his interaction with Tyl Regor =/= meaningful connection with the Grineer). When he's first introduced, he shows up in the context of the Sentients and with a focus on the Sentients, yet he doesn't make an appearance in the Sentient-focused quest (The Second Dream). But he randomly shows up in The War Within working for the Queens, when nothing about his previous context was related to them. Furthermore, when he first appears in relation to Conclave, he's very clearly pro-Orokin, and so his arc in TWW makes no sense. You want to know what would've made sense? Teshin being involved in The Second Dream instead of Stalker (and working against the Sentients, not for them), and Stalker being involved in The War Within as the agent of the Queens, with Teshin still serving the role of helping the Tenno relearn their Void powers. Both characters could've shown up a third time in The Sacrifice, with both pro-Orokin, anti-Sentient characters having interactions and reactions to the pro-Sentient Orokin traitor (Ballas). That's story consistency, something DE doesn't seem to care much about.

[Felsagger]

31 minutes ago, MorteNexus13 said:

 I feel that DE is wasting the potential of Warframe's lore and its characters.

 I can't agree more. 

 

I read all your long post. It's well organized and on point. Good work. My recommendation for DE is that they need to hire a team and few writers that helps them organize the lore of the game covering the gaps and a full chronology of events. Doesn't matter if ideas came in a disparate order. At least all the data is there. The leverian is a good start that needs more love for the lore in the game. 

The lore and story telling in this game is fundamental. This is not a PVP or a simple PVE game. This experimental GAAS F2P game attempted things that no other developer would dare to do. However their market exists and the game had fair success. If the story is accommodated correctly and the lore is more interactive, I'm sure this humble game will gain new heights. 

The lore and the game of War Frame should move towards a more serious ground. This started as a meme. Now it can become a full serious product with all the nuts and bolts of a great story. Sorry for my positivism but why not work on something that has so much opportunity for more money? Game play wise the game is in a fair state. However the story needs a lot of support. 

The war frame needs a virtual space where we could see all the weapons, war frames and story behind each item. And that story related to the lore or main story in the game. The game grew up. It's time the game reach a higher stature on story telling, delivery and completeness. 

[Nax__]

Definitely agree. I actually thought that they might consider reorganizing story events and structuring them more chronologically as part of the whole new player experience. I was really disappointed that it was nothing more than changes to the tutorial tileset and the new cutscene.

With the syndicates, the death squads and rivalries also don't make any sense lorewise especially when you consider how minor the conflicts between them are. I honestly think we should be able to grind standing for all the syndicates without restrictions and the death squads should be from the grineer (maybe nightwatch) and the corpus or even acolytes from the stalker, now that the acolytes mods have been moved to Deimos.

[Formous]

To all saying VO is expensive, I call BS.  DE is VERY successful, and makes a lot of money. They can afford actual work with a hired team to make a coherent story.  They need to do it too.  They have more resources then people think. It's not some small studio.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

the problem with the story, especially regarding Alad and Sentients, is that because DE makes stuff "accessible" all the time, new players can encounter stuff that chronologically happens later, first. when you first arrive on Jupiter, you're not gonna know what Sentients even are, as that's before even the Natah quest. Alad's order of things is meant to be:

- messing with Zanuka and Valkyr > gets defeated but not killed by Tenno

- messing with Infested on Eris in Patient Zero > gets infested, causes outbreak and gets defeated by Tenno

- Alad finds out a cure for the Infestation is in Tyl Regor's labs on Uranus, and asks you to get it for him: enter Tubemen of Regor. Tyl Regor sees the Tubemen destroyed and Nef Anyo and Tyl both want Alad to suffer for his mistakes, the player decides what happens, but canonically, we help Alad and cure him.

- Alad is cured but scarred by the Infestation and appears again in second dream. 

- Alad calls in his favour, defending him from Stalker's Acolyte's sent by Hunhow. (the first Shadow Debt)

- Alad is then tricked into his partnership with the Sentients, hence his current predicament. he sells the Conduits to everyone and focuses on making Amalgams, also has a run-in with the Wolf of Saturn Six in the process (Nightwave season 1)

but the order for new players now is Disruption > Zanuka and Amalgams > second dream >Patient Zero, and most won't even know about Tubemen of Regor or Shadow Debt because those were events. 

thing is, as much as I'd love the story to be put back in order, it's not something DE want to focus on right now. I'm grateful that we at least get some new Lore like with Leverian and the Entrati lore. it seems they do care, but it's still an afterthought, tacked on to updates only once everything else is done, and only if they have the time. 

 

[prodi1600]

This have been told many times, the devs DE knows it, but wont do anything about it.

[Elessara1]

20 hours ago, SilentMobius said:

Teshin is the driver for the Natah quest, which begins TSD and then leads to TWW, sooo, that doesn't really stand up.

It still stands up if you meet him for the first time in Natah.  I remember doing that quest and thinking, "Who the f*** is this Teshin guy and why is he talking to me like we know each other?"  I was really confused about who this guy was at the time.

^{And then I started referring to him as Space Dad.}

It wasn't until after I'd done TWW that I realised he was the guy standing in the Conclave area as I'd never bothered going there or touching Conclave at all.  Even then I found out accidentally because I was wandering around a relay and ended up walking into the Conclave section.

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

17 hours ago, Szakhe said:

Definitely agree. I actually thought that they might consider reorganizing story events and structuring them more chronologically as part of the whole new player experience. I was really disappointed that it was nothing more than changes to the tutorial tileset and the new cutscene.

With the syndicates, the death squads and rivalries also don't make any sense lorewise especially when you consider how minor the conflicts between them are. I honestly think we should be able to grind standing for all the syndicates without restrictions and the death squads should be from the grineer (maybe nightwatch) and the corpus or even acolytes from the stalker, now that the acolytes mods have been moved to Deimos.

A story quest where we unite them could be great. Maybe written in such a way that the sentient invasion will make them realize their squabbles aren't worth it. 

[AConfusedBird]

god, i wish DE would just hire a writing team and get their lore in order. even ignoring the chronology issues, there are a lot of unanswered questions and inconsistencies. was the zariman a military ship or a civilian vessel? how long was it stuck in the void, days? weeks? years? are the prime frames the originals (created from a human) or are our "regular" versions the originals and the primes are "improved"? are all frames a little sentient (re: your warframe breaking war out of its chest), or did your operator somehow kinda sorta use transference? how exactly did ballas survive all these years, since presumably he hasn't been using continuity? where the FUNK is maroo??????

DE please just. hire some people and give us answers. i am begging on my hands and knees

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

17 minutes ago, AConfusedBird said:

god, i wish DE would just hire a writing team and get their lore in order. even ignoring the chronology issues, there are a lot of unanswered questions and inconsistencies. was the zariman a military ship or a civilian vessel? how long was it stuck in the void, days? weeks? years? are the prime frames the originals (created from a human) or are our "regular" versions the originals and the primes are "improved"? are all frames a little sentient (re: your warframe breaking war out of its chest), or did your operator somehow kinda sorta use transference? how exactly did ballas survive all these years, since presumably he hasn't been using continuity? where the FUNK is maroo??????

DE please just. hire some people and give us answers. i am begging on my hands and knees

To be frank, a certain Trainman has been outshining DE in terms of lore and story on Youtube. 

No excuses for DE not to handle story better after all these years. 

[(PSN)Yggranya]

6 minutes ago, (PS4)DoctorWho_90250 said:

To be frank, a certain Trainman has been outshining DE in terms of lore and story on Youtube. 

No excuses for DE not to handle story better after all these years. 

But it's some much faster and cheaper to just throw whatever in there and let people speculate all day long. Then some players can take their best guess and get people to watch their "lore explained" video(HAH!), so they can all pretend they know more than the people who expect some consistency.

This is REALLY popular in game "writing". I think i said this on some other post, but soon DE will add time travel and multiverse so they can just forget even the pretence of any sense. After all, game writers love fondling the low-hanging fruit.

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

Lore in Warframe be like

 

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Yggranya said:

But it's some much faster and cheaper to just throw whatever in there and let people speculate all day long. Then some players can take their best guess and get people to watch their "lore explained" video(HAH!), so they can all pretend they know more than the people who expect some consistency.

This is REALLY popular in game "writing". I think i said this on some other post, but soon DE will add time travel and multiverse so they can just forget even the pretence of any sense. After all, game writers love fondling the low-hanging fruit.

That's the approach Miyazaki takes with his Soulsborne games (don't know anything about Sekiro to be honest). At the same time, those games have a lot of lore in it that is scattered around and make it up to the players to understand it. 

With Warframe, DE are not FromSoftware, and Steve is not Miyazaki so having it the way it is now is quite lazy. They had an opportunity to make a coherent story with the new player update but, of course, they predictably made a one and done change that doesn't help the story and missions flow together unfortunately (and I'm not surprised unlike some were). 

[Kaffeebohnson]

I just finally want closure on the Lotus/Natah arc.

And Teshin should be part of the first Tutorial Quest, so he has more meaning to the player later.

 

[Nax__]

7 hours ago, (NSW)Kaffeebohnson said:

I just finally want closure on the Lotus/Natah arc.

And Teshin should be part of the first Tutorial Quest, so he has more meaning to the player later.

 

Yeah, Teshin's involvement in the tutorials definitely makes a lot of sense considering all his lines about him training the Tenno. They could even have him explain Mastery, Stances and even the basic melee mechanics to new players considering it's highly unlikely they read the patch notes when all the new melee 2.9 stuff was added.

[Vlada91]

At first 2 cinematic qusts they did go in the right direction, but now they just go in something totally bad way that its just nothing special like what whose before....