This quest was incredible and the reactions to it make me sad

[PugPrime]

Loved the Jade Shadows quest, in my top 3 quests in Warframe for sure. Honestly it blew me away. When I heard "STALKER CINEMATIC QUEST" I was expecting edgy fun where I ran around as Stalker for 20 minutes paying little attention to the story like Veilbreaker. I was not expecting it to end wanting more. So imagine my shock when I go online and see everyone hates it... for reasons that genuinely seem like a troll 90% of the time. People say they like themes but hate depth. Why is Stalker having a backstory "fanfiction" and "not warframe" ?? Why are people so offended over a pregnant Warframe being in the game and claim it's because of "DEI and exclusivity" ?? Why is having to walk forward for 10-15 seconds "insulting the player" ???

The Sacrifice quest always stood out to me as far and away my favorite with an intangible quality that The War Within and The New War didn't quite capture, or really even try to. All three meaningfully advanced the story, but The Sacrifice always felt deeply personal and grounded in ways the others didn't. Whispers in the Walls and now Jade Shadows evoke that same character-centric, intimate atmosphere. I'm loving the direction Warframe's story is going, and I hope the divisive reaction doesn't change DE's vision. 

Also the music ❤️

 

[matt11mz]

What's sad is, I read through the Jade Shadows page and reaper's Lament before launch, so I immediately understood the themes, and thought how DE went about it made for a wonderful story. Most of the arguments against it even had very easy answers to point to.

It feels like DE is getting really good at symbolism and environmental storytelling, but everyone expects 20 minutes of fighting while getting an exposition dump about the entirety of the quest's lore.

The Path to War laid little hints that Ballas was planning something, The New War was a payoff that felt like it went over 90% of people's heads.

Whispers in the Walls followed up on how the last few updates (Angels of the Zariman, Lua's Prey, Citrine's Last Wish, Duviri Paradox) all focused on the emotional/psychological aspect of the Void, but most people just saw "Gay power saves the day!"

Jade Shadows dealt with the cycle of life and death and Stalker's story, but people just zeroed in on easily countered nitpicks and the pregnant warframe, then complained because they missed Stalker's background and insisted there must not have been any.

[PugPrime]

1 hour ago, matt11mz said:

What's sad is, I read through the Jade Shadows page and reaper's Lament before launch, so I immediately understood the themes, and thought how DE went about it made for a wonderful story. Most of the arguments against it even had very easy answers to point to.

It feels like DE is getting really good at symbolism and environmental storytelling, but everyone expects 20 minutes of fighting while getting an exposition dump about the entirety of the quest's lore.

The Path to War laid little hints that Ballas was planning something, The New War was a payoff that felt like it went over 90% of people's heads.

Whispers in the Walls followed up on how the last few updates (Angels of the Zariman, Lua's Prey, Citrine's Last Wish, Duviri Paradox) all focused on the emotional/psychological aspect of the Void, but most people just saw "Gay power saves the day!"

Jade Shadows dealt with the cycle of life and death and Stalker's story, but people just zeroed in on easily countered nitpicks and the pregnant warframe, then complained because they missed Stalker's background and insisted there must not have been any.

It's all there just not in heavy-handed exposition and it is so, so much better that way. I think the people that complain about stuff like this just don't show up to Warframe for the story and aren't that invested, there isn't much pleasing them

[Gaxxian]

Im happy that you liked the quest, and im not here to tell you that you should feel it otherwise. But there is people with more and less tolerance to plotholes, deus ex machina and similars things.

In your case, it seems like you have a very high tolerance. Thats fine and ok, but a lot of people doesnt, and thats why there is so much people that didnt like the quest. There is certain things that you cannot do when writing a story (if you want to do it well) and here they didnt do it. Not that everybody should hate it, at all, and as i said, im happy for you to be able to find good here. But the less "well" you write a story, to less people will please, and thats what happened here.

This user here explained in high detail a lot of the plotholes and writing issues that i also found and couldnt stop thinking about while i was playing the quest (so, i couldnt immerse at all): 

 

[ishner]

18 hours ago, PugPrime said:

The Sacrifice quest always stood out to me as far and away my favorite with an intangible quality that The War Within and The New War didn't quite capture, or really even try to.

This is the thing.
This is our first interaction with Gen 1 warframes since The Sacrifice.
This should have been a moment of extreme emotional connection and personal development.
Lets compare plot beats:

The Hunt?
-Chase Excalibur around for 5 missions.
-Operator who we already identify with shows investment in Umbra's wellbeing
Instead we hold ourselves at knife point, give oursleves a feather, and are told by ourselves to go fetch some infested brain goo.
How does this get us invested in the outcome?

The Hospital scenes?
-Live through the most important part of Excalibur's Live is visceral first person
-Spaced out to have time to sink in and raise suspense
-10 minutes long
Instead we get 15 seconds of blurry visuals and disjointed voiceover.
How is this supposed to make us care more about Jade than about [Unnamed Ventkid #3]

The Cherry Tree Scene?
-the moment in The Sacrifice where we entered Excalibur's mind with transference and approached him beneath a cherry tree?
-when we sat down beside him to help him find Inner Peace?
-the entire point of the Tenno and the singular moment around which the entire story revolves?
Instead we show up in the stalker's cave and use transference to give birth by playing a blasted minigame???
How is "Click with The Rhythm to PUSH" supposed to be giving us the moment of understanding and compassion we got in that meeting of minds?

Confronting Balas?
-Face the Big Bad in final confrontation
-Frozen just before stabbing
-Hand in hand take vengeance
Instead we name the stalker's baby...
Who cares?
Why are *WE* given a button "NAME YOUR CHILD ____" when he is not *our* child and we are not even there?

In short, the quest is utterly inadequate on every level compared to the quest it should have been modeled off.

[trst]

8 hours ago, Gaxxian said:

Im happy that you liked the quest, and im not here to tell you that you should feel it otherwise. But there is people with more and less tolerance to plotholes, deus ex machina and similars things.

In your case, it seems like you have a very high tolerance. Thats fine and ok, but a lot of people doesnt, and thats why there is so much people that didnt like the quest. There is certain things that you cannot do when writing a story (if you want to do it well) and here they didnt do it. Not that everybody should hate it, at all, and as i said, im happy for you to be able to find good here. But the less "well" you write a story, to less people will please, and thats what happened here.

This user here explained in high detail a lot of the plotholes and writing issues that i also found and couldnt stop thinking about while i was playing the quest (so, i couldnt immerse at all): 

 

"High tolerance to plot holes"

My guy the only plot holes are the ones made by players upset by not having every slight detail explained even if they already were explained. Players are just looking for reasons to complain. 

[NameLessFreak]

2 hours ago, ishner said:

Spoiler

This is the thing.
This is our first interaction with Gen 1 warframes since The Sacrifice.
This should have been a moment of extreme emotional connection and personal development.
Lets compare plot beats:

The Hunt?
-Chase Excalibur around for 5 missions.
-Operator who we already identify with shows investment in Umbra's wellbeing
Instead we hold ourselves at knife point, give oursleves a feather, and are told by ourselves to go fetch some infested brain goo.
How does this get us invested in the outcome?

The Hospital scenes?
-Live through the most important part of Excalibur's Live is visceral first person
-Spaced out to have time to sink in and raise suspense
-10 minutes long
Instead we get 15 seconds of blurry visuals and disjointed voiceover.
How is this supposed to make us care more about Jade than about [Unnamed Ventkid #3]

The Cherry Tree Scene?
-the moment in The Sacrifice where we entered Excalibur's mind with transference and approached him beneath a cherry tree?
-when we sat down beside him to help him find Inner Peace?
-the entire point of the Tenno and the singular moment around which the entire story revolves?
Instead we show up in the stalker's cave and use transference to give birth by playing a blasted minigame???
How is "Click with The Rhythm to PUSH" supposed to be giving us the moment of understanding and compassion we got in that meeting of minds?

Confronting Balas?
-Face the Big Bad in final confrontation
-Frozen just before stabbing
-Hand in hand take vengeance
Instead we name the stalker's baby...
Who cares?
Why are *WE* given a button "NAME YOUR CHILD ____" when he is not *our* child and we are not even there?

In short, the quest is utterly inadequate on every level compared to the quest it should have been modeled off.

 

The issue is the quest relies on you to know Warframe lore in order to understand all the revelations in it. What you should be asking here isn't why you name the baby, it's why the Stalker hunts the Tenno in the name of the Orokin if the Orokin took everything away from him? 

"Honored Seven, we have gathered here today to carry out the sentencing of Archimedean Margulis. You face the Jade Light, recant and we will grant a merciful death."

According to the Leverian, The Myrmidon was a "preternatural beast-figure... ...Warframes were what this villain hunted."

The Myrmidon carried a portable version of the Jade Light. The Jade Warframe also possessed the Jade Light.

Edited June 22 by NameLessFreak

[Shinoyami65]

My main issue was that Jade herself is a prop for most of the story and only 'speaks' in flashbacks. All we really find out about her is that she loves Sorren and wants to sacrifice herself to have the baby. The quest did give us a lot more focus on the Stalker, but as someone who was excited to find out more about Jade, I was disappointed that she was a distant second fiddle to Stalker. Previous quests which were tied to a new Warframe usually did a better job of communicating their personality (i.e. Mirage's whimsical riddles contrasted with her ferocity on the battlefield, Limbo risking everything to test his theorem, Dante's past with Leverian, Inaros the Sand King of Mars, going into Umbra's mind in The Sacrifice, etc.). I think the quest would have been better if we got to see things from Jade's perspective as well, to see her being the light to Stalker's edgy darkness. As it is, the quest felt more like "Shadows and Jade is also here" rather than "Jade Shadows". 

[Gaxxian]

hace 7 horas, trst dijo:

"High tolerance to plot holes"

My guy the only plot holes are the ones made by players upset by not having every slight detail explained even if they already were explained. Players are just looking for reasons to complain. 

Ok, one thing its that you dont need to care about it, another is that clearly you didnt read anything. That explains your tolerance too :) Gl!

[Gaxxian]

hace 5 horas, Shinoyami65 dijo:

My main issue was that Jade herself is a prop for most of the story and only 'speaks' in flashbacks. All we really find out about her is that she loves Sorren and wants to sacrifice herself to have the baby. The quest did give us a lot more focus on the Stalker, but as someone who was excited to find out more about Jade, I was disappointed that she was a distant second fiddle to Stalker. Previous quests which were tied to a new Warframe usually did a better job of communicating their personality (i.e. Mirage's whimsical riddles contrasted with her ferocity on the battlefield, Limbo risking everything to test his theorem, Dante's past with Leverian, Inaros the Sand King of Mars, going into Umbra's mind in The Sacrifice, etc.). I think the quest would have been better if we got to see things from Jade's perspective as well, to see her being the light to Stalker's edgy darkness. As it is, the quest felt more like "Shadows and Jade is also here" rather than "Jade Shadows". 

Stalker is a prop too xD Think about it, imagine that Stalker didnt move at all and never meet the tenno or does any mission. Which would be the consecuences? There arent! Jade would start giving birth the same, he would be there to pick the baby, she would die the same.... Thats all.

In fact, everything would be easier, since the corpus wouldnt attack his base and he wouldnt need to flee from there.

[Solarsyphon]

6 hours ago, Shinoyami65 said:

My main issue was that Jade herself is a prop for most of the story and only 'speaks' in flashbacks. All we really find out about her is that she loves Sorren and wants to sacrifice herself to have the baby. The quest did give us a lot more focus on the Stalker, but as someone who was excited to find out more about Jade, I was disappointed that she was a distant second fiddle to Stalker. Previous quests which were tied to a new Warframe usually did a better job of communicating their personality (i.e. Mirage's whimsical riddles contrasted with her ferocity on the battlefield, Limbo risking everything to test his theorem, Dante's past with Leverian, Inaros the Sand King of Mars, going into Umbra's mind in The Sacrifice, etc.). I think the quest would have been better if we got to see things from Jade's perspective as well, to see her being the light to Stalker's edgy darkness. As it is, the quest felt more like "Shadows and Jade is also here" rather than "Jade Shadows". 

I agree that you definitely can't view Jade as an example of a  character and thats a missed opportunity . I'm not worried that DE is incapable of writing strong female characters  because there are others in the game and I think it's ok for them to have a story like this mixed in even  but I understand the disappointment.  Nothing really precludes them expanding on Jade or the Stalker other than their general MO when it comes to warframe quests.  This quest is a decent start teaser to a deeper story but I don't know if we will ever get it.

12 minutes ago, Gaxxian said:

Stalker is a prop too xD Think about it, imagine that Stalker didnt move at all and never meet the tenno or does any mission. Which would be the consecuences? There arent! Jade would start giving birth the same, he would be there to pick the baby, she would die the same.... Thats all.

In fact, everything would be easier, since the corpus wouldnt attack his base and he wouldnt need to flee from there.

The idea is that the stalkers actions cause the problem. He gets chastised by Hunhow for not going to the Tenno sooner and his stubborn choice to try and solve the issue alone brings the corpus down on him.  The resolution of the story is him learning to move past the hate  and look to the future so the inevitability kind of fits in with that. 


To that end it's this kind of strange tragedy with a hopeful ending .

 

[Gaxxian]

hace 2 minutos, Solarsyphon dijo:

The idea is that the stalkers actions cause the problem. He gets chastised by Hunhow for not going to the Tenno sooner and his stubborn choice to try and solve the issue alone brings the corpus down on him.  The resolution of the story is him learning to move past the hate  and look to the future so the inevitability kind of fits in with that. 

You mean Stalker's inaction. But as we see in the quest, even more inaction from his part would change nothing.

Maybe he could act sooner and change something, but not at the start of the quest. So all the quest is made moot.

[Ha1p]

On 2024-06-21 at 10:23 AM, matt11mz said:

What's sad is, I read through the Jade Shadows page and reaper's Lament before launch, so I immediately understood the themes, and thought how DE went about it made for a wonderful story. Most of the arguments against it even had very easy answers to point to.

It feels like DE is getting really good at symbolism and environmental storytelling, but everyone expects 20 minutes of fighting while getting an exposition dump about the entirety of the quest's lore.

The Path to War laid little hints that Ballas was planning something, The New War was a payoff that felt like it went over 90% of people's heads.

Whispers in the Walls followed up on how the last few updates (Angels of the Zariman, Lua's Prey, Citrine's Last Wish, Duviri Paradox) all focused on the emotional/psychological aspect of the Void, but most people just saw "Gay power saves the day!"

Jade Shadows dealt with the cycle of life and death and Stalker's story, but people just zeroed in on easily countered nitpicks and the pregnant warframe, then complained because they missed Stalker's background and insisted there must not have been any.

What is Reaper's Lament, and where is it in game?

[S1NKARlVlA]

I wanted to add my voice to say I liked the quest... but logged in and was reminded how bad people are...

I enjoyed the quest, on a technical point it wasn't too long and not difficult so people more interested in game play can do it then leave...

While containing a lot of lore  for those who want it, especially those who understand non verbal communication or environmental story telling

I... as someone whom is incapable of bearing her own children or raising children... was brought to tears... and my only complaint about all of this is I can't send plushies to Sorren to give to the new little one.

But to each their own... for now I dissapear... before people make me more sad... and I'll enjoy playing with Jade while hoping a future quest lets us give plushies to Sorren.

[matt11mz]

1 hour ago, Ha1p said:

What is Reaper's Lament, and where is it in game?

Reaper's Lament is a subpage on the main update site that has been there for a while leading up to Jade Shadows. It covers a conversation between Stalker and Hunhow just before the quest. My point wasn't supposed to be "well, you didn't read the external lore!" if that's how my post came across, the point was that I knew going into the quest that it was dealing with themes of the cycle of life and death.

That said, it WAS available in the news console through the Jade Shadows announcement tab, so it was still 100% accessible to at least PC players, idk how the website links work on console/mobile.

[--END--Rikutatis]

While I don't think the quest was incredible and wouldn't be even close to my top 3 favorite WF quests or anything, I do think it's pretty good and people have been overreacting a lot about "bad writing" and "plot holes" ever since the New War because they want the writing inside the quests to spell out everything, but WF lore always required you to piece together the puzzle and come to certain conclusions yourself. I always admired that about WF's story, you need to pay attention, use your brain and treat it like a jigsaw puzzle. 

I mean c'mon, asking questions like why didn't Stalker smoke bomb with the baby is so silly, maybe smoke bomb is personal. Ash does need an augment to cloak other party members. Or why would a corpus Sister stop the corpus from shooting a baby dead. I mean, seriously? Did people want her to go on an expository monologue and explain why she refused to kill a baby in cold blood? I'm not saying New War and Jade Shadows are perfect writing and may not have had some plot holes or weak moments, but people just nitpick so much. It's probably about expectations. They wanted a full blown war against the sentients with New War and they probably wanted something completely different out of a personal stalker quest. But I'm glad DE usually goes on this more personal and intimate route with these quests. 

[Quest]

Its content was pretty good. My one issue with most of the newer quests is that they are too short.

This one just... ends immediately and nothing really happens after the one important thing is revealed.

[Ha1p]

On 2024-06-22 at 1:08 PM, matt11mz said:

Reaper's Lament is a subpage on the main update site that has been there for a while leading up to Jade Shadows. It covers a conversation between Stalker and Hunhow just before the quest. My point wasn't supposed to be "well, you didn't read the external lore!" if that's how my post came across, the point was that I knew going into the quest that it was dealing with themes of the cycle of life and death.

That said, it WAS available in the news console through the Jade Shadows announcement tab, so it was still 100% accessible to at least PC players, idk how the website links work on console/mobile.

That's fair enough, I am glad you weren't arguing that external lore justified something in-game like that!

However, the marketing of Jade Shadows did seem... more inclined to hide or obscure important details than usual. I think the negative reception would have been a lot less had DE been upfront with what they intended.

I would have known better than to get hyped for Jade, for one.

 

[Snowbluff]

13 hours ago, Ha1p said:

However, the marketing of Jade Shadows did seem... more inclined to hide or obscure important details than usual. I think the negative reception would have been a lot less had DE been upfront with what they intended.

I would have known better than to get hyped for Jade, for one.

 

We spoke about this in game, but they definitely prerecorded Pablo's showcase PURELY to hide the pregnancy for a "shocking twist" in the quest.

However, them going for a twist game means they really screwed up the marketing and had to put a spoilertastic trigger warning on the front of the quest. I think there are good stories you can tell about parenthood (in its many forms), and if they had been up front about it and let Jade be the main character, there would be fewer issues. The writers just feel the need to be manipulative and cheap as possible with their writing, which creates these unforced errors.

[Ha1p]

22 hours ago, Snowbluff said:

We spoke about this in game, but they definitely prerecorded Pablo's showcase PURELY to hide the pregnancy for a "shocking twist" in the quest.

However, them going for a twist game means they really screwed up the marketing and had to put a spoilertastic trigger warning on the front of the quest. I think there are good stories you can tell about parenthood (in its many forms), and if they had been up front about it and let Jade be the main character, there would be fewer issues. The writers just feel the need to be manipulative and cheap as possible with their writing, which creates these unforced errors.

Let's not forget that the spoilertastic trigger warning was both vague and inaccurate. Motherhood is vastly more than birthing, and it feels uncomfortable on multiple levels that they referred to it that way. I mean, not all mothers can or do give birth, even mothers who do tend to do rather more impressive things than that, and also someone might have issues with watching someone die in childbirth who isn't thinking of the person as a mother to them.

[Ikalula]

23 hours ago, Snowbluff said:

We spoke about this in game, but they definitely prerecorded Pablo's showcase PURELY to hide the pregnancy for a "shocking twist" in the quest.

However, them going for a twist game means they really screwed up the marketing and had to put a spoilertastic trigger warning on the front of the quest. I think there are good stories you can tell about parenthood (in its many forms), and if they had been up front about it and let Jade be the main character, there would be fewer issues. The writers just feel the need to be manipulative and cheap as possible with their writing, which creates these unforced errors.

That is my biggest issue of all this - Jade is literally in the name of the quest and she's not even allowed to speak or do things on her own. She's not a character, and that's a shame because I like her, and I want to see more of her. But she got introduced and all her potential then squandered by killing her off after she lay there like a lifeless doll for most of the quest. I wanted to see how she feels about what happened to her, her feelings towards the Stalker and the child, but she's just... dead, and we're running around with 3D-printed version of Jade that simultaneously both is and isn't the woman we watched do nothing but suffer at the hand of others and then die. I've written my own thread on this, but as an AFAB person it made me incredibly uncomfortable to see a pregnant person stripped of all their personhood and then get killed off. It doesn't sit well at ALL.

[Johnprofit]

My only issue with the quest is that if this is the original Jade. Shouldn't it be Jade Prime lying on the bed?

Someone please correct me if im wrong.

[moondog548]

56 minutes ago, Johnprofit said:

My only issue with the quest is that if this is the original Jade. Shouldn't it be Jade Prime lying on the bed?

Someone please correct me if im wrong.

Iirc the "prime" frames aren't the original so much as the optimized designs of them.

[Xylena_Lazarow]

A story about motherhood, minus the mother. A sexualized angel in high heels, flaunting her pregnant belly as her unborn child gets shot at. No thanks. There are millions of ways we could've gotten a story about something like idk, a mother's last desperate effort taking up arms to heroically defend herself and her unborn child against the encroaching hordes of Sentients or Infested or her child's jerk father and those Orokin goons he loves so much. Instead we get an object. A prop. A fetish doll.

The above is purely my opinion and reflects only my own experience, I pass no judgment on how others experience Jade or the quest. It's a good thing for me I've never played this game for its writing. Some cool lore and self contained stuff, but the epics have all fallen flat for me. I'm still bitter how they did Lotus dirty.

[NinthAria]

After many, many years of watching people complain about Warframe's story, I've noticed that they tend to come from either people who just missed something--usually something implied or subtextual, or just failing to connect a dot from a previous quest--or people who have weird hangups about specific aspects of the story/characters. I expect a lot of guys (and it's definitely at least mostly guys) aren't comfortable with Jade Shadows because they aren't comfortable seeing depictions of pregnant bodies, in the same way that Whispers in the Walls got a bunch of flak for having a couple of gay guys in it. I don't think that's all of the complaints, but the reaction I typically have reading most of them is either "Oh, you just didn't catch [insert important context and/or themes]" or "Oh, you're just a bigot" or both.

Anyway it's nothing new, people have been having terrible takes on Warframe quests since The Second Dream. Sometimes you just have to put a filter on the community.

21 hours ago, Johnprofit said:

My only issue with the quest is that if this is the original Jade. Shouldn't it be Jade Prime lying on the bed?

Someone please correct me if im wrong.

According to Varzia, primes aren't necessarily always the first version. Sometimes they are, but sometimes it's a promotion of sorts to elevate a warframe after it's made.

Edited Thursday at 06:12 PM by NinthAria