What Came Before U14, A Cbt's View On Warframe's Evolution

[Ryuui]

Seeing as U14 is just about to be out (probably is for a while, when you're reading this), and observing yesterday's chat on the forums and in the game while imagining the pressure (and maybe, just maybe a sliver of pride I hope? :) ) on the DEVs when everyone and their grandma was asking where the "promised" update is, I just want to have a quick review of the ol' Warframe before we are thrust into yet another beautiful era of new things. 

(I have taken the photos used in this thread across the web, since I myself have not taken photos in the CB, since I could not even in my wildest dreams imagine the game would evolve so much. I would like to thank every single person who made those photos, that I am using. I have left the nicknames on the photos, maybe you will find yourself on one of them!)

 

 

I started playing Warframe as soon as closed beta started, I still remember applying when it was just a one page teaser site, because the teaser got me hooked... completely. 

I mean there was a dude (probably), in futuristic armor, sitting there, while mean looking (StarCraft-ish?) marines were approaching him, whereas the badass dude stood up, pulled out his sword, and BAM! --- end of trailer. Doesn't take much to get me hooked on a game now does it. :D 

I got the e-mail for my closed beta confirmation on the 17th of August, 2012. 

"Your WARFRAME account has been created!  You are now on the list for the

Closed Beta test and we have added the exclusive beta-only weapon to your

account!"

It probably was a warm, sunny day back then, but I didn't care one bit, I was about to be a space ninja badass!

 

After my tedious warm up (the game installing I mean) was finally done, it was time to start the game up. Oooh goosebumps. 

 

Finally getting past the hurdle of logging in, I was confronted with the Warframe selection screen, where I chose the ultimate badass from the trailers, Excalibutt... I mean Excalibur! Time to head out towards ADVENTURE!

Anyone of you still remember how the map used to look back in the day? Most of you probably will not, but lets's have a look at it, it will probably show you a glimplse of how much this game evolved. 

This was where you could select your mission (planets), build stuff in the foundry, look at the marketplace and change your loadout. There was no clan Dojo at the time and no Void Keys of any description: Just you sitting in front of a map of the solar system. 

 

Seems like Mercury is the first place I'll visit. Lets have a run around and have a look!

 

Yeah, doesn't look like the Mercury you started in right? Looks kind of like a Corpus ship, doesn't it? In the beginning EVERY single planet had the same tileset, so you would see Grineer, Corpus and even Infested happily waling around in Corpus ships.

Personally, I just think the Grineer were broke back then, and could not afford their own ships, space-recession and all that, don't judge! And the Infested were in abundance back then, seems like someone forgot to hand out the vaccination needles again!

Walking around the ships orbiting Mercury, I ran into an unpleasant little fellow by the name of Vor. Compared to the other marines, this one had a taste for the color red apparently, and also, was quite a bit tougher to take down. 

He did come a long way, got a new haircut and all! Back then he would just flail his stick around (heh, heh, heh), now he restocked with mines, shields and teleporting devices. Not bad Vor, not bad!

(Stole this picture from the user DaftMeat on the forums)

 

Well I'm going to need a lot of firepower, if I plan to get rid of all these pests! To the marketplace! Let's have a look at what wonders we can buy to raise some hell!

Compared to the marketplace today, the selection seems pretty small, but back then I thought "OOhhh so many weapons, which one to choose!". Of course I immediately grabbed the sniper (RIP old Snipetron, you will be missed), DOH. A ninja with a sniper rifle means double the stealth and that means headshots from nowhere! If only the enemies would stay still :(. 

 

Okay, now that I have my new gun, I need to equip it, so I do not accidentally forget it in my ship when I leave. Imagine the embarrassment!

It's so nostalgic looking at the old equip screen. 

While we're here, let's go and upgrade some stuff on my gun!

"Wait a second!" I hear you saying, "That doesn't look like the Mod upgrade that I know at all!" and you would be completely right. The modding also went through a complete rework from tree-based upgrades of weapons and warframes, to the mod combo upgrades we all know today. Quite a lot of work there. 

 

After all that running around my armor got a bit scratched, so let's have a look at the foundry, see if we can't repair it. 

Once again, seems the foundry went through some cosmetic changes too, doesn't it :)

 

Things soon began to change in the solar system though. After months of running around planets, killing baddies (not babies, never babies), one gets lonely (shut up, I know how it sounds!). 

And as luck would have it, soon we got a little Sentinel companion to keep us company. Things also began to change on the planets in the solar system. Some got opened for tourism, like Earth, so we can visit it now, and be amazed at it's beautifull build... wait... there's only trees and waterfalls! But I guess, that's beautiful too!

The Grineer obviously got a hidden benefactor since they got their own ships, even shipyards! Even the corpus have made some snowy bases, and hideouts on Jupiter. All new things to explore! Cmon sentinel, let's go, the future awaits! 

 

What I wanted to do with this post, and have hopefully to an extent accomplished, was showing how massively the game improved in the short time it was out. And I did not even touch the subject of hundreds of weapons, new Warframes coming out each update, Primes, the rework of melee, Void, Derelicts, Dojos... And there's talk about a dog... hmm... a ninja dog... 

 

And it's all thanks to the guys and gals at DE, who work hard to bring us the game they've wanted for so long. And I have to say, in my 25 years, I have played hundreds of MMOS, and none, and I mean NONE have ever had such a masive scale of improvements done to them in such a small window of time and none have taken such drastical, even risky changes like Warframe did. And I think it does pay off in the end. 

 

So once again, to all the folks at DE, thank you for making Warframe an amazing game and thank you for being awesome! Bravo!

Edited July 18, 2014 by Ryuui