Warframe's Vibe : Is It Really Vanishing?[Megathread Attempt]

[unknow99]

It's strange, the more detailed/brighter the visuals get, the darker the lore behind it becomes.

On one hand they've shifted from animals and add a bit more theme to the human based frames.

On the other we get stories of Tortured tenno turned into hulking beast, dying via zerg rushed, being ripped apart meddling with the secrets of spatial manipulation.

Then we find out stuff like grineer are created by melting down other still breathing Grineer.

EDIT

And oh yeah anyone remember that Corpus guy slowly dying in that Alad/infestion event.

Oh yeah, Larry? Poor Larry...They even let us shoot him to shorten the agony! :)

 

I think damage 2.0 messed up the death animations. They still play occasionally, but not often. The slash death is pretty common though.

 

Anyways, I've come to a bit of a personal conclusion here:

 

My main problem with threads like these is that instead of lamenting the departure from a tone which never existed, they should be advocating the inclusion of a tone that would fit quite well. A bit of grimdark could bring some interesting flavor to the Warframe universe, and I think it's something we've been missing for a long time. 

Your conclusion :

 this is something we can all agree with, old & new tenno.

[The_Traitor_Executioner]

Hello Tenno,

 

This is another loong subject people, and especially veterans, are arguing about.

 

Intro

 

If you just began playing(or didn't watch any old footage of the game yet), you might not know what it really means.

 

I am referring to this :

 

 

*olds folks get surrounded with nostalgia*

 

 

All the components are here :

Excalibro, our poster boy, in a kneel position (or to be more accurate, in a Seiza position), in a very dark room, meditating on the wrath he'll soon unleash upon his greedy grineer opponents...

 

(I really like the detail of that glowing, it now seems...familiar. :) )

 

Another one :

 

 

The game evolved since, for the better & the worse (better > worse) but a common complaint was born with the arrival of U13...In fact, since the arrival of some new recruits.

 

New frames tend to have received some miscellaneous themes/appearances for a moment, more & more :

 

"A bird frame? Well,that's something different."

"A paladin? He's neare to a goat/deerframe to me..."

"Woah, not too much anime-gundam-weeaboo stuff here, please.Those Archwings leave me skeptical."

"A pirate & a jester? What's goin' on D.E.?"

"Oh now we're getting Houdini and staches. What the Hek?!"

 

"Aren't we supposed to be space ninjas?!" vs "We're just post-apocalyptic mercenaries." (I won't get too deep with this in this thread, but it's also related)

 

Main question

 

New tilesets & environments in general are far brighter than before :

 

 

 

And newcomers such as :

Limbo, with his hat and his overall magician look,

Hydroid, Sparrow-Cthulu,

Mirage, aka Harlequin,

Oberon,bananaframe,

 

were not seriously taken as members of the tenno upon release. Add to this the fact that separated body parts were toned down when Damage 2.0 & Melee 2.0 came, and a lot of 1-year players fall into confusion.

 

Is the grim/dark mood of Warframe slowly disappearing? Is the atmosphere really following a worrying direction?

 

"were not seriously taken as members of the tenno upon release."

 

Uh.

 

What?

 

They were taken seriously by most of the playerbase, actually.  Basically, I have to agree with the first response.  

[unknow99]

There are way more medieval weapons than the are eastern.

Hek, people had to fight to get those things in. If it wasnt because of the people we would probably had throwing axes.

 

We are Space Knights, it's time to accept it.

Hey, throwable axes might be fun!

You know what? Ninja or not,Knight or not, i like the mix of culture they are giving to warframes,because it brings them their own identity.

Personally,as long as we get proper stealth, I'd be happy. :)

 

I set my contrast higher, and reduced brightness. Warframe instantly looks twice as good. Details, and glows look so much better in dark.

Game feels much much better to me when it is darker.

Ceres tileset is somewhat dark, but still nothing compared to what we had before. Playing vs infested always made lights go out, and it was DARK. I loved it.

I understand you so much man... I'll try to play with the settings a little further,to get that feel again.

[Jeigo]

My concern with thematic frames is that on paper they have limitless possibilities but when they finally arrive they are boxed in by the same recycled patterns and animations: Linear charge attacks, fireball-esque projectiles and the tried and true 360 Degree AoE ultimate. The last two in particular, however, introduced slightly new flavors which allowed me to overlook their gimmicky design.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Jeigo

[Hypernaut1]

wow. This is a stealth 2.0 Limbo whine thread.

 

 

I do kind of agree with the sentiment though. It wouldve been more creative if Limbo wasnt so on-the-nose magician looking. The idea of him taking of fthe top of his head was AWESOME, but everything else kind of made him look cheesy. A more subtle approach would have been more effective.

[vaugahn]

Your conclusion :

 this is something we can all agree with, old & new tenno.

 

Essentially, I'd rather this thread advocated for the inclusion of grimdark elements rather than nostalgia-ing about how they got taken out. 

[Mak_Gohae]

My concern with thematic frames is that on paper they have limitless possibilities but when they finally arrive they are boxed in by the same recycled patterns and animations: Linear charge attacks, fireball-esque projectiles and the tried and true 360 Degree AoE ultimate. The last two in particular, however, introduced slightly new flavors which allowed me to overlook their gimmicky design.

 

DE, originally had the old side scroller beat-em-up character style with frames where some were more difficult to play as than others. But they got rolled by a group of people that did not want to put in any extra work for different frames so they are now made to all fit the same "tier."

 

You can see an example of this now with all the discussion about Mr.Peanut. He offers a new type of playstyle and there are bunch of people complaining about the dude not being able to nuke stuff like everyone else.

 

DE seems to have built this weird thing where everyone must play every frame. The game is about just getting the next frame instead of being about being able to beat the next challenge.

[unknow99]

"were not seriously taken as members of the tenno upon release."

 

Uh.

 

What?

 

They were taken seriously by most of the playerbase, actually.  Basically, I have to agree with the first response.  

I understand your "What?" but you also witnessed threads of people having their jimmies rustled by their appearance. That's the thing I tried to capture here. See?

[victor_victory]

Thats just the case of developers changing direction of the game in the middle of development. It's not necessary a bad thing and it just the matter of personal preference.

[unknow99]

wow. This is a stealth 2.0 Limbo whine thread.

 

 

I do kind of agree with the sentiment though. It wouldve been more creative if Limbo wasnt so on-the-nose magician looking. The idea of him taking of fthe top of his head was AWESOME, but everything else kind of made him look cheesy. A more subtle approach would have been more effective.

It's a thread based on common whining threads,so not entirely false. :p

Stealth 2.0? I am one of it's earliest supporter(I came here in the same time Stealth made its first steps) so you guessed my thoughts right. This, however, isn't the main topic here, it's more about general past regrets from some of the tenno who look back.

 

DE, originally had the old side scroller beat-em-up character style with frames where some were more difficult to play as than others. But they got rolled by a group of people that did not want to put in any extra work for different frames so they are now made to all fit the same "tier."

 

You can see an example of this now with all the discussion about Mr.Peanut. He offers a new type of playstyle and there are bunch of people complaining about the dude not being able to nuke stuff like everyone else.

 

DE seems to have built this weird thing where everyone must play every frame. The game is about just getting the next frame instead of being about being able to beat the next challenge.

Yup, Loki wasn't for everyone back then : there's still some people who saw non-damage frame as useless, but now it looks like this part of the crowd wants every frame to b viable for everything. :/

[unknow99]

Thats just the case of developers changing direction of the game in the middle of development. It's not necessary a bad thing and it just the matter of personal preference.

"The game evolved since, for the better & the worse (better > worse)"

 

Personally, I find it better for the majority of WF aspects. :) Not everyone feels the same as us though,and it's what I try to understand more.

What makes this old Rhino salty?What makes some veterans do burnout... (everyone has done a burnout from the game,including myself,after grinding too much) ...for months?

Edited November 6, 2014 by unknow99

[(PSN)Lowk721]

Hahaha I don't really agree.

 

There is a sense of honor & chivalry in some way, but when you see Kunai, Bo,Hikou,Nikana,the Seiza position,Steve saying "space ninja" in every interview he's in... We're not exactly knights or ninja. :p

Something in between knights and ninjas.... samurai?

Also nikana isn't exactly ninja-esque. I've heard its based on some type of samurai. Some blind guy I think.

[SilentMobius]

I don't see much of a change myself.

 

I started playing before Nekros, so between update 9 and 10

 

Now at that point we had Saryn, Vauban and Nova none of which are very Ninja, or for that matter very serious (Boobs and heels, French train-head and Loli-in-leg-warmers), at that point, I took the design of the Warframes to be a symbol of the anachronistic madness of the Orokin designers. Something completely out-of-time for the setting, grounded for us but also bizarrely distorted by a far-future lens.

 

I agree that we could do with much more visibility of the threats and consequences of the things that go on in the system, but we never had that before, it would be a welcome new addition though.

 

If anything we have gotten much more grim. Previously Vor wanted to kill us in the tutorial, now he forces a parasite into us that tries to burrow into our spine and take control of our mind *shudder*. Previously the Corpus were just corporate douchebags, now one of them is cutting up Tenno and stitching them back together then sending the Frankenstein creation back out to hunt us! Oh and the same guy is now deliberately feeding his men to the infestation to make more interesting body-horror monsters.

 

The Red Veil went from freedom fighters to bloodthirstly purgers of corruption. We have an emotionless AI we can work for. And we're still the same amnesiac Warrior-Monks wearing techno-organic power armour designed by Insane-Golden-God-Emperors with distorted half-memories of Earth before it was destroyed and remade in their utopian-but-totalitarian image.

 

I think it's plenty dark, certainly as dark as it was if not more so.

 

...could we use some more dark? maybe, but I don't see anything here to complain about.

[Darkmoone1]

In terms of the overall theme of the game, I believe the universe of warframe has....evolved. Not gonna say changed per say, but we've overall moved on from the fact that there are few Tenno left. 

 

When the game was first playable to the public there were very few players because of the beta. This gave the players the sense of you playing a near extinct race of warriors that were extremely powerful. Over time the game became more open to the public, went on Steam, grew in popularity, and is now on multiple consoles. The playerbase is now extremely filled up and the game accurately represents that. Clan dojos are everywhere, dark sectors are being made and conflicting with others, and splinter factions have seen the rebellious actions of the Tenno and have emerged from the Grineer and Corpus. 

 

The Tenno have given hope to the universe and is represented in the game in many ways, no matter how subtle or obvious.....and yes, that is a good thing.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Darkmoone1

[Soulie]

Completely agree with OP.  Since they added in the Liset and changed many of the UI/FX sounds, the game's atmosphere has changed for the worse.

 

Game has veered away from the cultural/traditional heritage and has almost gone full "anime" with the game. 

 

Archwings?  Talk about a barebones game mode.  I applaud the art team for the environments to fly through, but this hardly feels like a fleshed out game type at all.  I don't see how they can ever get it to the level of the normal game mode.

 

Now I gotta level up my powers to use the other ones?  C'mon Steve, stop with this S#&$. 

 

And now there's Limbo.  A Warframe with a top hat.  Talk about jumping the shark.

[vaugahn]

Just a follow-up to my earlier comparison post: this is taken after a sabotage, with an overload. This is the same situation as the bottom picture in the OP.

 

 

As you can see, it's just as dark, if not darker. 

 

Talk about jumping the shark.

 

If that's all it takes for this game to jump the shark, then we jumped it a long time ago.

[Soulie]

Back when mods had random stats and sometimes dual random stats.  Stacking my frost's avalanche range to cover pretty much the whole map.

http://www.twitch.tv/soulie_d/c/1950228

[Qynchou]

I dont agree, I only agree with new warframes coming out, its dumb and its stupid. It went from suits with special abilities to straight up magic.

 

God I wish DE could delete dumb frames like nekros, oberon ,limo, nova etc but its too late for that.

 

Monsters and magic.

[Soulie]

While they're at it, they can delete that Ponyframe Nova.
 

Edited November 7, 2014 by Soulie

[TrashSpider]

Short answer: no

 

Remember the first time you played through Dead Space (or whatever other similar game if you didn't play/like Dead Space)? It was pretty spooky that first time, no? Now, compare that to the tenth playthrough. See what I'm getting at? If you turn on color correction and dynamic lighting you can still get darker tilesets. Try doing full settings on Ceres, especially on a sabotage mission. Or on Eris, those tilesets can be kind of creepy. Basically the problem is things just loose some of their original charm after you've seen them a zillion times. A Lancer isn't going to be intimidating when you've killed thousands of them, and a dark tile is pointless when you know your way around it by heart.

 

There's also a bit of a nostalgia element at play here too.

I still missed it when Corpus outpost had black outs when infested were around. But I see where you're coming from. Although I do wish Stalkers had more of a fear factor around him aside from the usual "I'm gonna die from this random thing". Like more subtle hints he coming from you, a wisp of smoke as you open the door only for nothing to appear, that wtf factor. 

Edited November 7, 2014 by Aeronomatic

[unknow99]

I don't see much of a change myself.

 

I started playing before Nekros, so between update 9 and 10

 

Now at that point we had Saryn, Vauban and Nova none of which are very Ninja, or for that matter very serious (Boobs and heels, French train-head and Loli-in-leg-warmers), at that point, I took the design of the Warframes to be a symbol of the anachronistic madness of the Orokin designers. Something completely out-of-time for the setting, grounded for us but also bizarrely distorted by a far-future lens.

 

I agree that we could do with much more visibility of the threats and consequences of the things that go on in the system, but we never had that before, it would be a welcome new addition though.

 

If anything we have gotten much more grim. Previously Vor wanted to kill us in the tutorial, now he forces a parasite into us that tries to burrow into our spine and take control of our mind *shudder*. Previously the Corpus were just corporate douchebags, now one of them is cutting up Tenno and stitching them back together then sending the Frankenstein creation back out to hunt us! Oh and the same guy is now deliberately feeding his men to the infestation to make more interesting body-horror monsters.

 

The Red Veil went from freedom fighters to bloodthirstly purgers of corruption. We have an emotionless AI we can work for. And we're still the same amnesiac Warrior-Monks wearing techno-organic power armour designed by Insane-Golden-God-Emperors with distorted half-memories of Earth before it was destroyed and remade in their utopian-but-totalitarian image.

 

I think it's plenty dark, certainly as dark as it was if not more so.

 

...could we use some more dark? maybe, but I don't see anything here to complain about.

Lore-wise we indeed don't have anything to complain about, that is true. :)

 

In terms of the overall theme of the game, I believe the universe of warframe has....evolved. Not gonna say changed per say, but we've overall moved on from the fact that there are few Tenno left. 

 

When the game was first playable to the public there were very few players because of the beta. This gave the players the sense of you playing a near extinct race of warriors that were extremely powerful. Over time the game became more open to the public, went on Steam, grew in popularity, and is now on multiple consoles. The playerbase is now extremely filled up and the game accurately represents that. Clan dojos are everywhere, dark sectors are being made and conflicting with others, and splinter factions have seen the rebellious actions of the Tenno and have emerged from the Grineer and Corpus. 

 

The Tenno have given hope to the universe and is represented in the game in many ways, no matter how subtle or obvious.....and yes, that is a good thing.

Yup, we can't deny that the game evolved with the massive community grow. They didn't even expect this much!!

 

Just a follow-up to my earlier comparison post: this is taken after a sabotage, with an overload. This is the same situation as the bottom picture in the OP.

 

 

As you can see, it's just as dark, if not darker. 

 

 

If that's all it takes for this game to jump the shark, then we jumped it a long time ago.

I'm also really happy you made that pic. That means that w still got this environment hazard. If it happens a little bit more often, it will be perfect. :)

 

I dont agree, I only agree with new warframes coming out, its dumb and its stupid. It went from suits with special abilities to straight up magic.

 

God I wish DE could delete dumb frames like nekros, oberon ,limo, nova etc but its too late for that.

 

Monsters and magic.

They recently released many miscellaneous frames in a row so I understand the pain of people who can't handle them.

 

While they're at it, they can delete that Ponyframe Nova.

 

Delete a frame? You know it's impossible...We should only hope that the next frames won't stand out too much from the "mysterious-space-killing-machine thang". :p

[unknow99]

I still missed it when Corpus outpost had black outs when infested were around. But I see where you're coming from. Although I do wish Stalkers had more of a fear factor around him aside from the usual "I'm gonna die from this random thing". Like more subtle hints he coming from you, a wisp of smoke as you open the door only for nothing to appear, that wtf factor. 

Black outs seem to occur a lot less nowadays! That might explain some people's feeling about the atmosphere...

But if they kept the files, it'd be easy to fix : make this happen more often + the come back of the dark/red light Corpus ship (or even Grineer asteroid!) in some occasions.

 

This is something doable we could wish for!

[KaynArgyr]

Something that came upon my mind...

 

Yeah, Warframe in the begin was grittier and darker, but in the begin we were Tenno who had just awoken by crio-sleep and didn't really knew their place in the world...

 

Everything was dark rooms and corridors where we infiltrated to figure out what the factions were up to, how the world was going to change...

 

...and the world, *did* changed...

 

The Grineers and the Corpus put plans in motions, plans that we ruined, no more we were ignorant folk with no understanding of their place but we became a force able to shape our reality...

 

We learned about the Void, we got the chance to both awe at the Orokin towers' magneficence and to mourn the art that got loss in the Derelict...

 

No more constrained by gravity, we can finally venture and explore the depths of space, fight in these black waters...

 

And now the horror for us isn't even about a scary dark corridor but to learn what we, as the Tenno, really are...

 

Warframe has grown up, had gives us a dynamic experience that goes way farther than just a series of questline, and I dare you to name any online game that did this before...

 

So yeah, it changed, it maybe lost the vibe of a grim world to fear...

 

...but it had become a new world to observe as it shapes itself in front of our very own eyes...

[Djangofett]

I say yes, each and everyday more and more people are leaving.

[PookieNumnums]

these are not happy times. darker is better. they experimented on us as kids. we saved them rrom certain doom only to kill them ourselves. we are hunted by three horrible entities.