Cosmetics from DE vs Tennogen: Quality/Design/Aesthetics Question

[_Rue_]

***This is not an "I want Tennogen for plat" topic, thanks.***

So, how do the DE made cosmetics compare to tennogen?

Most of the time, i feel some tennogen look better than what the people at DE are churning out, especially the prime access accessories...

What i noticed is that DE has an edge in terms of other effects like (animation when you charge like the Citadella Prime or effects, like the additional arms with the new nova skin) but some Tennogen just look better hands down.

EDIT:

Let's also consider "premium" skins in the discussion since this is also like Tennogen only, we can buy it with plat. Sometimes I wish Hitsu and the grineer guy got premium skin contracts instead of the current guy/s.

EDIT 2:

Revised title to make sure we're talking about the right things.

Edited August 7, 2016 by _Rue_

[Kuestenjung]

In almost every game that supports modding there is fan made stuff that is better then the developers stuff.

[Rakosta_Kai]

Well, it all has to be processed by DE so the quality is about the same.

The ideas and designs are a noticeable difference though.

I would posit that this is because DE is a smaller group and can't devote the amount of time that hundreds of individual players with similar skill sets/aspirations/hobbies can.

 

Likewise, this gives up and coming artists something noteworthy for their portfolio. 

[Tymerc]

I prefer DE content because they clearly have more tools available to themselves and usually make amazing deluxe bundles. 

Although Tennogen creators such as Hitsu show that us players can even cook up something nice with what we have available. 

At the end of the day I would probably buy things from both parties. 

[_Rue_]

Edited the OP to include premium skins.

[Lerden]

Aside from prime accessories and delux skins (and even then it's just becase DE did not permit modders to make something like that) most tennogen is miles above "official" cosmetics.

[HalfDarkShadow]

It's a bit subjective whether or not one "looks" better than the other, though I understand your sentiment.

The largest difference is the man power and time. Especially if they have to pull an outside contractor in to make [for example] the Deluxe skins, I figure it just takes more time and focus, especially if it's inhouse since it does [conjecture] pull away an employee from doing whatever else needs to be done. Not to say it's a bad thing, quite the contrary, but that's more-or-less a general what likely goes down at DE. I don't work there so I can't really say with 100% certainty but intuition tells me there is at least some truth to it.

With Tennogen, the middle-man being Steam Workshop really alleviates plenty of stress on their side of the table. They still curate and process everything on their end but it's definitely much quicker and helps with even consumer choice in the volume of Tennogen content that can be selected and released over what they can do in-house.

As @Padre_Akais brillantly puts it:

19 minutes ago, Padre_Akais said:

Well, it all has to be processed by DE so the quality is about the same.

The ideas and designs are a noticeable difference though.

I would posit that this is because DE is a smaller group and can't devote the amount of time that hundreds of individual players with similar skill sets/aspirations/hobbies can.

 

25 minutes ago, _Rue_ said:

What i noticed is that DE has an edge in terms of other effects

As far as the effects go, I'm not entirely sure the reason behind it, but it could be that there's only so much DE can allow for artists to use, be it through the engine given out to us or just for preservation for them. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before we start seeing some more elegant effects coming from Tennogen.

19 minutes ago, Padre_Akais said:

Likewise, this gives up and coming artists something noteworthy for their portfolio.

And as a nice bonus they also receive part of the revenue share which in turn directly supporting their work! And hell, since they did provide us the tools to create our own skins, it's still good practice regardless if one choose to post it on the Steam Workshop or not lol.

Edited August 7, 2016 by HalfDarkShadow

[Genitive]

Tennogen seem better because there are more people doing it. A single art team will have fewer good ideas than hundreds Tennogen creators, who then content is chosen from. During one of the devstreams Mynki said that they outsource some stuff, like the Oberon skin, to external artists, because they have fresh ideas and aren't worried with their boss opinion and taste. The same thing goes fot Tennogen.

[Misgenesis]

As far as frames go i still much prefer DE's stuff over what ive seen from tennogen. You just cant compete with new models.

[matto]

My main questions are simple.

Are Prime accessories worth their price when you can see what some artists in Tennogen can create?

Is DE, a large studio with larger means, providing enough customization options considering how fast a Tennogen artist can work on a skin or a syandana?

Also, at some point, do players get closer to the universe of the game they are playing than the artists? Aren't Tennogen artists somehow responding to a demand/a vision because they probably had the same at some point? (Grineer skins by fredaven, corpus syandana by HitsuSan X AGGP, jetpacks by alexmach1 etc.)

[HalfDarkShadow]

9 minutes ago, matto said:

My main questions are simple.

Are Prime accessories worth their price when you can see what some artists in Tennogen can create?

Is DE, a large studio with larger means, providing enough customization options considering how fast a Tennogen artist can work on a skin or a syandana?

Also, at some point, do players get closer to the universe of the game they are playing than the artists? Aren't Tennogen artists somehow responding to a demand/a vision because they probably had the same at some point? (Grineer skins by fredaven, corpus syandana by HitsuSan X AGGP, jetpacks by alexmach1 etc.)

Woah.

[(XBOX)Gray Silhouette]

27 minutes ago, Kuestenjung said:

In almost every game that supports modding there is fan made stuff that is better then the developers stuff.

But why?

[_Rue_]

6 minutes ago, matto said:

Are Prime accessories worth their price when you can see what some artists in Tennogen can create?

This is the same question I have. I buy prime access for accessories and the boosters, but I think i can do better with cherry picking tennogen instead if DE starts selling longer booster days.

[Neofaucheur]

I don't really think Tennogen cosmetics are better than DE made ones. Not in term of quality at least. Texturing and modeling are of roughly equal quality (although I don't understand how some Tennogen content I won't name were selected to be added to the game). But you have to remember the fact that a lot of thing is submitted and not everything is good enough to be added to the game. So given the vast quantity there ought to be stuff of very high quality.

About design... well, who's better at designing things that players like than players themselves ?

Another thing : DE content is not reviewed by the community before being added to the game. Tennogen creators get a lot of feedback about their creations before their are added to the game. They can rework and change as much as they want to which DE don't do.

[Gremlin]

I'm assuming because out of the many submissions/attempts made by the community, only the absolutely amazing pieces seep out into public view. 

[_Rue_]

11 minutes ago, Neofaucheur said:

I don't really think Tennogen cosmetics are better than DE made ones. Not in term of quality at least. Texturing and modeling are of roughly equal quality (although I don't understand how some Tennogen content I won't name were selected to be added to the game). But you have to remember the fact that a lot of thing is submitted and not everything is good enough to be added to the game. So given the vast quantity there ought to be stuff of very high quality.

About design... well, who's better at designing things that players like than players themselves ?

Another thing : DE content is not reviewed by the community before being added to the game. Tennogen creators get a lot of feedback about their creations before their are added to the game. They can rework and change as much as they want to which DE don't do.

 

4 minutes ago, Ker-Blammo said:

I'm assuming because out of the many submissions/attempts made by the community, only the absolutely amazing pieces seep out into public view. 

sounds like a gap that can be addressed then.

The way things are going the "Tennogen system" seems to churn out things i like more. If the next prime access accessories aren't better, i'll just go get tennogen instead and save the 50$.

[raydog]

I think its more likely that the stuff that DE comes out with is under more scrutiny from within, meaning Mynki as the art director has a lot more say as far as what passes and not.  With Tennogen, the playerbase is a lot more free to churn out stuff without that scrutiny and can get it to completion.  DE does have final say as to what goes in from Tennogen, but this is before the userbase has made their choices known to them and if they do want people to buy things, they have to let some things pass.

[_Rue_]

1 minute ago, raydog said:

I think its more likely that the stuff that DE comes out with is under more scrutiny from within, meaning Mynki as the art director has a lot more say as far as what passes and not.  With Tennogen, the playerbase is a lot more free to churn out stuff without that scrutiny and can get it to completion.  DE does have final say as to what goes in from Tennogen, but this is before the userbase has made their choices known to them and if they do want people to buy things, they have to let some things pass.

so double standards?

[Gremlin]

3 minutes ago, _Rue_ said:

so double standards?

I think it's more that the community already knows what it's voting for, so it's usually more liked by the majority of the community.

For example, the new nova skins head probably would not have made it too far on the workshop. :p

[raydog]

My point exactly.

[Rhekemi]

Aside from strong points already made (and in concurrence with others), we're talking about artists who are also people.

Different artists, different people, different perspectives.

DE is a very small company.

Its game's player base is huge.

The community finds bugs faster than them.

The community finds new ways to break features, weapons and 'frames faster than them.

It stands to reason the community could create art as good as DE's art team, and (in the eye of the beholder) better than DE's art team.

Mynki and the art team likely have several dozens, maybe hundreds, of art they've never used. Art they dream about. Art that inspires and haunts them on a day to day basis. The community's artwork likely would be similar: challenging and inspiring them (as it did in fan-concepts like Zephyr and Chroma). 

Let's remember that the art team doesn't only work on warframe skins: it's the art team, so it works on several assets, has deadlines, has to work on a project-by-project basis, and who knows what else that Tennogen artists do not have to worry about. 

As it's been noted, Tennogen artists have more freedom. It's neither good nor bad, nor a double standard. It simply is what it is. It's life, facts.

If it would make us happier, the DE art team could just adopt a style like that of the Tennogen artists, but what would that say about their artistic integrity? What would we say about them? (No. I'm not suggesting this is what people want.)

That leaves them with the options of hiring and contracting out (which they have done with deluxe skins) and the Tennogen works. Those two options alone are huge for the community. DE was gracious and savvy enough to open its doors to fan works, and pay those fans for their work. 

That the quality (which is a matter of taste) and pricing of fan works and DE's works don't always match (which is also a matter of taste) is a byproduct of trying to do right by the community in the best way possible, I think.

If they're a little off sometimes, I'll forgive them and move on.

You have to take into account that DE did not foresee this level of quality, and likely has to allow their own business model (the prime accessories, for instance) to catch up to what their customers want.

Sometimes that seems the story of Warframe's life: DE didn't foresee how big a deal, or how big an issue, something was going to be. But I like that they're fast on their feet, still open to new ideas, and are overall trying to be a good company that produces a good game.

Now the salt:

Spoiler

I'm still salty about Tennogen items being Steam-locked. I understand the choice, but I refuse to look at Tennogen items again.

 

Edited August 7, 2016 by Rhekemi

[(PSN)ArnnFrost]

4 hours ago, Kuestenjung said:

In almost every game that supports modding there is fan made stuff that is better then the developers stuff.

It's all about creativity, Devs have their own original theme that most people might get used to so outside skin designs and mods always appeal for it being creative and sometimes having a different theme design to satisfy the "Why it isn't like this" in you xD

[Kuestenjung]

9 hours ago, (XB1)Gray Silhouette said:

But why?

 

4 hours ago, (PS4)ArnnFrost said:

It's all about creativity, Devs have their own original theme that most people might get used to so outside skin designs and mods always appeal for it being creative and sometimes having a different theme design to satisfy the "Why it isn't like this" in you xD

The simple answer to this is, Fans will do it with more passion. Just take a look at this forum, you will find way more "lore" here then the game actually has and the actual discussion about Syndicate melees shows that the fans care more about lore then DE themselfs. 

No studio will ever achieve the level of passion then a fanbase has.

[SpeedOfLightPuncher]

I think that the prime access packs have much better looking accessories. Look at the targis prime armor, eos prome armor, misa prime cape

But if we talk about normal skins that DE releases I think that tennogen people make a much better job of it 

[Sir_Alex_Traffo]

TennoGen Syandanas are thousand times better than DE, the rest I feel is on the same level. 

Which is incredible because the community being on the same devs design level, even a few times, is awesome!