Narration, Events into quest and all that

[Morkislair]

Hello Tenno.

Two weeks ago, I made a video about the subject in French, you can go see it there if you understand the language. For those of you who don't, here's the written version. It's about the way Warframe presents its story and the old events into quest thing.

Warframe presents its story in three ways:

 

 

1°) Passive Lore

Spoiler

Pieces of lore hidden here and there, sometimes visible as the nose across the face. That's for instance the case of the scribbling on the warframes themselves (which make me think that Hydroid, Nekros and Vauban were originally brothers, and that Vauban betrayed them or was led astray from them by the orokin, but that's a whole 'nother story), but also everything that is written on the walls and everything you can scan for lore, be it Simaris community targets, Kurias and Cephalon fragments. It also includes all lore entries you can find in the codex. Thyat's what I call passive lore. It's there, near the surface, but to get it, you need to reach for it.

 

 

2°) Events

Spoiler

Those are momentary pieces of story (meaning they are not here forever), quite often very short on the story content because they imply a heavy grind... but, when you pile up one event atop another, they form the frame of the world and give broad strokes of who are the various characters. Vor, Sargas Ruk, Alad V, Frod Bek, Darvo, Nef Anyo, the merry band of Acolytes... All those people (except Vor & darvo introduced to us via the introduciton) are mainly presented via the events.

 

 

3°) Quests

Spoiler

A succession of missions linked by a narrative arc more or less intense (from the little things of A man of Few Words and the heavyness of Second Dream) that advance the main storyline.

 

           From there, do you see the problem? I'm gonna help. In the spoiler, here is a little chart I made linking the events and quests.

Is it clearer? To be short on doubts, quests are, for now, a disjointed mass of stuff happening where a real direction lacks (the only one there is is a progressive buildup to the second dream), a thread to follow. Part of that thread comes from the events (blue are quests, orange are events). But you can see very clearly that of the thirteen quests available right now (not counting Vor's Prize for obvious reasons), two third of them need events to be understandable.

            Why are we so mad after Alad V? Why does Tyl Regor hates us so much? Why are there destroyed relays throughout the system? And who's that Nef Anyo character? You were not there during the events, my, that's too bad. That being said, we can notice a shift in the balance between quests and events. Events now tend to introduce a new mechanic, environment, enemy or a boss rework rather than pieces of story, which is more and more the role of the quests. The last event to have a significative story part (for an event) was Tubemen of Regor, and it was in may 2015.

            Since then, we've had tactical alerts that introduced the Razorback, an event for the coming of the Acolytes and the Rathuum that presented Kela de Thaym's rework. So we're not talking story per say, but rather new content. On the contrary, quests, even if they push new things forward, are much more heavy on story. This shift is explained by a little note DE Steve made on an interview, devstream or something (can't remember which), where he said that they didn't think they could keep the game going for more than 18 month. And quests made their apparition with The Mad Cephalon (U14), roughly one year and a half after tha game came out. But as Warframe is in its fourth year, this divide tends to get bigger, with the importance the quests are narratively taking over events. And that's a good thing. Because if you weren't there during the time of the event, you're not missing out content (except event badges or dojo statues) you won't have access to never ever.

 

 

Now the juicy bit: old events into quests:

            There is only one smally-itchy problem: the old events. DE spoke of turning them into quests from time to time, and the videos played during the sound pannel during Tennocon, at least to me, hints that it is on the way; but the radio silence DE is maintaining could go both ways: maybe they want to keep it a surprise, maybe it's very far on their list of priorities; we'll see. Whatever the case may be, there is a reason why DE hasn't done it already: it's plain impossible for a very straightforward reason. Events were, are and will be grindfests. For their duration, if creating content that keeps the player invested could be done just like that without resorting to grindind, well... we'd know. There are also often timers, community progression bars, awesome rewards, be it potatoes, loads of money special weapons and whatnot, but you see my point. This is not directly translatable into quests which can be played solo and do not (or very loosely) revolve around grinding.

            To be turned into quests, those events have to be packed on a more digest shape. I don't have the slightest idea of what DE is thinking or doing about it, but I think several events will be turned into one quest, and some will only be a vague objective when we first come on a planet.

            For instance, the Gravidus Dilemna and the Hunt can be merged, & Arid Fear be kicked out of the equation. Its mission type be repurposed for this new quest, but the story content is too weak to really be a part on its own. An introduction, or a moving part, yes, but not much more. That would be the first chapter of our interactions with Alad V. The Second act would be the Breeding Ground + Tubemen of Regor, which could only happen after the first arc of Nef Anyo (aka the merge of False Prophit and the Razorback Alert)

            Same thing on the Grineer side, the Cicero Crisis and could be skipped, and with a few tweaks, Sling-Stone & Tetra's Doom could become one big quest in the inner solar system and after that, we can purely ignore Eyes of Blight, by simply mentioning of the destroyed relays before the player awoke, and that big quest could take a few elements from the Cicero Crisis and Eyes of Blight, but more of a small inpiration, or even let the player witness a relay's destruction before he can set a foot on it. That would give us even more reasons to want to smash Hek's screaming parrot's face.

            While we're at it, we can ignore the Cryotic Front and Specters of Liberty, because what little story they gave is now covered by the content they were hinting/teasing. Even Shadow Debt could receive such a treatment: a message or two from Alad V shortly after the Second Dream, making the acolytes playable for the player, would be enough.

            You'll notice that if done correctly, the first Alad V arc and Vay Hek's would cover the players progression throughout the inner solar system to Jupiter

 

 

            And as you can see, we're not even in what those quests should have as content, but only as how to put these old events into a questable story mode. It should make for a story map like this:

 

 

            It's a lot of work, and I understand the devs taking time to get it out, because it's not new content as much as rephrasing of old stuff, and it can be problematic for a game that needs fresh blood all the time like Warframe. I juts hope they'll take their time for it to be interesting to do regardless of the rewards, and that it will link the scattered parts of story we have. Tell me wat you think, and if you understand French, video version can be watched here

 

 

Edited August 18, 2016 by Huitzilopoltchi

[(PSN)Goldova]

Je plussoie.

[Distruco22]

:o

[Morkislair]

That's some fine letters Distruco22, but what are your thoughts on it? ^^

[DrBorris]

Something like this?

[Morkislair]

That's the spirit, but much much more compact, and assembling the old events to create quests worthy of the name. 
Because let's be honest, should the Gravidus Dilemna, the Hunt or the Cicero Crisis rise again like they were, it's gonna be awful.
A lots of operations didn't have enough story to be risen from the dead anyway, like Cryotic front, Fusion Moa or Gate Crash. 
And there are... say anomalities on your map: Grineer are introduced in Vor's Prize, and corpus are... well, sorta shown in there too.
No offense, but I think your map is too complex: things should be streamlined for ease of use, and be done with all the old stuff that was just introducing content and little to no story.