Inhabiting the Player Character

[BornWithTeeth]

How about a follow up question?

 

 

People who do not regard the Operator as your player character: What change(s) to the way that things work would cause you to begin seeing them that way?

[dstrawberrygirl]

It is hard to put yourself into the mindset of an operator, as the OP so perfectly put it:

2 hours ago, Shoelip said:

heavily traumatized thousands of years old teenaged out of control magic space ninja child soldier

Even the teenagers in the WF community might have some trouble with that... but I do like the fact that it's a bold, different and unique story path that they took. I would love to see my Tenno age and grow up at some point, or even meet other Tenno in some capacity other than just virtually through their warframes. In some ways, it parallels our own experiences of interacting with other players - not meeting them personally, just through their operator-controlled frames... but yeh, space ninjas is still the main game.

When I play Mass Effect, I bond with Commander Shepard - meeting a strong female protagonist changed my perspective on playing games, and I have a hard time now moving back and playing as a guy in other games. I don't connect with my operator nearly as strongly - yet. We'll see what TWW does to change things. 

[Gelkor]

1 minute ago, SilentMobius said:

Personally I wouldn't call once maybe removing a sword their chest by themselves a "propensity" but I guess we'll see come TWW.

Also I see the stances the same way I might swagger a bit more when I'm dressed up and wearing my good boots vs moping around in a hoodie rather than indication of identity.

But thats just me.

Well, there's also Titania coming to Earth to rescue Silvana of her own accord.

Given that it was Ballas who both had control of the Tenno at the time and sent the Dax after Silvana, and Titania wasn't completed yet, I find it far more likely that Titania acted of it's own volition to come to Silvana's aid than a renegade Tenno used Titania to rescue Silvana. If it had been a Tenno Ballas could have just unplugged them, if it was Titania itself going rogue, it would explain it better.

[arch111]

My operator is like a Sim. Sure I can change looks and all, but I have no actual control over it.

I identify with my warframe. 

[Beggining]

21 minutes ago, SilentMobius said:

How does that answer anything?

Or are you just saying that you'd use Valkyr?

He/She's a Valkyr supporter.

Meow :3

Also, I like your points: the way we play represents the way our Operators 'play', be it to troll everyone, to turn the alarms off as soon as it was raised, or to switch to frames that are suitable for the assigned mission.

[BornWithTeeth]

4 minutes ago, Gelkor said:

Well, there's also Titania coming to Earth to rescue Silvana of her own accord.

Given that it was Ballas who both had control of the Tenno at the time and sent the Dax after Silvana, and Titania wasn't completed yet, I find it far more likely that Titania acted of it's own volition to come to Silvana's aid than a renegade Tenno used Titania to rescue Silvana. If it had been a Tenno Ballas could have just unplugged them, if it was Titania itself going rogue, it would explain it better.

Funny thing there is that I apparently am an outlier: I have no interest whatsoever in independent Warframes, Warframes without Tenno. The Operator, the survivor of the Zariman, the youth turned into a war engine, that's my player character. Warframes on their own? Yeah, that's cool, I guess. I don't really want one on my ship, though.

[SilentMobius]

11 minutes ago, Gelkor said:

Well, there's also Titania coming to Earth to rescue Silvana of her own accord.

Given that it was Ballas who both had control of the Tenno at the time and sent the Dax after Silvana, and Titania wasn't completed yet, I find it far more likely that Titania acted of it's own volition to come to Silvana's aid than a renegade Tenno used Titania to rescue Silvana. If it had been a Tenno Ballas could have just unplugged them, if it was Titania itself going rogue, it would explain it better.

I disagree, IMHO the Tenno were a limited resource, the Warframes were not. We already have a story of a Tenno+Warframe that rebelled before the "event" that began the Orokin collapse: Inaros. I see no reason not to assume that "Titania" (That is the Tenno who was currently dreaming they "were" that first Warframe of her line) Did not return to save the designer of that Warframe due to memories either embedded in the techno-organic substrate or from early Transference tests occurring during the building of Titania.

Maybe that Tenno died upon the death of the Warframe, maybe Ballas just scrubbed them and placed them into a new Warframe, while marking that Warframe line as "Overly heroic archetype, not for production" in a similar vein to the Inaros line.

Asserting sapience and/or sentience is a high bar and needs overwhelming corroboration, currently I don't think we have anything close, just a long series of different entities and mechanisms stealing Warframes and/or early Tenno rebels from before the final Orokin rebellion.

Edited October 13, 2016 by SilentMobius

[Shoelip]

3 minutes ago, BornWithTeeth said:

Funny thing there is that I apparently am an outlier: I have no interest whatsoever in independent Warframes, Warframes without Tenno. The Operator, the survivor of the Zariman, the youth turned into a war engine, that's my player character. Warframes on their own? Yeah, that's cool, I guess. I don't really want one on my ship, though.

It's funny.  I gotta agree with that.  I really like the operator character and the way the story is after Second Dream I just can't identify with them.

[SilentMobius]

9 minutes ago, BornWithTeeth said:

Funny thing there is that I apparently am an outlier: I have no interest whatsoever in independent Warframes, Warframes without Tenno. The Operator, the survivor of the Zariman, the youth turned into a war engine, that's my player character. Warframes on their own? Yeah, that's cool, I guess. I don't really want one on my ship, though.

Well if Warframes are indeed sentient and/or sapient then the entire basis of the Tenno being a force of balance is a lie, all Tenno motivations retroactively become atrocities. And the primary progress mechanism of the game (Collection of Warframe BPs and the construction of them) becomes something to actively avoid.

IMHO it's bad game design so retroactively turn your progress mechanic into an ongoing atrocity and then expect players to keep doing it.

Edited October 13, 2016 by SilentMobius

[Sloan441]

32 minutes ago, SilentMobius said:

Other way around, when I play Warframe I play it as my Tenno, I adjust my decisions to align with the motivation I think my Tenno should have.

This is why I don't care for "What Warframe will you be using in TWW"-like threads, because my Tenno would use the right tool for the mission be it rifle, pistol, melee or warframe.

This. So much this.

This is the essence of the 'role' in role playing games. You put yourself in their position and work from what you imagine their perspective might be. The only fly in the ointment in regards to WF is that we know very little of the tenno's background and even less about where they were coming from at the end of the Great War. Nevertheless, that's how you play a role; you just have to adjust your perspective in this game as new information comes to light.

I also chose warframes based on mission requirements. I like to play certain ones, but need drives the gear train. Having said that, I'll probably chose TrinityP for TWW because, a) I have no clue what to expect, and b) TrinityP is one of the better warframes to confront an unknown situation.

[Gelkor]

2 minutes ago, BornWithTeeth said:

Funny thing there is that I apparently am an outlier: I have no interest whatsoever in independent Warframes, Warframes without Tenno. The Operator, the survivor of the Zariman, the youth turned into a war engine, that's my player character. Warframes on their own? Yeah, that's cool, I guess. I don't really want one on my ship, though.

Well, I'm not necessarily interested in them being independent either, but the Rhino Prime codex, Second Dream, and Silver Grove seems to indicate that they are living beings with, somewhat, their own volition. Which obviously raises some ethical and moral quandaries for our Operators. 

1 minute ago, SilentMobius said:

I disagree, IMHO the Tenno were a limited resource, the Warframes were not. We already have a story of a Tenno+Warframe that rebelled before the "event" that began the Orokin collapse: Inaros. I see no reason not to assume that "Titania" (That is the Tenno who was currently dreaming they "were" that first Warframe of her line) Did not return to save the designer of that Warframe due to memories either embedded in the techno-organic substrate or from early Transference tests occurring during the building of Titania.

Maybe that Tenno died upon the death of the Warframe, maybe Ballas just scrubbed them and placed them into a new Warframe, while marking that Warframe line as "Overly heroic archetype, not for production" in a similar vein to the Inaros line.

Asserting sapience and/or sentience is a high bar and needs overwhelming corroboration, currently I don't think we have anything close, just a long series of different entities and mechanisms stealing Warframes and/or early Tenno rebels from before the final Orokin rebellion.

As I mentioned above, before Transference was even discovered, in the Rhino Prime codex it does indicate that the flesh-golem had it's own drive and volition. I'm not enamored of the idea, and I'm definitely not one of those people who just wants to "be" the Warframe and murder their operator, but I think there's been enough evidence to at least lend credence to the idea that Warframe's are kinda alive and have their own drives. A twisted one, to be sure, as Silvana described it as "a tortured presence, like an evil ink, staining [her] mind."

[Kinetos]

1 hour ago, BornWithTeeth said:

Their actual quote was something like two hundred hours of dialogue. Now....let's halve that and say that they end up scrapping a lot of it, unusable, not what they were looking for. That leaves us one hundred hours. Now, divide by four, as there are four voices. That gives us twenty-five hours.

 

Let's take off the equivalent of, I dunno, ten hours of potential quest-specific dialogue.

 

That's still a massive amount of Operator dialogue holy crap.

 

 

 

Unless, of course, I misremember. Can anyone recall the exact amount of recorded dialogue they said they had to work with?

On Second Stream podcast they confirmed that the voice they showed on the Devstream was for a single operator voice. Not all 4 of them. 

[Valorosus]

4 minutes ago, Shoelip said:

It's funny.  I gotta agree with that.  I really like the operator character and the way the story is after Second Dream I just can't identify with them.

When I was looking for Reservoir I thought that I'm Tenno in one of exo-suits, and that Reservoir is some kind of infinite power resource ("heart") which gives my waframe (exo-suit) special power and allow it to be revived along with me, Tenno, inside. And then that Operator... But hey, that's "me" :) At least Operator have mortal body and is not a pure energy :) I wonder where toilet is on Liset... I hope it's not in that infested room :)

[SilentMobius]

4 minutes ago, Gelkor said:

As I mentioned above, before Transference was even discovered, in the Rhino Prime codex it does indicate that the flesh-golem had it's own drive and volition. I'm not enamored of the idea, and I'm definitely not one of those people who just wants to "be" the Warframe and murder their operator, but I think there's been enough evidence to at least lend credence to the idea that Warframe's are kinda alive and have their own drives. A twisted one, to be sure, as Silvana described it as "a tortured presence, like an evil ink, staining [her] mind."

I would say that "the beast" in the RPC was not a Warframe it was a pre-warframe entity. to make an analogy it was a cow where a Warframe is a leather Jacket. If transference was only discovered at the end if the RPC events then the entity that was being researched could not have been a Warframe. I would suggest it was simply an infested golem, being investigated for it's potential unique attributes

Also I have no issue with "Alive", bacteria are "Alive" and the Warframes are quite clearly using technology that could be described as "techno-organic", however Sentient and or Sapient is very different from "Alive"

[Sloan441]

2 minutes ago, Gelkor said:

Well, I'm not necessarily interested in them being independent either, but the Rhino Prime codex, Second Dream, and Silver Grove seems to indicate that they are living beings with, somewhat, their own volition. Which obviously raises some ethical and moral quandaries for our Operators. 

It raises a whole lot of moral and ethical questions about the Orokin Empire.

Your operator didn't exactly have a whole lot of choice in the matter of their employment. Maybe more than the warframes, but that isn't saying all that much and the warframes might not have enough self-awareness to really care. That's still an open question. 

Also, the tenno were in a dream state for much of their service. What happens in REM state, stays in REM state. Now in the present time, they might have to deal with some of these lingering issues, but that's for DE and wherever they want the story to go. I'm still of the opinion it's a symbiotic relationship, but it's probably mostly on a subconscious level. Time will tell.

[Shoelip]

2 minutes ago, Valorosus said:

When I was looking for Reservoir I thought that I'm Tenno in one of exo-suits, and that Reservoir is some kind of infinite power resource ("heart") which gives my waframe (exo-suit) special power and allow it to be revived along with me, Tenno, inside. And then that Operator... But hey, that's "me" :) At least Operator have mortal body and is not a pure energy :) I wonder where toilet is on Liset... I hope it's not in that infested room :)

The ship doesn't seem to have a head or a mess... So I guess Tenno neither eat nor poop.

[Sovereign533]

I don't know how to 'identify' with game characters. Either a character is a complete mute and only I do all the talking she does then it represents me. Even if she doesn't look anything close to me. But the operator character isn't mute. She talks to me. So she isn't me. On top of that, it is clear that she knows things we don't know. She frequently mentions that the Grineer used to be builders and that the Corpus are like the Orokin. Ok, then give me something where I can get the knowledge that I apparently have. Maybe even have that voiced by the operator voices.

On top of that, she says retarted things. Like in an exterminate mission 'Attack and we will counter!'. While it is clear to everyone that it is the Tenno that are attacking. We aren't retaliating, we are the aggressors. And we don't even know why we are there and what we are doing. We are there because the Lotus says we have to be there.

I think it could be better and more immersive if we can walk about the Orbiter as our operator. And if she'd say less $&*&*#(%& stuff.

[Valorosus]

1 minute ago, Shoelip said:

The ship doesn't seem to have a head or a mess... So I guess Tenno neither eat nor poop.

Maybe they have drip attached to their seat, or they feed with void energy? Surely these bodies are organic (Stalker almost strangled Operator, in TWW trailer Tenno shivers from cold), so they must have some sort of metabolism, I guess...

[SilentMobius]

4 minutes ago, Sloan441 said:

It raises a whole lot of moral and ethical questions about the Orokin Empire.

Your operator didn't exactly have a whole lot of choice in the matter of their employment. Maybe more than the warframes, but that isn't saying all that much and the warframes might not have enough self-awareness to really care. That's still an open question. 

Also, the tenno were in a dream state for much of their service. What happens in REM state, stays in REM state. Now in the present time, they might have to deal with some of these lingering issues, but that's for DE and wherever they want the story to go. I'm still of the opinion it's a symbiotic relationship, but it's probably mostly on a subconscious level. Time will tell.

The Tenno are building, selling, storing, mentally-dominating-into-battle-to-the-death their Warframes. If the Warframes are sentient and/or Sapient the the Tenno are Mengler-Moreau, dogfighting, body-autonomy-violating slavemasters essemtially.

Regardless of the Orokin's guilt in the initial design.

And each new Warframe is a war-crime.

Which is a bad thing to attach to you're games progress mechanic retroactively.

Edited October 13, 2016 by SilentMobius

[Shoelip]

1 minute ago, Sovereign533 said:

I don't know how to 'identify' with game characters. Either a character is a complete mute and only I do all the talking she does then it represents me. Even if she doesn't look anything close to me. But the operator character isn't mute. She talks to me. So she isn't me. On top of that, it is clear that she knows things we don't know. She frequently mentions that the Grineer used to be builders and that the Corpus are like the Orokin. Ok, then give me something where I can get the knowledge that I apparently have. Maybe even have that voiced by the operator voices.

On top of that, she says retarted things. Like in an exterminate mission 'Attack and we will counter!'. While it is clear to everyone that it is the Tenno that are attacking. We aren't retaliating, we are the aggressors. And we don't even know why we are there and what we are doing. We are there because the Lotus says we have to be there.

I think it could be better and more immersive if we can walk about the Orbiter as our operator. And if she'd say less $&*&*#(%& stuff.

Don't forget "Let's go on the offensive!"  When in a defense mission, and "How big is this place!" randomly even if you're in a very small map like the Grineer Galleon defense/interception map.

[Gelkor]

6 minutes ago, SilentMobius said:

I would say that "the beast" in the RPC was not a Warframe it was a pre-warframe entity. to make an analogy it was a cow where a Warframe is a leather Jacket. If transference was only discovered at the end if the RPC events then the entity that was being researched could not have been a Warframe. I would suggest it was simply an infested golem, being investigated for it's potential unique attributes

Also I have no issue with "Alive", bacteria are "Alive" and the Warframes are quite clearly using technology that could be described as "techno-organic", however Sentient and or Sapient is very different from "Alive"

Absolutely, I think it was an early/proto form of what would be used to make Warframes, but I just don't think they've ever "bred out"  Warframe Sapience, maybe suppressed it more.  I may be wrong, but it feels to me like that's the direction they are taking it. I'm just saying don't be surprised if it's a thing, is all. 

[schilds]

I have a few questions I hope TWW will answer.

 

Is there one entity or two? Or more than two :-P. If there's one then the answer of who we're playing is straightforward (though that doesn't mean we have to identify with them).

 

If there are two, then what is their relationship? Is it symbiotic? Parasitic? Cooperative? Master and slave? Do the frames need (or depend on) the Tenno and/or vice versa? Do we have some choice over this, or will it be decided for us, in TWW?

Edited October 13, 2016 by schilds

[SilentMobius]

3 minutes ago, Gelkor said:

Absolutely, I think it was an early/proto form of what would be used to make Warframes, but I just don't think they've ever "bred out"  Warframe Sapience, maybe suppressed it more.  I may be wrong, but it feels to me like that's the direction they are taking it. I'm just saying don't be surprised if it's a thing, is all. 

If Warframes are "inherrently evil" a-la the infestation then fine, but I think that would be a bad call for those people who do like to relate to each Warframe's "theme". If they aren't... well thats super bad for the game

... but there is a lot of space between "alive" and "sentient" (Not sapient mind you) that would be fine to explore.

Edited October 13, 2016 by SilentMobius

[Sloan441]

4 minutes ago, SilentMobius said:

The Tenno are building, selling, storing, mentally-dominating-into-battle-to-the-death their Warframes. If the Warframes are sentient and/or Sapient the the Tenno are Mengler-Moreau, dogfighting, body-autonomy-violating slavemasters essemtially.

We don't know.

As far as we know, when the tenno syncs up with his or her chosen warframe, that warframe might very well be egging them on through subconscious influence. What do you think Valkyr might be thinking about when she comes out of cryo storage and now has the opportunity to influence her operator? From the operator's perspective everything might suddenly start looking like a scratching post and, oh, these claws...they're so pretty...and they so NEED TO BE USED!

Of course, maybe that degree of potential cognitive dissonance is where the war within comes from.

[Valorosus]

Maybe Warframes are "inhabited" by Tenno that were consumed by madness, and the only way to control them was by another Tenno via Transference... Every clone of warframe from blueprints have cloned, mad Tenno inside?

Hunhow to Stalker: You still hate them, You still hate yourself...

What if Stalker is a Tenno pissed because other Tenno, maybe friend from Zariman, was controlling (commanding as Lotus said) him?

We will see...