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Inhabiting the Player Character


Shoelip
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6 minutes ago, SilentMobius said:

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

Oh absolutely. I think of it like that crummy 2009 movie "Gamer."

Simon provided the above ground view and tactical control, while Kable provided a kind of raw brute instinct the the interactions, which is where I draw parallels to Warframes and Tenno, Warframes having an inherent raw aggression for combat, while Tenno providing a controlling element and raw void power.  

Kable and Simon ultimately made a really good "team" together in a gestalt sort of way, but none of it erases the inherent yuckiness of the situation. 

Edited by Gelkor
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4 minutes ago, Sloan441 said:

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.

Doesn't matter. we build these entities from scratch, if they "want it" then it's because of their design (E.G. See the black comedy of the cow-that-is-bred-to-want-to-be-eaten in the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy) When you engineer a sapient or sentient entity you are responsible for it, all of it's "urges" are not agency they are just pre-brainwashing

Edited by SilentMobius
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If there are multiple entities then there are lots of options, such as:

 

Operator = master, frames = puppets.

Hive mind, or some co-operative mind structure.

Operator = some kind of useful organ (e.g. battery. The Matrix? :-P) for the frame.

 

Who is using who?

Edited by schilds
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Well the Warframes are almost definitely infested flesh to some degree.  All the infested bosses have at least one quote about it.  Jordas has two, plus another strange and creepy one.

"Tenno, it senses you are of like flesh, it is confused- WHY DO YOU DEFILE US?"

"I see it now! You are the same! THEY FEAR THEMSELVES.

"CONSUME US. BE REBORN."

Lephantis has similar quotes.

"Why do you destroy us? We are your flesh."

"We embrace you. Why do you defile us?"

"We are countless. Consume us. Be reborn."

Don't know what that means about warframes being evil or something though... Though this is getting a bit off topic.

6 minutes ago, SilentMobius said:

Doesn't matter. we build these entities from scratch, if they "want it" then it's because of their design (E.G. See the black comedy of the cow-that-is-bred-to-want-to-be-eaten in the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy) When you engineer a sapient or sentient entity you are responsible for it, all of it's "urges" are not agency they are just pre-brainwashing

Parents really are the true monsters...

Edited by Shoelip
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9 minutes ago, Shoelip said:

Well the Warframes are almost definitely infested flesh to some degree.

I disagree with this as a label. I'd say the only thing that we can reliably say is that there is technology in a Warframe that comes from the same root technology that gave birth to the infestation. We don't know any of the detail of how the Orokin came to create/modify "The infestation", and thus there could be significant difference between a Warframe and the "meat" of the infestation.

Also, "flesh" has a specific meaning and I don't think that the infestation is using in it that context (Like Vor and his "Furious light" and Warframes being a "Glass"

Edited by SilentMobius
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9 minutes ago, Shoelip said:

Don't know what that means about warframes being evil or something though... Though this is getting a bit off topic.

Being evil or good is a moral feature of sapient and conscious (not sentient) being responsible for its deeds, unless "evilness" of thing that inhabits warframe lies in "evilness" of its original creator - Orokin and used materials. I lean towards latter.

Edited by Valorosus
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3 minutes ago, SilentMobius said:

I disagree with this as a label. I'd say the only thing that we can reliably say is that there is technology in a Warframe that comes from the same root technology that gave birth to the infestation. We don't know any of the detail of how the Orokin came to create/modify "The infestation", and thus there could be significant difference between a Warframe and the "meat" of the infestation.

Also, "flesh" has a specific meaning and I don't think that the infestation is using in it that context (Like Vor and his "Furious light" and Wrframes being a "Glass"

It's similar enough for the infested to recognize it innately and be confused by it's behavior...

Edited by Shoelip
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Honestly I identify with my Warframe a lot more than my Operator.  I know that we are supposed to be this Tenno, but it still feels like a separate entity to me. While with my Warframe, I fight, bleed, die, and shape the world around me with it. Maybe once TWW comes out that will change, but for now, my warframe is 'me'. 

Edited by Shadow8600
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My operator is an in-game representation of myself. He is my avatar through which I connect with the alternate reality of "Warframe."

Kinda like how God directly interfaced with this reality we call "Earth", "the real" or "the physical plane" through his son Jesus Christ.

Edited by Master-Nachash
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38 minutes ago, Shoelip said:

Parents really are the true monsters...

There's very little "parenting" here. There's a whole lot of engineering, however.

One of the materials the Orokin worked most successfully with was genetic. That's what we're dealing with...and it's what the operators grew up with (at least as far as they were allowed to) since they were citizens of the empire. An empire that ultimately decided they were perfect material for a weapon system they desperately needed, and an empire sorely lacking in restraint.

Personally, I think the warframes are constructs. They're probably cloned from a human base that contains certain desired characteristics, then modified with the technocyte virus and technological implants to achieve the warframe needed. I doubt the warframes have much higher cognition, since that could potentially be problematic and would thereby be best avoided. You have the tenno for that, after all. However, there has to be some brain to control the physical being (probably limited to the limbic system, mostly autonomics, subconscious reactions and instinctual behavior) and that might very well have some influence on the tenno.

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Hmm. Honestly, I think that as I've matured as a Roleplayer and individual over the years, the idea of 'Avatar protagonists' has become increasingly stale to me. For all intents and purposes, I play games to get away from being me for a while, so why then would I want to try and replicate myself in that space? Now. That's not to say that I can completely prevent having some influence on the kind of character that I play in at least moral compass and such, but that's something of a given. However...Species/Race (for games like Guild Wars and Elder Scrolls), Class, Gender, actual look, alliances and rivalries...That's a big realm of potential to play around in and I for one enjoy very much seeing what the options are beyond the assumed 'male default'. I still maintain that one of my all time favourite character outfits is the Ceremonial Wear from Phantasy Star Portable 2, a Female-exclusive article of clothing.

Character creation is open to a lot of interesting explorations. Maybe I was influenced by reading Animorphs when I was a kid, or enjoying Sword in the Stone's assorted transformations, saying nothing of The Thief of Always. Why limit myself in virtual space to the same morphology I have every day? In Skyrim I can be a Werewolf Kajiit, I can be a Charr Necromancer or Sylvari Mesmer in Guild Wars 2, and gender is essentially a coin toss in terms of overall relevance (unless I discover that there's literally no tasteful female attire/armour, but games like that I don't tend to bother with anyway).

So, bringing this back to the topic at hand...How does this relate to Warframe and the Operators? Well...Honestly, it's just more of what I'd been doing for a time before TSD anyway. When I started getting a handful of Loadout slots for preset groups of things, I just treated it like a modest Character designer and went about personalising sets. From weapon choice and colour schemes, I then met with the usual questions: why this and not this, why that colour and not that colour, what kind of person does it all come to. These then served as the naming springboards for fic stuff I did a while back, though it didn't get particularly far as I was missing that singular crucial aspect; how it actually worked, and where it started from.

TSD thus provided that information, it beginning on the Zariman, and it working in a pseudo-Eclipse Phase manner, but without the Ego directly inhabiting the Morph, in this case the Warframe of choice. Whilst the analogy overall still works, that distinction led to new questions which led to further ways to consider character and such. I admit I perhaps should consider getting back to working on it, having lost the ball a few months ago (yay, esteem issues...) but I believe I accomplished a fair amount, considering that I was working with the bare bones of character details. Conjecture is fun and all that.

When it comes to the Operator, honestly the one thing that bugs me is the inability to actually grant a name. Much as I have no issue with my handle being used in general, for a character, it sort of breaks that capacity to be more. It's not that I don't like the idea of them and me being one and the same...It's more that I dislike the potential of the character being reduced by my handle. Sure. The dialogue and general presentation could do with some modifying, and if it ever gets as clear on personality as God Eater manages with its broad selection of Voice Packs, that'd be great. Past that...I'm just interested in seeing how things go, and how the way things 'work' can be factored into narrative consideration of the individuals I weave to be associated with the loadouts I make.

I don't know how to put it. I don't need to 'be' the character on the screen. I like making distinct characters for whom I can enjoy weaving stories and histories for, who I can observe grow through varying trials and adversity. Perhaps that's just the propensity for writing I have, or whatever it is. Character creation is an open book, and I for one believe in having something different on each page should I have the means to do so.

End of the day, apologies for going on. Ultimately, each to their own.

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7 minutes ago, Shadow8600 said:

Honestly I identify with my Warframe a lot more than my Operator.  I know that we are supposed to be this Tenno, but it still feels like a separate entity to me. While with my Warframe, I fight, bleed, die, and shape the world around me with it. Maybe once TWW comes out that will change, but for now, my warframe is 'me'. 

As per my question above, if the War Within changes the situation by allowing for:

- using the Operator as the default body while walking around Orbiter and Dojo
- making choices about the Operator's dialogue, the pool of lines they use, and attitudes carried, as well as maybe allowing players to directly control transmissions via a sort of 'dialogue wheel'

 

would that be enough for you to consider the Operator as the identifiable player character?

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Problem is that DE probably didn't have TSD solution at the beginning of WF and now they have to craft it to fit into older codex entries. If Tenno, kinda asexual beings, are controlling warframes in DE's book since the beginning, why these warframes are "sexual" (male/female)? They don't have to be. Unless Tenno are psychologically male/female despite their asexual look and warframes are built to fit their psychological profile? Or is it just for deception of enemies to hide truth about Operators?

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I dont identify with my operator. I remember when i first finished the quest and i saw the character creator and i was happy at first but it was all downhill after that. The creator was honestly bare bones and i saw hairstyles that cost plat and i was like "what is this". The creator actually makes it hard to not make my character edgy. The focus trees i personally dont like either i found out later theres only like 2 good schools and i dont even use the ability often. But yea i cant identify with him i even bought a hood to mask my characters uglt face when he pops up on my screen to talk about stuff i dont care about.

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5 minutes ago, Valorosus said:

Problem is that DE probably didn't have TSD solution at the beginning of WF and now they have to craft it to fit into older codex entries. If Tenno, kinda asexual beings, are controlling warframes in DE's book since the beginning, why these warframes are "sexual" (male/female)? They don't have to be. Unless Tenno are psychologically male/female despite their asexual look and warframes are built to fit their psychological profile? Or is it just for deception of enemies to hide truth about Operators?

Why are you calling the Tenno asexual?  They very clearly have sexes.  There's a male and female body type determined by your primary head choice.  I mean, they aren't adults, and they aren't as extreme as some of the warframes, but they're clearly there.  Sure you can choose voice that doesn't "fit" but that's not 'asexual'.

Edited by Shoelip
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3 minutes ago, Shoelip said:

Why are you calling the Tenno asexual?  They very clearly have sexes.  There's a male and female body type determined by your primary head choice.  I mean, they aren't adults, and they aren't as extreme as some of the warframes, but they're clearly there.

Still, I can give my Tenno female head and male voice... Bodies are almost the same, and at their "age" they should be rather different. Besides, Lotus states that they were children once, and now something more.

Edited by Valorosus
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1 minute ago, Shoelip said:

Why are you calling the Tenno asexual?  They very clearly have sexes.  There's a male and female body type determined by your primary head choice.  I mean, they aren't adults, and they aren't as extreme as some of the warframes, but they're clearly there.  Sure you can choose voice that doesn't "fit" but that's not 'asexual'.

If I had to guess, @Valorosus is conflating the term asexual with androgynous, which is a common and fairly accurate description of the Tenno.

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7 minutes ago, Blakrana said:

 

When it comes to the Operator, honestly the one thing that bugs me is the inability to actually grant a name.

This crops up quite frequently when you're thinking about your operator. What's their name? I mean, you, as the player, can call them whatever you want, but in the gameworld, they have no name.

It's possible they've forgotten themselves. Long years on cryosleep, possible conditioning when being groomed as tenno by the orokin, submergence for so long in the assorted warframes they use...all could contribute to a lack of discreet identity on the operator's part. It seems the Orokin robbed the tenno of quite a bit when they were chosen to pilot the warframes.

Does it even matter anymore? If you're running a mission with another tenno and they're an Ember Prime, well, you kinda know what to expect from them. Does it really matter who they are? Do they come up with nicknames to identify each other (seems likely and fits with user profile names)? How do regular people contact them? Does Darvo have a little list of contact numbers or nicknames associated with same he gets in touch with if he needs/wants a particular tenno for something?

It's an interesting bit of speculation.

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