COMMUNITY REQUEST: I'm looking to gather a mass of current opinions on the Founder's Program for a pending post write-up.

[CaptainMinty]

Honestly, they should buff Excal Prime. Really. I'm salty that Umbra is better (technically because of the mods) and do believe that Excal Prime should be the absolute best variant. I've always seen the Prime variants as the mastered, top of the line, nothing better possible, variants. So seeing Excal Umbra be better is a rather, well stupid in my honest opinion. Founders deserve a little bit of special treatment. They made a gamble on a game that could've easily died out really quickly, and if it died, there'd be no show of their investment into the game short of fleeting memories. Excal Prime without a doubt should get something special. A little passive, maybe some number boosts, just to keep in line, or above Umbra. 

Digressive rant aside, the Founders program was an excellent starting block for Warframe. It was the foundation of Prime Access. Founders helped DE stay afloat early on, when they needed the most help to make this game as good as it is today. Founders essentially put a lot of money into an early access title. I cannot stress how much it was risky for them to pay so much into a game that could die relatively quickly.  

That being said, I have one, massive, glaring, aggravating hatred for the Founder's Program. One flaw that irks me to this day. It has a blip of mastery locked behind it. A tiny bit of sweet mastery ranking that NOBODY else will get. And that bugs me. For someone who loves to 100% a game, this is impossible due to the mastery gap. If perhaps, they'd give that mastery away for, I don't know, finishing the last Junction, or maybe completing the quests, then I'd be happy. (To clarify, I'm not saying give us the frame or weapons, just the mastery they give for maxing them. It wouldn't hurt Founders at all. Mastery rank isn't that big a deal, so giving out that Mastery would just be nice for everyone.)

That being said, I'm rather pleased with the Founder's Program. Despite my distaste for locked content, Excal Prime is just another Excalibur. Lato and Skana are still usable weapons. No gameplay is lost by it, so I'm 100% okay with it. Cosmetics are about the only thing I am okay with in terms of DLC in any form. Sure, stats are better, but the vast array of weapons available scream at you to use them. The Lato and Skana primes are not even that amazing. They're alright. I say leave the Founders and their stuff alone. Let them have it. We don't need their stuff. We have hundreds of alternatives. 

[Sibernetika]

My opinion on the founders pack is well, it doesn't keep me up at night.. I was around back when the founders pack was stil being offered and the only thing that got me slightly interested was the extra special VIP chat room, but I couldn't care about any of the other stuff that was offered in the pack.. Didn't care about excal prime, Lato prime or skana prime.. If it was Loki Prime, Lex Prime, and ether sword prime then yes I would have instantly bought founders pack.. I still wanted to help so I bought plat and got myself a shade, a few colour pallets arcane helmet for Loki and some armour fashion.. If I could go back and buy founders pack I still wouldn't.. The top rank founders chat room would be nice to avoid to constant people expecting their hand held and silver spoon fed instead of just checking wiki...

My final thought.. Did warframe need the founders pack? absolutely yes, would I have been happy with founders pack if I bought it? Nope, not with my likings and playstyle. 

[(PSN)Shelneroth]

1. I'm very much indiffrent to the founders programe and the furor that often surronds disscussion of it. Ultimately Excalibur Prime is effectivly a skin, it has no (real) impact on gameplay. As such it is a perfect perk for stuff like the founders programe. If it were to be released for others to get that would be nice, I am not poverly fond of exclusivity. While understanding of annoyance this may cause for some founders I would not be particuarly concerned by it. In the same light should it remain exclusive I remained unconcerned by the annoyance this seems to cause some people.

2. Indiffrent

 

Edited June 16, 2018 by (PS4)Shelneroth

[W4cky]

I feel it was a great program and it clearly served it's purpose.  Funding is a huge deal for almost any game.  I feel fortunate to have been able to support Warframe back then and continually over the years.  Watching the documentary makes me feel much more, at ease with my financial choices.

I would still like to know why the sudden collection of all these opinions though.  DE has made their stance clear and I don't understand why this subject can't just, drift into the void.  Well Umbra happened so that's probably most of it but still.

Edited June 16, 2018 by W4cky

[LinXiaoWong]

My opinion on the founder packs and on exclusivity in all games is the following > Not really needs and not really helps the cause only give you some extra money from those who buy your pack but in later you will get back as a bad karma when the non founder peoples will find out they just absulutely handled as a second rank citizens. First of all if they spent more time to make their games good before warframe then they would not needed founder packs in the first place and make exclusive gaps. I mean now their latest game "not the sword coast legends" but the star trek game. They tried to ride the star trek fever back in time when the new series of star trek movies begun but they made a buggy game which failed to deliver the numbers what needed and the game was a failure and this almost killed them and they needed to reduce the number of workers. Long before they tried with ping pong games and tetris esque games which was popular back in time but they does not tried to make more unique games and their only real unique ips are the Dark sector and Warframe because these games were not disguised copy paste games but at least they added some creativity on these.

In my opinion warframe could have been in better state if it was released as a free to play early acess games or just released as a one time pay game. The meta score of the game is good and most of the playerbase likes the game but their founder program and current microtransaction systems are alienating a lot of peoples whom potentially could play the game and will to pay to help the development. We cannot say what could have happend IF because we cannot change the time back but I know by experience in games what I played and had exclusivity in content those game not lived too long because the playerbase alienated and founders handled most of the time as first class citizens. Not because all founder think they are or any better than others but the exclusivity in overall anywhere just made to make gap between pay and non pay players which make the non founder peoples angry and frustrated. I personally not need the founder items but if they wanted to be correct then they let the option to you to buy the founder items but not as founder and not limited time. This stigma will follow this game forever and peoples always will ask for the founder items because those are part of the game and not a separated items.

It is all in all matter of thinking because a lot of peoples like to be handled special and want the feeling they are better than others and there are peoples whom not mind it at all and they can handle equal other peoples. 

What is sure they got their bucks and this current system helps them a lot but in long term there will be no players to play the game and the game reach a critical level and will be underplayed.

Edited June 16, 2018 by LinXiaoWong

[Zephyr_TheMLGPro]

47 minutes ago, Evil said:

Sir, you deserve a primed narrow minded. 

Honestly, it's like you think all founders buy the pack and then stop supporting the game altogether. There are countless founders (with me included) who buy prime access, tennogen, and platinum all the time.

Why is it that i only see founders saying something like "DE, What do you have to say about the money we spent". Never saw any non founder say stuff like this.

 

[LupisV0lk]

1 minute ago, Zephyr_TheMLGPro said:

Why is it that i only see founders saying something like "DE, What do you have to say about the money we spent". Never saw any non founder say stuff like this.

 

"Something. something" entitlement issue "something, something"

[(PSN)dursereg]

I feel that it is/ was big fu to console players since it was ended 1 month before console launch. Not like I want it myself but certain some would.

[Sibernetika]

4 minutes ago, LinXiaoWong said:

My opinion on the founder packs and on exclusivity in all games is the following > Not really needs and not really helps the cause only give you some extra money from those who buy your pack but in later you will get back as a bad karma when the non founder peoples will find out they just absulutely handled as a second rank citizens. First of all if they spent more time to make their games good before warframe then they would not needed founder packs in the first place and make exclusive gaps. I mean now their latest game "not the sword coast legends" but the star trek game. They tried to ride the star trek fever back in time when the new series of star trek movies begun but they made a buggy game which failed to deliver the numbers what needed and the game was a failure and this almost killed them and they needed to reduce the number of workers. Long before they tried with ping pong games and tetris esque games which was popular back in time but they does not tried to make more unique games and their only real unique ips are the Dark sector and Warframe because these games were not disguised copy paste games but at least they added some creativity on these.

In my opinion warframe could have been in better state if it was released as a free to play early acess games or just released as a one time pay game. The meta score of the game is good and most of the playerbase likes the game but their founder program and current microtransaction systems are alienating a lot of peoples whom potentially could play the game and will to pay to help the development. We cannot say what could have happend IF because we cannot change the time back but I know by experience in games what I played and had exclusivity in content those game not lived too long because the playerbase alienated and founders handled most of the time as first class citizens. Not because all founder think they are or any better than others but the exclusivity in overall anywhere just made to make gap between pay and non pay players which make the non founder peoples angry and frustrated. I personally not need the founder items but if they wanted to be correct then they let the option to you to buy the founder items but not as founder and not limited time. This stigma will follow this game forever and peoples always will ask for the founder items because those are part of the game and not a separated items.

It is all in all matter of thinking because a lot of peoples like to be handled special and want the feeling they are better than others and there are peoples whom not mind it at all and they can handle equal other peoples. 

What is sure they got their bucks and this current system helps them a lot but in long term there will be no players to play the game and the game reach a critical level and will be underplayed.

Someone needs to go check a documentary about DE and realise DE did the best they could since they weren't the publishers they were 3rd party for hire and the publisher did to them what midway did to epic when they made UT3

[(PSN)watt4hem]

I kinda don't mind.

As a game, it's a symbol for those ho helped the game not get canceled, and as a promise de upholds.

As in gameplay n lore, he just became this sort of myth/legendary figure thst is rarely seen.

As for nonfounders, we lose nothing.

 

So imo, it works out allright.

[LinXiaoWong]

5 minutes ago, Sibernetika said:

Someone needs to go check a documentary about DE and realise DE did the best they could since they weren't the publishers they were 3rd party for hire and the publisher did to them what midway did to epic when they made UT3

In the end result we can see how they performed no matter how hard they did. I saw the documentaries and I know their backstory but still they could have just avoid the founder program if their latest game was in a better shape.

[DomoSapien]

55 minutes ago, (XB1)N7 Sinner said:

If I may. What do you hope to achieve with this thread? Thus far, all I have seen is another thread littered with subtle complaints about a "Platinum Apple" that is really just a "Golden Apple" with a platinum colored paint job. I have nothing but the upmost respect for you guys and gals for keeping the game afloat when it was likely to sink. Were it not for the Founder's Program, I wouldn't be enjoying this game today. That being said, DE never promised you that you would have the absolute best version of Excalibur. They only made the promise that Excalibur Prime would be yours forever. If anything, it is the Umbral mods that give Excalibur Umbra the edge over his Prime counterpart.

Unfortunately, with this comment, you're insinuating that this post is something that it's not. This paragraph is implying that this post is somehow related to the Umbra release. It's not.

I am asking for ALL-INCLUSIVE opinions on the subject of the Founder's Program and it's impact on the game or anything else you can think of.

I appreciate your opinion, but I have to remind you that this post has nothing to do with me specifically. I've not posted a Iota of an opinion in this post.

I understand that given the time of this thread, it might be assumed that it's somehow related to Umbra, but it's not. If you'd like to TOUCH on the Umbra subject as part of your opinion, which I'm going to refer to your paragraph as being as such, please do. Otherwise, this post has nothing specific to do with anything except the Founder's Program as a whole.

In any case, thank you for your input.

Edited June 16, 2018 by DomoSapien

[Sibernetika]

2 minutes ago, LinXiaoWong said:

In the end result we can see how they performed no matter how hard they did. I saw the documentaries and I know their backstory but still they could have just avoid the founder program if their latest game was in a better shape.

If the publisher wasn't greedy and gave it time it would have been in a better shape.. Again looking back at Epic, they said sorry for the mess that was ut3, we know it's midways fault.. That is why ut4 is free no publisher will gain anything and now epic can take their sweet time.. Founders program gave DE breathing space.. If publisher's would have accepted warframe there wouldn't have been a founders package.. But still to this day very few publishers want space games.. So you biggest gripe should be at other publishers.. Also I don't think DE gets royalty on the games they made for other publishers since DE was just contractors, so whether startrek was a brilliant success or not it wouldn't have made a difference to warframes budget

[DomoSapien]

39 minutes ago, W4cky said:

Watching the documentary makes me feel much more, at ease with my financial choices.

Was there an official documentary? I never heard of it. Would you mind sharing it with me?

[W4cky]

Just now, DomoSapien said:

Was there an official documentary? I never heard of it. Would you mind sharing it with me?

Hmm maybe not official but it's the NoClip documentary.  Just search for warframe documentary in youtube and it will pop up.

[(XBOX)N7 Sinner]

Just now, DomoSapien said:

Unfortunately, with this comment, you're insinuating that this post is something that it's not. This paragraph is implying that this post is somehow related to the Umbra release. It's not.

I am asking for ALL-INCLUSIVE opinions on the subject of the Founder's Program and it's impact on the game or anything else you can think of.

I appreciate your opinion, but I have to remind you that this post has nothing to do with me specifically. I've not posted a Iota of an opinion in this post.

I understand that given the time of this thread, it might be assumed that it's somehow related to Umbra, but it's not.

In any case, thank you for your input.

I respect what you're trying to do with this thread. I was just curious as to what you intend to do once you have compiled everyone's opinions in detail.

As a founder you have my respect because you kept an otherwise dying game alive for others like myself to enjoy. What I was insinuating is that, as of late, the threads have become a two sided battle over the Prime vs. Umbra debate. I merely wished to voice my opinion on that matter while expressing my concern that this thread may end up joining them. I let my irritation over this debate cloud my thoughts and it shows in my previous comment. I apologize for that.

As for the program itself, I wasn't around back then as this game was under my radar. I was a Nintendo kid before I was an Xbox kid. PC gaming never struck me as something of interest. Still, I feel lukewarm about it at best as I have never liked the idea of exclusive items. In this age of gaming, I cannot help but to roll my eyes whenever the big name publishers and developers use these items to incentivize and sway public opinion of which version of a game to buy or which platform to play it on. It shouldn't matter. Gamers are gamers.

That being said, if you want to spend your money on a game for exclusive items in the hopes that the game will succeed (as Warfame did with flying colors), who am I to say that you shouldn't?

[Sibernetika]

 

[Evil]

37 minutes ago, Zephyr_TheMLGPro said:

Why is it that i only see founders saying something like "DE, What do you have to say about the money we spent". Never saw any non founder say stuff like this.

 

I don't really keep up with all of those types of posts so I have no idea where you're pulling your citations. Regardless, saying that non founders never complain about "stuff like this" is pure nonsense. We've seen similar reactions from the community when vandal items were reintroduced -- mind you, they didn't pay hundreds of dollars for it either. 

That being said, I'm not defending those who are always pointing to their founder status as a form of defense and justification. My opinion on the matter is that Umbra Prime is fine; the community needed an equivalent to Excalibur Prime, but throwing your early supporters under the bus isn't exactly good for your image. Excalibur Prime being rendered as an inferior equivalent is like a major slap to the face for any founder who shelled out that amount of money on a game that appeared to be a sinking ship.

From what I understand, the community of founders isn't asking for DE to rework Excalibur Prime, but rather to allow his Prime Parts to be interchanged between Umbra. It's not even difficult to change either, since we already have access to the non-prime parts. Asking for a small change like this isn't entitlement, it's a request for decency. 

Edited June 16, 2018 by Evil

[DomoSapien]

Thank you for your opinions everyone. Please remember to keep it civil. Again, it's really hard for me to discourage discussion and not hop in on it myself, but I want this thread to be different than the others. I want everyone's opinions to be welcomed regardless of their rhetoric or how much they might sting.

 

It is important for us all to open up to each other and provided our definitive opinion without the fear of being scrutinized for it. So please, keep it civil so those that may have fear for that their opinion will bring hostility towards them. Thank you.

[DomoSapien]

3 minutes ago, (XB1)N7 Sinner said:

I let my irritation over this debate cloud my thoughts and it shows in my previous comment. I apologize for that.

No harm. No foul. It's that passion that I'm looking for in regards to getting people's opinions out in the open air. I'd rather have people be aggressively passionate (not saying you were aggressive) about the subject towards me than towards others right now.

I'm a Nyx main. By and large. Lol.

In a way, I'm attempting to channel my Absorb to attract everyone's opinions, no matter how passionate or passive, towards myself instead of others so that I'm left alone to deal with them for my post. Once the main post goes live, I'll release that Absorb unto everyone else to see what came of it.

[Vanille]

For those who want the primes, there's not much to discuss because whatever the community says, be it founders or non-founders, nothing will (nor should) change regarding the founder rewards.
On my personal opinion, they made an expensive risk purchase trying to save a game (and a company) and blindly hoping for the best. People could argue that non-founders can also spend thousands of dollars now, but how many of those would have spent money if they didn't know the game was successful now? and that's the big merit of founders. We can now enjoy a healthy game and keep it alive.
With the additions of Lato Vandal, Prisma Skana and Excalibur Umbra, we have pretty much the stat-equivalents for the gameplay quality and founders still retain the exclusivity of their early efforts. We completionists don't deserve them just because, it's something we have to deal with. And about the mastery affinity they got, it's not a big deal at all. If DE releases enough gear just so founders can rank up like they did with PoE, it is still not a big deal as it would just be for a couple of months and having in mind we're already MR25 halfway to 26, we don't need that rush of rank, we have enough limits cap to not get affected by 1 mastery rank and waiting for new weapons released should not be a problem at all.

[LinXiaoWong]

15 minutes ago, Sibernetika said:

If the publisher wasn't greedy and gave it time it would have been in a better shape.. Again looking back at Epic, they said sorry for the mess that was ut3, we know it's midways fault.. That is why ut4 is free no publisher will gain anything and now epic can take their sweet time.. Founders program gave DE breathing space.. If publisher's would have accepted warframe there wouldn't have been a founders package.. But still to this day very few publishers want space games.. So you biggest gripe should be at other publishers.. Also I don't think DE gets royalty on the games they made for other publishers since DE was just contractors, so whether startrek was a brilliant success or not it wouldn't have made a difference to warframes budget

Most of the times the publishers fault and I agree with this but still they could have try some form of kickstart but in that time the kickstarter and indie gogo was just in an early phase with not so much successes. We don!t know it would have been better if publishers kickstart warframe because nowadays and back in time a lot publisher was greedy or narrowminded so maybe this game would not be as a big success as it is today. DE at least can now work on the game and work as publisher too.

[(XBOX)N7 Sinner]

7 minutes ago, DomoSapien said:

 No harm. No foul. It's that passion that I'm looking for in regards to getting people's opinions out in the open air. I'd rather have people be aggressively passionate (not saying you were aggressive) about the subject towards me than towards others right now.

I'm a Nyx main. By and large. Lol.

In a way, I'm attempting to channel my Absorb to attract everyone's opinions, no matter how passionate or passive, towards myself instead of others so that I'm left alone to deal with them for my post. Once the main post goes live, I'll release that Absorb unto everyone else to see what came of it.

As a Trinity Prime/Nidus main (I cannot remember which of the two I've played the most), being aggressively passionate suits me. LoL.

I thank you and am very much looking forward to seeing the fruits of your labor.

Edited June 16, 2018 by (XB1)N7 Sinner

[Zephyr_TheMLGPro]

9 minutes ago, Evil said:

I don't really keep up with all of those types of posts so I have no idea where you're pulling your citations. Regardless, saying that non founders never complain about "stuff like this" is pure nonsense. We've seen similar reactions from the community when vandal items were reintroduced -- mind you, they didn't pay hundreds of dollars for it either. 

That being said, I'm not defending those who are always pointing to their founder status as a form of defense and justification. My opinion on the matter is that Umbra Prime is fine; the community needed an equivalent to Excalibur Prime, but throwing your early supporters under the bus isn't exactly good for your image. Excalibur Prime being rendered as an inferior equivalent is like a major slap to the face for any founder who shelled out that amount of money on a game that appeared to be a sinking ship.

From what I understand, the community of founders isn't asking for DE to rework Excalibur Prime, but rather to allow his Prime Parts to be interchanged between Umbra. It's not even difficult to change either, since we already have access to the non-prime parts. Asking for a small change like this isn't entitlement, it's a request for decency. 

Excal prime is still rare which is why it was popular. No one wanted him because of its stat boost but because of its exclusivity which is still there.

[GlaikitMayflies]

I know I am not a founder and all, but I still want to share my opinion, I hope I an't breaking any rules. Anyways, on to the matter at hand. I started playing at around 2013 or so, I believe they were still doing the founders program. It looked, at the time, enticing but I admittedly refused to participate in it. Mainly cause the venture it self was risky, and well not worth it. The game was in an uncertain state, I don't think anyone at the time expected the game to succeed, nor gain such traction over the years.

Personally, I was just as surprised seeing the game explode in popularity, after coming back to it around 2015. Not only had the game exploded in popularity, but it managed to form a solid community and a strong following. Again, I need to emphasize this, no one expected this at all. I myself wrote this game off, and expected it to fail in its shortcomings. Yet here we are, millions play the game, and possibly thousands are active each day. That in of itself is an accomplishment.

The game has indeed evolved over the years. Regardless if said evolvement led to questionable design choices, is irrelevant.

Anyways I may have side tracked, forgive me. Regarding the issue at hand, I never really understood the stigma towards founders. To be frank with you all, I see them mostly as people who made a terrible financial decision that could have backfired tremendously. However, it didn't, instead they became a part of the game's history. By help "kickstarting" it and at least pushing it towards the current success it came upon. Either by spreading the game by word of mouth, or by indirectly helping in the marketing for the game. Regardless, Whether it was a venture worth recognizing, is up to such individuals who embarked on it. 

Moving on, regarding the exclusive stuff, I don't care. Exclusivity sells, an't nothing wrong with that. I will admit at least, that DE shot the bull, when they made the exclusivity life time. However, if the issue lies in that, non-founders got a much better toy, aka umbra. Then founders are acting a bit spoiled, and well, entitled.

Edited June 16, 2018 by toxicpanda