Warframe

[Vell]

Warframe's pitch should be "Cyber ninjas in space with spaceguns shooting space clones." but if that IS its pitch, I've never heard it. I was told about it a week or two ago and I tried it and

This game

is

fun.

Seriously.

The starting weapons aren't too special, but they're general purpose and will get you through the first few planets just fine. One thing to keep in mind is the whole game is co-op, with only being able to PVP against members of your own clan. Also it's still in beta and at times it feels like the company is still working through the kinks of how to be a developer of an online game. Still, if any mmo has depth, it's this game. The weapon crafting system is kind of borky and it has tones of pay to win, but in terms of functionality, anything that's purchaseable is also available for free, after grinding. A fair amount of grinding, perhaps, but even so. The mechanics are solid - and even after the tutorial, there's a lot of stuff to discover - the aesthetics are great if repetitive and the community is fantastic. I enjoy pugging in this game, even if sometimes it feels like the people I get are just running through everything and ignoring me. I still have a ways to go before my weapons can one shot mooks, after all. On the plus side, I AM getting decent gear and have replaced my primary and melee weapons.

You don't have a character that levels. Not exactly; you have a player "Level" but it's more a rank and your Warframe is more representative of what would be a class in any other MMO. In the tutorial you use the Excalibur warframe, but after you're given a choice between Excalibur, Loki and Mag. All are excellent choices that I've seen; I picked Loki. So instead of character levels, you have an "affinity" level with your warframes and weapons. This level caps out at 30. Each level in a warframe gives your player rank/level/whatever 200 points, while every weapon level gives 100. Accrue enough points and you're given a test to raise to the next rank; they're fairly easy. Some weapons (Like the Boltor, my current weapon) require you wait until you've attained a certain rank before you can use them. In order to have every weapon available to you, you need to reach rank 7, which would take a while, though fortunately most of those aren't available in the shop, even with rl cash.

When your warframes and weapons level, they don't get stronger. Well, your warframes get more health and shields, aye, but you won't see your weapons doing more damage jsut because of that. Instead, while playing you will pick up mods. These mods have a number associated with them, which you then apply to your warframe or weapon, which boosts their function in some way. Every level grants you 1 point toward mods, though it's possible to raise it up to 60, and to "polarise" it so that each mod costs half besides, but that is for endgame and min/maxing.

I'd like you all to join me in this game. My character name is UltaFlame; add me.

[winkio]

I added you (my name is winkio in the game).

This game has the sickest movement mechanics of any shooting game I have seen.  you can run on walls, walljump, do sliding spin slashes, dive forwards while firing at enemies, and probably much more that I haven't even figured out yet.  And none of these sweet matrix-style maneuvers are level based, they are all part of the default controls, although they aren't covered in the tutorial, so you have to figure them out yourself.  I've only spent a little over an hour so far so I'm still a newb, but I can already see myself having tons of fun, even if I do have to replay the same levels at later points for gear.  Also, the levels seem to be generated in a Diablo/Torchlight like style, where the rooms can be generated in different orders, or with different connections, so you shouldn't end up running the same route through a level over and over (Ulta can hopefully confirm this).

[WhiteRose]

It sounds like a lot of fun. I'll have to check it out!

[Zexion]

Gahd damn it. I wish I could use a download manager for this because it keeps restarting the dl everytime my connection is lost -_-

[Vell]

I added you (my name is winkio in the game).
Also, the levels seem to be generated in a Diablo/Torchlight like style, where the rooms can be generated in different orders, or with different connections, so you shouldn't end up running the same route through a level over and over (Ulta can hopefully confirm this).

Sweet, I'll be on tomorrow and we should totes play. I gotta go for today though.

And yeah, confirming. Levels aren't the same twice, in terms of layout.

[PhoenixFire]

digitalsoul88 is my name on there. Add me =)

And yes, I have to agree with OP. Great game, really fun. Strangely addictive..

[Vell]

The one thing that annoys me is how damn impossible it is to get new warframes. You have to get the blueprints for the frame - and then four other bloody blueprints, too, and fill all of them, most of which will require incredible amounts of grinding. And some of the warframes aren't available as a "spent 30 bucks, buy a frame" type thing

[winkio]

After breaking 10 hours, my biggest complaint is the lack of variety.  90% of the game so far takes place in metal rooms on metal ships.  There are two exceptions I have noticed - an underground earthy-themed set of rooms, which are alright, and an outdoor snow-themed set of rooms, which are awesome.  Spaceships are cool and all, but I can't see myself grinding up to the top gear inside what amounts to a virtual metal cage.  Diablo and Torchlight wouldn't have sold well if 90% of the maps had the brown-black-grey-white color pallet.

Another slightly smaller complaint is the player vs AI combat.  The player on its own controls well and is really fun.  I think PVP free for all or team matches would be a blast.  But against AI enemies, combat becomes really sloppy, as enemies at later points in the game have so much health that you have to reload after killing each one.  There are some enemies that can chain stun you, others than can 1-shot kill, and still others that have so much health that you must catch them in your melee weapon's chain stun for a full minute before you get the kill.  All of these interactions slow down the pace of what would otherwise be an adrenaline-charged bloodbath.

The final point I have is that all of the sweet matrix-style maneuvers are almost exclusively used for navigation, and never for combat.  The reason is because the rooms are built like any other FPS: there are well defined walkways with strategically placed cover.  What this game needs are more arena-style rooms, with large openings near the center, and covered routes on the sides, above, and below that make use of your abilities.  That way, when the player finds themselves in a 2v11 situation, they don't have to peek around a corner and fire down a straight hallway, but instead have options.  They can slide to the lower path and pick smaller engagements with the enemy, or walljump up a wall to snipe from the upper level, or wallrun over a gap for an instant melee assault.  This is what the game has the potential to be, but sadly isn't, at least for now.

[Vell]

Yeah tileset variation is sadly lacking; they just came out with the third set but it's unfortunately only used in one planet out of fourteen. The game doesn't seem polished enough to be complete, but it IS solid.

[PhoenixFire]

I found a glitch actually.. I'm still stuck in Mercury, but I was able to join a friend in the Earth system and continue playing as long as I stayed connected to that instance; I was able to vote, play, and get complete missions when we won. I don't know if this is actually a glitch, or something the developers are aware of, and allowing, but it would not make sense to allow me to skip 20-30 missions when a friend is on 

[winkio]

Whenever you are in a party, you can play and get rewards for any missions the other party members can.  It's useful for special missions later in the game, where it the missions require a consumable, somewhat hard to get item.

[Vell]

I am in no way able to handle Neptune, but I'm able to access Neptune's boss because someone floated me there and we won; it's actually intended to work that way.

[Ryex]

just so we're clear this is an open BETA right?

[PhoenixFire]

just so we're clear this is an open BETA right?

Yep.  Pretty decent for a Beta of an FPS though, in my opinion (in terms of bugs). It has alot less issues than other games when they were in beta. Though it really really really..etc... needs some new colour themes lolz

it's actually intended to work that way.

Okay, cool. I mean, logically speaking, it doesn't make much sense to allow someone to skip over areas that they haven't unlocked yet. For example, look how Blizzard did it with Diablo 2. You can go backwards and re-run quests, and help other people unlock things, but you can't just join a game as a new player and go right to Baal (the uber boss at the "end" of the game, for those of you who don't know). Although it is interesting that they're allowing that on purpose. I'm curious as to what their logic is for that.

[Vell]

Yeah but Alerts and stuff. Some people just get rides over to the important areas and otherwise have nowhere unlocked. I'm not one of them. There IS a benefit to doing every mission at least once, in the form of nightmare mode; you have to have completed every mission on a planet once and then you can do nightmare mode vesions of whatever mission in that area is currently a nightmare mission.