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Saturday, February 8, 2014

We all own Warframe

Just a spin on the title of I now own Warframe, as this is a free to play game on steam. So we all have it.

I am still not quite sure what to think of the game. I have put 6 hours into which these days is classed as a compiling FPS experience, but in the scale of warframe I am still a complete noob. Where abouts if this was Call of duty the end credits would have finished a hour ago .....


The game is a 3rd person Coop Shooter, which can be played solo but I recommend playing in a group. Which has you doing all sorts of missions in slightly re-arranged maps.

The game is made by Digital Extremes who are veterans of shooter games which is one of the reasons I wanted to give it ago. That and the Big Country Show on Eve Radio keeped talking about it at one point, well ether that or Warthunder. It had war in the title and it sure as hell wasn't Warcraft.

The game is a MMO but one of the new age MMO's where the most players you see is 4 - 5 at one time inside instances ... So kind of like every mmo on the market.

The game is instanced based, when you start a mission if someone else has a free slot open, you connect to there game and spawn next to them. If not you end up hosting a new instance which people can join. From there you complete the mission and part  ways without saying a word.

Graphics, sound, design are just weird. Its like they are trying to do a Asian power ranger thing with pointy ninjas fighting wierld flower looking men who speak something that sounds like russian. Gun play is good and skillful with awards for headshots. There is also a semi-complex melee system with combo's and special attacks and you can wall run.

Guns seem to have a fixed stat, same with armor. But each item can be leveled up by using them. Leveling unlocks card slots ( or mods ) that you discovered by killing enemies. Before each mission you can augment your weapon with these cards. Like faster reload, more crits and Warframe special abilities. Its a nice way of doing gear in a skill based MMO shooter.

This game is Free to play, so it has a real money currency system which you can use to unlock all sorts of gear from a market. Also the game has a revive system where you can respawn 4 times every 24 hours in a mission. Once respawns are gone, you fail the mission and have to restart, but don't let that get you down, you can wip out your credit card and buy more revive .

After reading about the revive  system I almost uninstalled the game. Its a lame mechanic to suck money from weak people but after playing the game some more I am not too fussed. Basically save your revives for boss battles and play with other people. Because if you get knocked down in a coop game your buddies have a few seconds to help you back up which is a free revive.

Also at first impressions it seems all the  gear is locked behind pay walls but you can infact craft almost everything except cosmetic items.

So its not as bad as first thought. Sure people will just throw money at the over priced digital weapons but I rather work towards the gear than instant gratification unlocks.

Thats not saying I won't throw money at the game, its just still in beta. My general rule for free to play games is if I like them. Then put in the same amount of money a retail boxed copy would have costed. If its like a subscription game then every so offen put in what you would have paid for a subscription into the game and unlock something nice.

So for the game, I am up to Venus, which is still just a tiny step into the game. I passed the first boss after finally grouping up and not going alone ( much much easier ). Also I am less revive trigger happy and if the mission is just a standard mission and I just messed it up solo, I will restart than use a revive ).

The game is about a 3gb download with a 600mb patch. Account creation is simple and asks for no real details. Also everything links into steam as well, I kind of wish I didn't sell the Warframe items I got at the last sale, I could use them now ....

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