Love—or platonic friendship—is in the air Warframe 1999. While Warframe's next big update has a lot of big and exciting features, whether it's motorcycles, an infected boy band, or a whole new enemy faction to fight, it's the cast of new characters buzzing around a seedy mall that's the most exciting. Exciting. Won the hearts of many. But how did it actually happen, and how did an award-winning romance author end up working on the game?
What a story. According to game director Rebecca Ford, the Warframe team wanted to implement a relationship system, given the older age of the playable character The Drifter and the introduction of a series of archetypal Framework characters. However, no one on the team knew how to handle something like this. Kat Kingsley is an author of multiple romance novels who happens to be looking for work.
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Ford: “Players have had a hugely positive reaction to our characters that they have loved over the years and we feel that as Castaway becomes more mature, the Archetype Framework will feel like a found family, if there was a way A system of texting relationships, whether platonic or romantic, can be created using 1999's world building.”
Kingsley previously served as studio manager and chief of staff at Volition Games. However, her work as a romance novelist remained a side hustle.
Kingsley: “This has always been my side hustle, right? It's something I did for fun. Unfortunately, Volition Games was shut down. As chief of staff, I was part of the team that shut down operations. But that's just A few weeks after I was laid off, as I was sitting there thinking about what to do next, I got a message from Rebecca on LinkedIn.”
“A year later, here I am! It's been an absolute joy to not only start designing the system for it, but to be able to write and shape what it could be. Not only am I able to write all the words, but also be able to interact with the designers, UI artists, programmers working together – I get to really shape the experience for people, which is a real joy. ”
Ford: “I actually don’t know Kat’s industry experience, I just know Kat is a romance novel writer! So it’s great to find out industry experience, but it’s going to be coupled with book experience anyway. During COVID, I You must have read Kat’s 25 books […] Kate was a huge part of this experience. ”
But there's a huge difference between writing a novel and writing for a live-service video game. Different ways for players to interact with their characters, different consequences for making mistakes, and different abilities to make mistakes! According to Ford and Kingsley, creating a romance system for Warframe came with its own set of challenges.
Ford: “I think it's important to understand Warframe The biggest challenge for fans of the game is this: We're a live service game, you can't save the scum and return, so if you're like me and someone dumped you in another game, you have to be honest. Saying that, making meaningful choices in the game is a difficult task that players can't reset…it's a huge design issue for this system, but don't worry, for the readers we're trying to make it. and players as impactful and authentic as possible, but we also know you may want to change your mind and we've addressed that.”
Kingsley: “You don’t have to create a new account and play for 1,000 hours to change your mind! Another challenge is the way it’s structured, with branching narratives that become more challenging as you go along. Here’s what you learn I was watching an interview with the Larian people and they were asked how Baldur's Gate 3 was made and they said it was a huge amount of work and I saw that and said, oh no [laughs]. Like a bowl of spaghetti! One noodle is easy, but add more and you get an airplane hanger noodle, which is what it's like to program a system like this. But, it's incredibly rewarding and a lot of fun. ”
There's also the issue of pacing. While the new characters introduced in Warframe 1999 have been lurking in players' consciousness for some time, we'll be able to actually interact with them for the first time when the update releases. So, how do you build a smooth relationship system that doesn't feel rushed and fits within the broader Warframe system?
Ford: “We have two elements that work in our favor for templating in large expansions. One of them is the existing syndicate grind, which naturally happens in real time. So we can say, okay, we can bootstrap The overall hope of some romance gates to existing syndicate backbones is familiar to players, but you can't burn yourself out and go too fast for a reason, and the romance system takes advantage of that in terms of pacing.”
“The other part was a happy accident. Like everything in Warframe is a team effort, a few Soulframe team members jumped over to have a look around. They worked really hard to find direction for our mission [laugh]. So as the task is completed, it notifies the romance system. And friendship! I think it's important that this isn't just a romance, but a platonic relationship. It's about being part of a new team at The Drifter. The Drifters – who may or may not be – have found a peer group that they can join as part of their story. This illustrates the importance of connecting these characters as story elements rather than just a side system. ”
“It's a very vague way of saying that we've built a time-limited system, and we have a mission that's designed to give players a different experience than other missions, and that it's all connected.” At the beginning the team Think of it as an optional system, it's still an optional system, but it can also have more features if the player wants it.”
Kingsley: Another thing that's already in the Warframe structure that lends itself to this system is the hierarchical element of the Syndicate system, where you can go from Neutral to Liked. When you approach romance or friendship, and you're writing an arc that gets to know the character, it already follows a process where you start from a neutral place. I like to think of it like peeling an onion, where you dig deeper into the core of the character. So as players explore the system, they'll notice similarities in this regard. ”
That's where the romance comes in, and we know how it will fit into the fabric of Warframe. But how to build a relationship system Feel Warframe-y. You know what I mean. The game has a unique feel, look and style. How do you add something like this to a game so that it doesn't feel like a fleeting bit of fluff but a meaningful addition to the overall game. Ford and Kingsley believe the answer lies in a relationship-building text messaging system.
Ford: “We want the main point of interaction to be the instant messaging system. We already have a diverse team of people of different ages. Some of us are AOL, ISQ, bulletin board systems, so we can pull from all of that tapestry there's Text of meaning and then we have six characters so the first thing we put on the board is how these characters feel in the context of 1999 so one of the characters is very focused on the use of asqi emoticons that each of them need This style.”
Kingsley: “The one that I'm going to give up on, because this will hardly surprise anyone, and the one that takes me back to the '90s is Amir. He's a nerdy character. I was like, I'm just going to knock I'm banging my head against the keyboard, remembering what it was like to play World of Warcraft with leet talk in the 1990s and 2000s, and it literally breaks my heart… I was talking to the writing team on Slack and they were like this . “You've been writing too much this week, Amir, Kate, you need to slow down [laughs]. When you stay in a character's head for too long, it changes the way you communicate as a writer. ”
I'll be the first to admit that relationship systems in video games aren't a huge draw for me. But having the option to see friendships flourish in a way that fits the Warframe setting adds another layer to an already exciting update. Just one question left: Which Warframe 1999 cast member would you most like to talk to?
Warframe 1999 will be released sometime this December, so keep an eye out for what's coming soon!
