It has been a little under two months since Warframe: 1999 has been out, and the general community sentiment has been very positive. All of the hype generated from TennoCon 2023, all the way to release paid off significantly. From amazing surprises like a romance system, all the way to addictive weekly activities to add to the ever-growing list (in a good way). What is even more exciting aside from the new content itself, is how Digital Extremes is keeping the momentum going.
Last month, they had an amazing Devstream that showcased what is to come next, but there are still some things to learn about the update in general. As such, we at Lords of Gaming were given the privilege of asking some questions to Digital Extremes, and the Senior Community Manager, Danielle Sokolowski, and Community Director, Megan Everett were able to give us their time to answer them.
Inward Look at Reception for Warframe: 1999 and the “Surprise Feature”
To break the ice, I obviously started with asking, “How has everyone felt about the overall reception to Warframe: 1999? It seems to be very positive from my point of view, but have there been any particular bits of feedback that the team wasn’t expecting?” And Danielle answered with the following:
“Elated honestly! I’m so glad that’s what you’ve been seeing because that’s been our experience as well. Before launch we saw a lot of eagerness from players to get into Warframe: 1999 and it definitely mirrored our own excitement. Knowing it was our most ambitious update to date and our last of 2024, watching it be received so highly felt like listening to “Party of your Lifetime” by On-Lyne for the first time. Just total awe and appreciation. We’re so grateful for the love people have been showing for 1999.
As for surprising feedback, a lot of it has been what players request after interacting with every bit of the update. For example, there was a flood of requests asking for us to make the 8-bit version of On-Lyne’s “The Great Despair” that plays while you’re using the POM-2 computer into a track they can play in their ship’s music box (which we are making a reality soon!). We knew we wanted the music to be a big focal point (shoutout to Matthew Chalmers & The Warframe Band, Keith Powers, and the Sound Team), but we were still delightfully surprised by that!”
One interesting bug that happened after Warframe: 1999 launched was the ability to summon the Atomicycle (the new cool motorcycle vehicle) in all missions. Of course, Digital Extremes allowed this bug to become a feature. Seeing as this was an awesome move from them, I asked, “Regarding the Atomicycle being available in all missions (with a few exceptions, obviously), when the first appearances went viral, what drove the decision to not put a temporary block outside of Hollvania and the open world areas in the game? Will there be a way for players to see their customized Atomicycle in all missions eventually?” And Danielle responded with:
“In a scenario like this when we go from “bug to feature” the first thing we do is we ask ourselves “how game breaking is this?” and “does that outweigh the fun factor of the bug?”
So, when we saw videos of players having a blast drifting around on their Atomicycles outside of Höllvania, we took a beat before removing access to weigh the risks. The levels outside of Höllvania were not designed to support the vehicle, and that was obvious when you spawned your neon yellow-skinned hotrod because loading in the customizations caused performance issues. But what didn’t cause that spot-loading was the default Atomicycle. So that ended up being our compromise! You can summon the default Atomicycle and cruise around any mission (with the exception of Archwing and Quests). So, for stability purposes, we don’t currently have any plans for customized Atomicycle in default missions, but Open Landscapes do support it!”
What’s Going on With Faceoff, and How Sumo Digital Got Involved with Caliber Chicks 2
Following this, I decided to ask about the general feeling towards the new PvEvP game mode ‘Faceoff’ that is sadly in a weird spot, “Moving onto a big new game mode in Warframe, Faceoff, how do you feel the response has been to it? I have noticed it’s brought out a lot of super competitiveness, leading people to leave matches when their team falls behind and causing everyone to lose out on Conclave standing. With this being said, what are the plans for Faceoff as a game mode?” And Danielle was able to give an in-depth response that fans of the game mode may like:
“We know that PVP is not everyone’s cuppa tea and even with there being a predominant PVE foundation to Faceoff people can get competitive. We had this in mind prior to launch, which is why we added the Solo mode against AI so that you could enjoy the game mode without the pressures of going up against another squad. We also recently removed the Faceoff: Squad vs. Squad node as a requirement to unlock The Steel Path for those same reasons. We don’t want to force anyone to play a PVP mode if it isn’t their speed!
As for players leaving matches, we are aware that this is an issue and are hoping to make changes to address this in our March “Techrot Encore” update. We like to experiment and try new things, and we’ve got a great community of people who care about those things being successful as much as we do, so we’re keen on tweaking where we can with their feedback!”
Something that I was surprised to learn about was developer Sumo Digital was involved in the development of the mini game in the arcade called ‘Caliber Chicks 2‘. With my curiosity of their partnership I asked the following, “Speaking of game modes, or in this case, mini games, what was it like for Digital Extremes to work with Sumo Digital on Caliber Chicks 2? Are they also involved in the upcoming Ollie’s Crash Course?” And Megan was able to reply with:
“We loved working with Sumo’s team on Caliber Chicks! They’ve become an excellent development partner that we really appreciate. They did some incredible work on the Koumei & the Five Fates update with us and we couldn’t be happier with how Caliber Chicks 2 came out. No spoilers from us on future projects from them though, stay tuned to our Devstreams for the latest deets.”
Capping off with Boss and Villain Talk
With the absence of raids, and the slowly fading relevancy of Eidolons in Warframe, Digital Extremes have added very challenging variants of bosses for players to tackle in both Whispers in the Walls, and Warframe: 1999. With this in mind I thought it was fair to ask, “There has been a recent trend in the Assassination targets for recent updates, like Whispers in the Walls with the Fragmented One and now Warframe: 1999 having the Efervon Apex for players to tackle. What drove this choice, and more importantly the secret rewards you can obtain? Will this trend continue as potentially more experimental updates come to Warframe?” And Danielle went into the thought process behind it:
“We enjoy adding new ways to challenge players who are looking to really push their loadouts to the limit. The Steel Path difficulty already kicks up those fights a notch, but if you’re up for it you have the option to set it into overdrive with these secret stages. It’s also an opportunity for us to add in additional game mechanics that allow players to experience the fight all over again with some twists.
As for the rewards themselves, we wanted to give players their well-deserved bragging rights. Nothing says “yea I beat the big baddy boss” like a pair of the Fragmented One’s hands or the H-09’s Turret slapped onto the front of your ship while loading into a mission. With Warframe: 1999, we also added new Glyph rewards with the same goal in mind. If you manage to solo the Fragmented One/H-09 Apex with specific Warframes, you will get a Glyph of that Warframe to show off that you’ve got the chops to go up against the beasts all by yourself.
No promises to continue with a “trend” per se, but new bosses always present opportunities for us to try new things. For now, we’ve been enjoying seeing the kinds of strategies and guides that come out from players figuring out how to min-max these fights and seeing them wiggle their ship around to show off their rewards for doing so.”
Finally, to start wrapping our Q&A up, I was very curious about Neil Newbon (Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3) taking on now two roles in Warframe, “I’d like to ask in regard to Viktor, voiced by Neil Newbon. What was it like getting Neil back in for another role after Fibonacci? Are there any plans you can share regarding more of Viktor or Resulka in 1999?” And to answer my final question was none other than Megan, who dropped a small hint:
“Getting to continue working with Neil is such a treat – he is truly a treasure! For such a prolific actor to agree to voice a beloved bubbling Fish and then a tattooed villain, we are truly lucky! (And who knew Reb getting publicly dumped by Astarion would bring us here!)
We obviously have plans for what comes next after 1999 and beyond but sharing those spoilers would ruin the surprises we have in store! All I will say is please stay tuned. We have a lot of announcements up our sleeve and are excited to share more about our year ahead soon…not all those who wander are lost.“
The cryptic nature of that last sentence is sure to stir some exciting conversation. But on a personal note, I would like to thank both Danielle and Megan for their time to answer these questions, and Digital Extremes PR for allowing us this opportunity.
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