thinking about people who drop warframe
So first of all, Youtube is silly. 500 subs to enable monetisation?? twitch only asked for 50 follows. But whatever, I'll get there in due time. I much prefer YT anyways just cos my vods immediately get saved. I mean I have some issues with video quality but I'm not sure what the bottleneck is (bandwidth?).
HydroPotatoVODs aka HydroPotato Live on YouTube btw, if you wanna support me.
It's certainly interesting reaching the part of gaming where you're all caught up, and just playing day to day. I'm up to date with Warframe, there's new story content coming up in a day or so but I know I'm going to accidentally get it all done on day one. When I play I just log on, do whatever, log off. The thing is, this is a perfect opportunity to explore the game's playerbase sustainability.
Thankfully I don't have to talk about another academic sustainability thingy. This is about their player retention. I think warframe's an off-and-on kind of game for a lot of players. I think people will hop on, do the new content, then hop off. The issue is some people leave for ages and it's kind of odd. So I've been observing and listening to different people's behaviours, not only of the leavers but also the current gamers. So here's what I see:
The passionate current players tend to be engaged in some form of warframe fan media. There's loads of warframe fan artists and they're good at a variety of styles, subject matter, and tones. As with any fandom, we got the memers, the renaissance painters, manga artists, and everyone in between. From what I can understand, their creativity enables them to find ways to have fun. One artist, ibumuc, has figured some pretty awesome ways to use the atomicycle (basically a motorbike) to traverse huge distances across maps. Others play around with their drifter and operator and basically make entire OCs out of them. I love this energy.
Engaging in media also includes making videos & streaming. Or watching them! I think having community gives you a reason to enjoy the game. Even if you may think yourself introverted, by playing a multiplayer game and interacting with its playerbase, you are in some form socialising! I think that social aspect really helps.
On the topic of Warframe in a social context, it's amazing how sociable the Warframe developers are. I think it helps a lot that you can feel recognised, even generally speaking, by the people who are providing you with this game. They talk about their poll results, they read stream chats, tweets, etc. They feature fan content in Prime Time like fan art, Captura (Warframe's photo mode), and Clan dojo decorations. I think being involved in a community that has its own creators involved is awesome. I don't need any of them to ever contact me directly; I already feel seen when they transparently address community concerns and note their backlog of issues to cover.
Now to the leavers. There's a few levels to this, but is kind of funny when I first mentioned joining and a few of my friends went "oh huh, I used to play that." Some even resumed playing! And currently, almost 300 days since I first began, some of them have put it down again.
I think this partially comes from a lack of personal involvement. Some people aren't interested in being part of the fandom, or just don't have the time for it. These two friends of mine are still happy to chat about it and talk smack about the silliness I encounter, so they definitely don't hate the game. They just weren't really part of the fandom in the first place, and they didn't feel like playing more.
The other kind of leavers are those who complain about the grind. To me, the game doesn't feel too grindy. But I'm a patient lady. Impatience causes people to play the game because they want the reward. The process isn't that interesting to them. When I look at the Wukong Prime Magistar Torid Laetum players who are rushing through sorties, and the Wisp Shedu players sitting in one corner begging everybody to stay at that one spot to fire down a hallway, I see impatience. A desperation to get the job done with minimal involvement in gameplay, either by getting everything done fast or getting it done with minimal gameplay input. How do I say this... this sucks. It's a video game. Have fun or don't. In some way, I am kind of glad for these leavers, because if you're not enjoying the process, if you aren't finding fun in every mission and exploring the variety of build options you have, you're missing the point of playing: to enjoy the game.
All in all, I think Warframe itself is in a good spot. The team isn't doing anything scummy (as far as I can see), they're transparent about working to right wrongs, and they're involved in their community. I think players who leave are valid in doing so because they tend to just lose interest or lack involvement, and I'm glad it's not because of something dramatic. Those who stay tend to enjoy the media within and surrounding the game and its playerbase, and that's great.
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
vaporwave
gummygunk
kaledo-art
andulkaphoto
