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The popular online game known as Warframe, a title where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and pilot futuristic vehicles, has launched a significant update. This latest expansion highlights the distinctive charm that has become synonymous with Warframe in the past few seasons.

This expansion, made available this week, adds a new mushroom-themed warframe that performs a unique animation, along with a brand-new biome to discover. However, it also revisits core concepts, with a new mission aimed at making sure this complicated, expansive 12-year-old MMO is understandable by new players.

The Arrival of "The Teacher"

Called “The Teacher,” this is the highly anticipated mission that instructs Warframe players on how to use one of the game's most basic — yet most intricate systems: the mod system.

In Warframe, modifications are enhancements that can be added to your character or your weapons to enhance their abilities. They range from the straightforward (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often craft hour-long videos about optimized loadouts that use powerful mods in combination to create devastating effects.

“I think a lot of people were maybe getting into the early game, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” noted a lead narrative designer. “I think it was really important, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I'd like to experiment further.’”

A Collaborative Effort

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration between the core team, who provided the narrative sauce, and an external team, who crafted the gameplay, which will be introduced to new players.

In the quest, the player is asked to retrieve a new segment for their spaceship, but they’re interrupted by a menacing, powerful warrior called Teshin, who takes away the player’s abilities and close-combat arms, and forces them to engage with the mod system to handily demonstrate its power.

Several developers were longtime players, but some were newcomers, according to a lead designer. This fresh viewpoint that proved critical.

“Our initial step involved observing new players and have them experience the introduction and document extensively on everywhere they fell out,” the designer said. Introductory tutorials presented the mod system. But the team noted that they didn’t work on everyone.

“Certain players missed fundamental guidance where the game highlights it saying put the mod in the slot,” he said.

Filling a Significant Gap

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that fill the display with damage values. But "The Teacher" focuses on different aspects. Veteran users who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, like optimizing for endgame challenges. But it became clear that the mission addresses a genuine oversight for newcomers — and that executing this is quite complex.

“There’s lots of little tweaks and background details there to just sort of show you what it can do rather than explain it outright,” the designer said. For example, one of the mission's objectives is to show how mods can create elemental damage types; in this case, a magnetic effect that depletes protective barriers.

“We had to change the weapon to be a burst-fire weapon, because it better demonstrates the effect frequency,” the designer said. “But you don’t want to say to people, 'with a basic modification, you only got a few percentage chance to proc an elemental effect.' How can you teach this mechanic effectively?”

Veterans will naturally recognize these mechanics and grasp their function, but new players have to be taught to pay attention to these things.

“It’s not a kind of game development that we previously focused on just because that hasn't been our focus,” said a story developer. “But part of it not being our focus that players weren't properly taught the modding system.”

Significant Investment

“There’s so much that goes into just making a seemingly straightforward quest that — honestly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” said the designer. “But it's months and months of work for loads of people.”

The designer was clearly enthusiastic over contributing to a beloved title — and to design content featuring a preferred figure.

“I love Teshin,” he said. “He's my 8-year-old internal self's idea of what's cool.”

An Evolving Onboarding Process

In the 12 years since its release, Warframe has been in a ongoing struggle with its own new user introduction. There are lots of complex systems that players don’t need to worry about — and won't encounter until hours into the game. And others, like modding, that increase in depth depending on your level of engagement. An update earlier this year streamlined the early game so that players could reach Warframe’s complex narrative arcs with reduced repetitive play up front.

With “The Teacher,” it’s clear that the developers are doubling down on a commitment to make sure Warframe’s early game experience doesn’t stay locked in 2013. Beginners can find their way — regardless of overlooking tutorials.