Apology From the Giant Bomb Warframe Clan

Update

Hey guys,

First I would like to say thank all of you for your continued patience this past week. We thank you those who express their views about the situation and appreciate that most that those who took time to reply to us are in favor of the option to create an alliance as means to solve the dilemma that us, especially the long time veteran players of GBHI were faced with. We've decided to go ahead with the creation of the Giant Bomb Alliance (Unsanctioned TM). We at GBHI really want thank you @zagzagovich, @roughneck117 and the rest of the duders involved in 'Batman Buttman Batman' for helping make this alliance possible. As some you may have seen they are already starting to take invites. They are currently in process of upgrading their clan/dojo to a Storm Clan in order to allow more invites. It's going to take longer than we expected since we hit a few technical issues slowing progress down. For example clan members not able to share and contribute materials and research directly with allied clans, something we originally though was possible. Nevertheless, GBHI will try what we can to aid Batman Buttman Batman. More details about the logistics of the alliance can be found in the alliance thread. As all the request posts have become very spread out between 3 different posts, please post requests in the GB Alliance thread.

Apology

Hey guys,

The explosive interest in the clan has taken clan's "management" a bit by surprise, and we're struggling to keep up. It's really cool, thanks @jeff, but...

Here's our challenge. Giant Bomb Heavy Industries (GBHI) is currently a "Storm Clan", which means we can have up to 100 members. Monday, we had 100 members, though a large portion of those had been inactive for a long time - with the policy that anyone who has not been online for 30 days may get removed to make room for a new player.

In the last 4 days, we've received almost 80+ invitation requests. That puts us in a difficult position.

We could upgrade the clan to a "Mountain Clan" allowing us to invite up to 300 members. However, the upgrade is permanent, with no possibility to shrink down later, and all research and building costs would triple which is funded through the active clan membership. Because of the additional burden to the membership, we are not comfortable with this decision before we see how many players are willing to stick around with us in the long run.

The alternate option would be for someone to create a sister clan and join GBHI in an alliance. Members in both clans can communicate through the in-game alliance chat, and set up squads with one another. If someone feels comfortable creating this overflow clan, please step in and let us know, as it would be a great interim solution until the situation stabilizes and we determine if we can sustain a Mountain Clan or if this uptick in interest is temporary.

Members of the second clan would still be able to visit the main clan's Dojo to take part of our completed research and we will offer you support in setting things up. There is an investment of in-game resource and time to build a clan dojo for the sister clan.

Creating a second clan would be no easy task in order to create a clan to allow the additional requests that are still coming in.

(Probably worth mentioning here that there is no penalty to leaving a clan and rejoining another - beyond needing to rebuild your dojo key)

The short of it, we're still deciding on what to do about it. It seems that @refactored of the PS4 Warframe Clan VinnCo is also experiencing the same situation. We'll need everyone to be patient while we figure this out. For now, feel free to ask questions here on the forums. We'll be answering questions as we are able to.

Making a second group sounds like the smart thing. I wanted to join you guys but in reality I doubt I'll play more than a month and I figure I'm not the only one of the new players like that

So, I put in a request to join the clan, but, as you pointed out, I also figured that you guys were being swamped with requests from people. Early on in the games life I created a clan with a bunch of guys who played the game semi regularly, and we have kind of gotten back into the game. The clan is still active, and we have been adding some people on to it. I like the idea of having an alliance, and not increasing the size limit of your clan right away, so I, and the others in that clan right now, have no problem with being a sister clan to yours.

Right now most of us in the clan have the permission to take invites and such into the clan, so if you want you can provide our clan as a overflow clan.

The name of the clan is Batman Batman Batman.

Anyone interested in joining can send friend request to me, Roughneck117, or you can send one to Mageknight in the game.

Additionally we also use a mumble server were we hang out and play games, not limited to just Warframe, which people can use if they want to.

mumble.giantbombing.com, port 64738 <<< the address and the port for the mumble channel if anyone wants to use it.

Hope to see some people in game duder.

Don't do the triple thing. People are jumping on due to all the recent talk and some might stick around. But tripling the clan permanently seems like too big a jump if you're relying solely on this community.

Yea probably best to wait and see.

I tried the game out alongside the Quick Look coverage and played it for a couple hours over two days. It was kinda neat at first but my interest dramatically fell off. Not sure if I'll fire it up again.

Point is: Probably a bunch of people just want to try it out and aren't aware the clan system is more complex and involved than just a glorified friends list.

Good post though. Considering options and informing the people.

Edit: Quick off-topic question, I didn't want to make a new thread and already did some Google'ing.

Does Warframe on PS4 support mouse & keyboard? All I could find was stuff from almost a year ago about the devs maybe putting it in. Tried it on my end and not working but not sure if its a setting or my KB + M setup etc.

Hey man no need to apologize, just whatever is you guys decide to do I'm in.

Wow, this would all be much easier to manage if the resources needed for things in the clan dojo were calculated based on the exact number of members that you have, not how many you can have.

I'd join the PS4 clan if that opens up. Can't say how much I'll play or how long I'll play for though so if anyone else who plays regularly wants to join too they should get a spot first.

I'm not surprised they don't allow that, since you could cheese the shit out of it by having most of the players temporarily leave. It does suck that you can't downgrade it later if things change though.

Having two clans seems smarter and if the second clan retains a large active group then you could possibly combine the two in the future

You're probably right; however, with just a little bit more thought into how to prevent that sort of abuse, I'm sure the developers could make a far less stressful situation.

(I'm just venting, I know it's useless)

Totally agree here.

Yeah 2nd clan seems like a good idea. Statistically, most of us that are new or reinstalling the game won't stick around for the long run.

Why not just turn the current one into a mountain clan, and then create your own personal one?

Why would they want to do that? They built it and invested the time into it, I can't imagine they want to leave to accommodate some fair weather fans. More importantly, a new clan means having to build everything back up from scratch, which is very expensive and time consuming.

@zeik: Oh, I wasn't aware that there was an investment of some sort within creating a clan! My b.

It's basically like owning a guild house in an MMO, except it also allows access to weapons and warframes you can't get elsewhere which have to be researched first. (On top of which the rooms that house the research also have to be built.) Leaving that behind would be a pretty big detriment to devoted players.

Add me too: AlexandruAlexandruAlex

This is why I didn't send a request this time. Was going to jump into it again next week, once I get home from my parents this weekend. But I knew it would be full up. I think making a second clan is the best really.
Also, would it be OK my clan, which is a three man clan consisting of my brothers, become allies with the GB clans? That way I don't have to leave my family clan, but I can still talk and play with duders in an easy way. If this is OK I'll do that next week.

@rapid: Thanks for the great post, summed it up better than I could in the other thread. Cheers

The clan name is not Batman Batman Batman but Batman Buttman Batman. Let's get this alliance going. Also you can send a request to me too. ZagZagovich in game.

As someone who toyed with potentially joining the clan I think this is a very reasonable decision. Most of the interest won't last and then you core guys are stuck with even more grind. I'll probably check out some random clan - they're frequently recruiting if I really want to play that much Warframe again.

Honestly my main motivation was to find out if a clan membership actually alleviates some of the ridiculous grind and constant confusion but looking at problems like these I get the impression that is just not a thing that ever happens in Warframe.

Anyone have any advise for someone still downloading the game? should i learn the game on my own for a bit and then send a clan request or should i send request right away?

@roughneck117: Awesome, I've directed Rapid (as I think only Warlords can do it) to contact you to set up the Alliance as soon as possible (we just need to figure out how it works...), thanks for helping out - we really want to help everyone get the best experience out of this as possible - and short term, we believe this is the best way to achieve that (giving new players easy access to asking questions of (and playing with) veterans.

@jaqen_hghar: I don't have a problem with that, as I understand it, Alliances can have 4000 members across any number of clans

@bluefoxxy: Yeah, as mentioned, we've put a significant amount of crafting resources and credits into building the Dojo and research into weapons and warframes.

On the bright side, as we understand it, we'll still be able to provide access to these researched blueprints by inviting you into our Dojo, even if we can't invite everyone into the clan at this point.

@baal_sagoth: Just join one of the clans we'll add to the alliance and reap the benefits of the community we already have in place.

Being a community linked to a video game website gives us very unique and niche problems that I don't we can really put at the door of Digital Extremes. Most other clans would either decide to grow (and recruit to get to the size they want to be) or just not invite more people.

We've decided to be a clan that's affiliated with Giant Bomb (without official sanction), which puts us in a situation where we can't really recruit (since members should have a connection to the website) and we can't really control when we get recruits.

To be clear - I'm not complaining about that, just stating the reality of the situation :)

And either way, don't feel deterred, we're trying to make sure that everyone who wants an invite, at least gets invited to a clan in the alliance, to begin with.

@spitz1000: Either works, really. Getting into the clan early can save you some time to figure out unclarities, and possibly help you get past the difficulty bump you'll run into a couple of hours in. But it's not strictly necessary to be in a clan.

I don't think that's necessarily true. Once you spend some time with the game it's not really that confusing at all, and having a clan to ask questions would definitely make reaching that point of understanding quicker.

Joining a clan won't necessarily change the fact that the game revolves around grinding for new stuff, but it could alleviate some of the burden on new players. Clan members can taxi you to planets with resources you might need or help you find ways of grinding more efficiently. Any veteran player likely has useful mods in abundance that they would likely be willing to give away for next to nothing if you ask nicely. Etc.

Having put about 135 solo hours in but not having played for about a year, watching the quick look has made me want to get back into it. I always toyed with joining a clan but never really knew who to join or what to do, then I stopped playing.

Gutted the clan is full but I'm game for any overspill clan.

This arrangement reminds me of TORO ROSSO.

I think the second clan idea is the best approach. I don't like the multiplying cost of things when you hit the Mountain level, especially if more projects are going to require the new Archwing resource.

Pinned this thread to the Warframe forums. Give me a shout if there's any others you want up there. x

Add me to the sister clan, I won't be able to play this weekend but I'll play during the week.

Thanks!

We've a terrible track record of people consistently joining and then never playing again(not like I am allowed to talk much about poor attendance, but...) and my tummy tells me upgrading the clan would eff us over in some uncomfortable ways in the future, near or far. I think a second clan is a better idea.

@zagzagovich: @roughneck117: I've sent you both a couple of PMs on GB. Check it see what you guys think.

You know I've gotten in and played like 4 or 5 hours of Warframe total and it just always leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Literally every single game I've joined the others have just bolted towards the objective, and if you get left behind, then fuck you. Over and over, these dudes with late game stuff going into 3-5 or 5-7 areas and are completely silent, over powered, and make the game generally not fun. If I got in a good group I'm sure it's a blast, but the community seems toxic anytime I've asked a question, the game is super fucking confusing, the grind is completely ridiculous for any item beyond the starting gear. Everyone seems to slob all over it, but it may just not be for me. I dunno, this always happens with online multiplayer for me. Cool game-confusing systems-ask question-ridicule-no help-leave game. Just glad I didn't get loose with the paid stuff.

I would love an invite to the second clan :)

Nick: Morka4k

@zagzagovich: Zag, you little shit, you are a warlord in the clan, cant really send you a request silly.

Definitely do not upgrade the current clan; I can almost guarantee there'll be enough falloff that having a Mountain clan will be detrimental in the long run. Sister clan + alliance is the way to go. It might also be interesting for new players to see how the clan upgrade mechanics work, since most of that stuff is already done (or done nearly instantly in the new patches) in the main clan.

Also @rapid, my group of friends have started playing again. My buddy and I were very active for a few months about a year ago (ajamafalous and ScaredWhiteKid, you might remember us) and would love clan reinvites, but if there's no room and/or you think we need to be thrown into the overflow clan first, that's understandable!

I have downloaded the game on steam, but I am all too aware that I am probably not going to be around long term. Having read your post, if there is a second clan, I will join that.

Good call on the overflow team. I was going to join this weekend. Just to get my feet wet, like so many other players. Are clans cross platform?

@ajamafalous: Of course we do, you were unfortunately part of the big purge earlier in the week - if only you'd spoken up sooner! :)

@shozo: Sorry no, the Developers were discussing crossplatform functionality, but it didn't work out, so all clans and accounts are platform specific :(

To everyone: We're still working on sorting things out with the overflow clan, someone will let everyone know when the floodgates are open again :)

(Feel free to keep asking for invites in the other thread, keep it in one place to make it easier when we do start inviting again! Thanks!)

@mnemoidian: Aw man! Ah well, like I said, we totally understand. We'll be waiting for room to open up!

For the love of god make sure the second clan is called Rival Video Game Website Heavy Industries.

Ok, The "Giant Bomb Alliance" alliance has been created - and our first sister clan (Batman Buttman Batman) has been invited.

We may still need more clans in the Alliance to handle everyone who has asked for an invite, but I'm still figuring out how much space there is in BBB for new members.

(As a sidenote: unfortunately, it was discovered that it's not possible to share blueprints across an alliance - you can only buy blueprints from the clan you are in.)

@mnemoidian said:

:( that's a bummer

Though I have been thinking about it and the prospect of starting a Clan from scratch has been enticing me... but again I'm to much of a noob to do that, but hey a bunch of noobs getting together might make something happen, anyone interested in doing that?

Also is there any real money involved in setting up a clan?

@onarum: Not directly. I don't know exactly what's involved in creating a clan these days, it used to be just entering into a menu and picking a name for the clan.

That puts you into a ghost clan, allowing up to 10 members. You'll need to develop your Dojo to make the clan larger than that (building reactors for dojo energy, halls for dojo capacity and then building barracks to extend the size of the clan) - but that costs resources, some which may be rare for new players (unless you go to the market) (and each clan-size upgrade approximately triples the amount of resources needed to build the next tier). But starting with a Ghost Clan and seeing how it feels is not an unreasonable idea.

Once invited into the alliance, everyone in the clan gets access to an Alliance chat with everyone else in the alliance, so we can answer questions and run missions. :)

@roughneck117: Just sent a friend request from the handle TheOtogi. Can't wait to join another Batman Batman Batman!

EDIT: Sorry, Buttman is in the middle

@mnemoidian: hey duder, we just upgraded the BBB clan to a 30 man capacity, and working on possibly jumping it to 100 man, gunna need an amount of help though, currently I'm the only one contributing to the builds XD

Anyways, some invites were sent by @zagzagovich, and some more should be goin around from myself and @roughneck117

In game PC name: fightemo

Honestly, restricting the original clan is probably the smartest idea until the "honeymoon period" is over.

I'd love an invite to any GB clan though, just to have a friendly place to ask questions and such :)

DrCrayPHD is would be very happy to receive an invite to the sister clan. enjoying it very much right now but tripling is a bad idea. might as well wait and see who stays.

@meatsofevil: thanks for the invite :)