Does this game seem oddly underpopulated?

I'm only seeing a few hundred people on right now, despite this being open to everyone to play. It's tough finding people to play missions with since we're all split up across so many planets and systems. Maybe it'll get better when it integrates with Steam, but as of now it feels a little dead, which...isn't a good thing for a game that just went into open beta.

I refuse to play this game!

@rorie: I would totally get it right now to play with you Rorie, but you since just said it's coming to Steam (something I did not know previously), I'm just going to wait until that happens to check it out.

I'm an ass, I'm sorry.

It is a little bit, yes. It also doesn't help that a lot of the people I get connected to seem to be overseas because I get terrible, terrible lag whenever I play. But that is probably my fault for playing at 2am PST.

I haven't noticed, but I tend to roll solo in that game. It'll likely become more apparent once the difficulty ramps beyond what I can handle alone.

I hope it picks up in popularity, as it really is a fun game with a lot of potential.

@rorie: The concept seemed really cool but the quick look probably showed the flaws of this game. Seemed rather repetitive of getting from point A to B by either fighting or fleeing and then back tracking back to the entrance. Get your points and level up your character, rinse and repeat. I have been on a free to play frenzy recently so might give it a go just so I can experience it myself.

It's just...it's...

It's just not that good.

What if the masks were removed and your characters were actually all the former presidents of the United States? Would you be back in?

I didn't notice there was a player counter when I was playing a few days ago but I didn't seem to have problems finding people. I always had to start my own game but people would join and most of the time they would stick around for a few levels too.

The game has changed quite a bit since the quick look, which is a problem that comes with quick looking a game that is still actively being developed.

@i_stay_puft: Yes, but only if they let me use Washington's teeth and Lincoln's hat as melee weapons.

I'll probably give it a try then, rewatching the quick look and original comment still stands as it looking not that great from when the video was shot.

It's about to be on Steam so maybe that will bump the population up a bit?

I played a couple of games during the closed beta... seemed fun enough. I'll play it again when it's on Steam.

Hi Rorie!

I'm installing this game right now actually. I got into the closed beta, in fact, but didn't play it during that time (didn't have access to my gaming computer).

Maybe we could form a Giant Bomb Warframe group? I'm not sure how this game works yet, so that might be a silly suggestion.

@i_stay_puft said:

What if the masks weren't removed, because every character is Tali?

Even when it was still in closed beta there were thousands of available beta keys easily Google-able. The friends list was bust too, not sure if they fixed it yet.. The game's fun, but it does depend on having enough players online all the time.

@rorie: After a few missions there isn't much left for you to explore and the weapon upgrades provide only stat boosts. While newer levels do start offering new environments, it all too quickly becomes a slog. The action is also interesting but not fluid or evolved enough to warrant much experimentation. So at the end of the day I think most people play a bit, get the general gist of it and move on. Thats sort of what I did. I love sci fi and Warframe's aesthetics seem really alluring to me, but there isn't enough meat on those sci fi bones for me to stick around much longer.

I was playing shortly after the quick look. It was all peaches and cream on the lower level missions.

However once you get out of the staring planet and have "choices" the population gets split into 3 directions...then split again and again meaning less people for these missions.

Eventually it gets to a point that it is split up so much you cant get anyone down a path. This wouldn't be a problem with thousands of players, except it gets repetitive extremely quickly. The natural fall off for this game is very soon.

All equals to small population getting smaller in a game built for thousands.

It got to the point people were so ravenous to play with each other the friend list was filled with recent players to try and get a game that actually progresses down a mission line.

It was still fun the week and half I played, just not the waiting even in the more populated parts.....

The community had a pretty big split over the new mod system that just came out, and a lot of people decided to stop playing until the big issues with the new system are resolved.

i found the game pretty boring. but im not into co-op games with no pvp so thats probably why.

It's not bad, it's just weird, I played it for awhile and stopped after I finished fully upgrade the frame and weapons of my choosing and there was little left for me to continue doing so I expect once it's fully fleshed out it will have more constant players, but I'm personally tapped on it and the whole Japanese space katana suit sci-fi thing isn't helping.

On a side note I'm tired of Katanas in games and I'm amazed I played as much of this game as I did with them in it I feel like boycotting any game with them in it unless it suits them IE shogun total war and I think my boiling point was the Jaggered Alliance "BIA" expansion that started to make me feel this way.....

@nonused: Path of Exile isn't particularly great either (it's okay); that seems to be doing well. Warframe has limited exposure and is pretty repetitive/generic looking so it's not all that surprising that there aren't too many people playing it.

@artemesia: Are you Artemsia in-game as well? I think we played with each other, if so: I'm "frailgesture" in there.

@shagge: Soloing the Infested levels is a great way to frustrate yourself. I usually wind up running out of ammo before I get anywhere near the end of a level.

@snail: I think there already is one in another thread on this forum!

Yes, I am and yes, we did! I dropped into your game a couple times because we friended each other. If I am online, feel free to invite me if you'd rather not run things alone.

Oh man... as a person who likes to go the "straight dumpin'" route in this game, I'll have to watch out for that.

Also, seeing "frailgesture", I think we've played a level or two together as well. Or I'm just half-remembering that name from an old TNT... haha.

I really enjoyed what I have played of this game. I played about three hours and ready to jump in for more.

Played it finally and loved it. Pretty fun game when you can get a decent group together. Think the steam integration bumped the population a few but that split up of group missions after the first few worlds definitely splits up the community a bit.

Looked pretty neat, too bad I'm already packed with other stuff.

Anyway, I'm here because I opened up a review and a wild Rorie appears!

It seems that since Rorie created this topic, the games popularity has spiked which is probably thanks to Steam. As of posting this, Warframe currently has over 12 thousand players online and is in 8th place on Steam, just below Bioshock: Infinite with a peak player count of just over 17 thousand. I'd say that's pretty impressive for a game that is still in beta and seems like a ways off from being finished as the devs are working their way towards the update and update 7 was a pretty significant change. I'm actually interested now to know why more people have been playing this. Other well established F2P games simply aren't reaching these numbers. Planetside 2 is probably the next most popular F2P game on Steam but its number are half of what Warframe is pulling in currently. I love me and have played me some Blacklight but that game is only pulling in between 1 - 1.6 thousand players. I wonder if this is just due to age at this point though with the latter being over a year old at this point and still not feeling really as polished as it should be.

I'm very interested to see where the devs can take the game. At the moment, the draw for most people is farming for materials to build items but the gameplay itself is rock solid for the most part. It can be incredibly fast and the new block ability opens up new possibilities and the devs have said they're going to incorporate more stealth opportunities. With the latest update they added the ability to melee enemies from behind if you sneak up on them but it can be a little inconsistent and it really doesn't help that once and enemy sees you, every enemy is aware of your position.

Roooriiie, where are thou!?!?!

IGN review? Really? So you're working for IGN now or what? I mean, thats great!:D

Really miss you on GB's QL-s. A fuckin' LOT!

I am really loving this game, according to steam over 40 hours played and I can't stop. I can see the complaints about repetitiveness, but I personally don't feel it. The combat just feels so great that I can't seem to get bored with it, even though the levels get samey. The co op nature of the game makes it very low stress which I like, people in general seem to be either quiet or nice, haven't seen any jerk-ish behaviour so far.

The game seems to be changing almost on a day by day basis, which is pretty awesome in my book. Just a day ago they did a pretty hefty re balancing making the game a little harder, which seemed necessary. I bought one of those founders packages but I haven't spend much of it yet, those Warframes are too expensive and I am doing ok unlocking them while playing.

I can see myself playing this for quite a while longer, and coming back to it once in while to see what they added after that. Really excited to see where they are going with this game.

Warframe actually peaked higher than Bioshock Infinite today, so that's something.

Biggest problem right now? THere were some cool kids who invaded the main site and servers.

Don't get the reference to who these cool kids are?

I haven't played in about a week but can finally see what most people have been talking about who have played the game longer then I have. Its really difficult sometimes if you are playing with randoms cause either players go in different mission paths from you or they camp out and farm in those Mass Effect Horde mode like missions. For the first week when it was integrated with Steam found most random games being in Mercury or Venus areas. From my previous post my opinion of this game has totally changed, this game is pretty great if you can get over the fact that you will probably totally be looting and playing those horde missions alot, which for me are pretty on par with the Mass Effect multiplayer for me.

Server's back up now. The PlayWarframe twitter said they were upgrading hardware earlier today.

I'm really digging this game. It feels a lot like Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, but better in a lot of ways. I especially like the galaxy map that functions as a matchmaking tool. There are still some bugs, but I'm mostly impressed with how it is doing Triple-A free to play instead of Triple-A + $60 price + microtransactions.

I enjoying playing Warframe but I don't feel like I'm progressing through a Campaign or just in levels (like WoW). I feel like ive started the grinding phase pretty early on. I'm grinding to the materials to upgrade and grinding to lvl2 so I can grind to get Blueprints so I can grind for ingredients so I can play the suit that I want (and the style I want).

Im going to keep playing since the basic action is fun and co-op with friends is great. I just wish the "grinding" phase had started a little later.