Vor's Prize: Review. (not a bad tutorial, not a great one neither) Warframe Part 1

For generations you've slept, no purpose, no call to wake you. But now, something has arisen from the ruins of the Old War.

The Twin Queens, the sisters, have sent their most beloved commander, Vor, on an urgent mission. To protect the twisted crusade they have begun. To transform the scattered colonies into an empire. To see that the Tenno, hidden and asleep, will never awaken.


Wake up, Tenno.


That line has stuck in my head for a while now. I started playing Warframe just before the Sacrifice released. I had been told it was one of those universally great games, that DE had the best microtransaction system, and that I should give it a try. I am truly glad I did.

This quest isn't so integral to the story so it wont make that much of a splash for you to read this, nonetheless, spoiler alert.

When you first launch warframe, you are thrust into Vor's prize, your very first quest. Here you will choose your first Warframe, your first weapons, and your first keybind prompts(like every tutorial...) You will also complete the Liset, defeat your first grineer, destroy your first boss, and meet Ordis Cephalon (that won't shut up)






Wake Up: Captain Vor lands on earth (yes he's ugly) here to take you. You are a Tenno, one of the only threats to The Grineer Empire's crusade to take over the Origin System (where the game takes place, almost identical to our solar system). Vor wants to take you for his own to present to the Grineer Queens as a mind controlled soldier (it isn't as cheesy as I'm writing it to be). He's so dedicated to taking you that he will take out another Grineer official using ancient void technology, called the Janus Key. He goes to a Void gate and opens it using the key, and behind the gate is you in cryosleep.


The Lotus wakes you up from cryosleep. She refuses to lose another Tenno. The Lotus is your guide and exposition dispenser for the game, She'll tell you vital information (whatever waypoints and the hud don't tell you) as well as story clues.

Lotus wakes you up from your cryopod and you now get to pick your very first Warframe



HARNESS YOUR TENNO POWER:

You now get to pick one out of three Warframes:
Excalibur: kinda the faceless face of the game,

Excalibur Prime

Excalibur is arguably the easiest and best of the three, His abilities focus on damaging the opponents with as much sword as possible, so much sword. (yes these photos are from the fan kit). Excalibur is a versatile platform that doesn't do much aside from damage.

His first ability is Slash Dash: He lunges and does damage.

Second ability: Radial Blind is much more interesting, it blinds nearby opponents (which stuns them and stops them from firing at you, it also allows you to do a melee finisher on them (epic looking melee animation that often does lethal damage).

Third Ability: Radial Javelin summons javelins, and when he slams his sword into the ground they launch and deal damage, potentially pinning enemies to walls.

Fourth Ability: Exalted Blade swaps out your weapon for this massive sword that is channeled, it does more damage and and launches waves of energy with every swing. It. is. epic.

And lastly his passive allows him to gain bonus swing speed and damage from using swords. so yeah, swords.

The Second Warframe: MAG (My chosen starter)

Mag Prime

This is one of the worst Warframes in the game, honestly, I love her so much but she just stinks. She's decent at removing shields but just lacks everywhere except shield-based combat.

Mag's Passive is really helpful though: Bullet jumping (a mobility option, extremely fun and cool) will draw in nearby loot and items (you auto collect items on contact).

Ability One: Pull is kinda meh overall, damage enemies and pull them closer while wiping them off their feet, kinda cool.

Ability Two: Magnetize creates a bubble around the target, drawing bullets in, doing slight damage over time, and preventing them from shooting back (all bullets they shoot get pulled back into them), this slightly enhances damage done by Pull. If an enemy dies in the bubble it will explode on ending.

Ability Three: Polarize is probably the most useful ability in her kit. It depletes shields of enemies nearby. It reduces armor of enemy units which then deals damage for the stripped armor (but I'll be honest I didn't know this happened because I've never noticed it), The main use of this ability is it boosts allied shields a bit. It synchronizes with Magnetize by making shards out of the stripped armor. which are boosted by magnetized targets.

Volt Prime

Ability Four: Crush is the most epic looking of her abilities. She picks up enemies in a radius, and then crushes them together for big damage, boosted against magnetized targets as well. Mildly restores friendly shields, great against one type of baddie but not another (explain later)

The Third Warframe: Volt, probably the most engaging of the three.
I haven't played as this warframe ever so, relying on external info.

 Volt has the potential to do the most sustained damage and Burst damage out of the three.  Speed, control of the field, and damage. The description states he's for those that want an amazing alternative to gunplay.

His Passive builds up electric damage for running on the ground (static charge) and boosts the next gunshot or melee swing

The First Ability: Shock is a simple lightning chain.

Second Ability is really fun: Speed gives you and allies a speed boost, and it can get really fast. attack speed and reload too.

Ability Three: Electric Shield deploys an obstacle that you can shoot through but enemies cant. Your damage is amplified as it goes through the shield. You can pick it up to become a smaller more ballistic-shield styled mobile zappy boi. You can even run people down!

And lastly, Ability 4: Discharge makes you go all UNLIMITED POWER on your enemies, they get stunned in a radius, then charged, and then they start zapping other baddies as well as themselves. ZAAAAP

GET OUT OF THERE

Now that you've chosen your warframe you emerge from your cryopod. You are very weak. You try to get up, remember what you're doing. Vor walks through the void gate and surrounds you with guards. He walks over to your prone warframe and attaches a device called an Ascaris to your leg.(this is so far unused outside of this quest, wasted potential.)

"What has he done to you? I can't lose another Tenno. I am surging your Warframe's power systems."
Now you get to fight, You're standing now, Vor wants his soldiers to stop you as he leaves.

You now get to fight using only your first ability (with unlimited energy) as you have no weapons yet, and this is where you should PAUSE

Go edit the keybindings,

I personally think most of the default keybindings are not good and you should edit them at once, I've picked ones that go with my gameplay rhythm. Keep in mind for some reason these are hardware based not account based. Also melee is not Mouse 1 (most important keybind that you don't expect to not be where it is)

What do you remember?

Once you've butchered everyone, you will have completed Part 1: Warframe Power. In this tutorial mission only there's a "progress bar" showing how far along you are, this appears nowhere else in the game. After learning some movement you will choose your melee

You can pick between a BO staff, and a Skana (katana). one is slower more damage and reach, one is quicker and more mobile. The pick is up to you.

Lotus will guide you through several ways to use your weapon. and you will complete Part 2: Melee Combat.

You will now learn more mobility and how to stealth attack (keep in mind this isn't a stealth game). You now will grab your Secondary, The Lato Pistol, or The Kunai Throwing knives. (pick the Lato, The Kunai are hard to aim, and you'll want a different secondary. even if it isn't quiet)  This will complete Part 3: Secondary Weapons.

Now you will learn some gunplay, standard stuff, While learning some mobility and shooting stuff like aim gliding, you'll kill some Grineer Bad Guys, and now Vor knows you're trying to escape.
You find your first resource caches and loot your first crafting materials as a start to your looter adventure.

The Extraction ship comes to get you and VOR BLASTS IT OUT OF THE SKY using the Janus Key, there goes your escape plan. You're too weak to face Vor head on so you are tasked with getting around him and blocking his energy beams. By now you've likely leveled something up, don't worry about it. There's no skill tree or anything and gun stats don't get better, Leveling will be explained by me later in the quest.

You get close to Vor, but you cant harm him, instead you're targeting a panel that you need to operate.

 This will complete Part 4 : Release Lockdown. Have you noticed by now Vor can talk directly to you no matter where you are? Important villains tend to be able to do this. And almost all of them talk in english so even though there are subtitles you won't need them as much. 

You will learn some parkour, like double jumping, wall running, wall climbing, bullet jumping, wall clinging, etc. On completion of this tiny room you will have completed part 5: Advanced mobility. Now you've earned your Primary weapon.

 You can pick between the Braton assault rifle, or the Paris Bow. Both are usable depending on playstyle, The Braton is loud, rapid fire, fully automatic.
The Paris is a charged, long range, projectile, silent bow that can one shot the low level enemies you encounter in this (on a charged shot or headshot). Picking yours out completes part 6: Primary Weapon. You will now go through some more shooting.

Thanks warframe wiki

Now you've found the old Liset craft, your new way out. It's been locked down by the grineer for years, maybe centuries. So time to disable the Parking boot on your spaceship. fight your way to it, silently can be fun. You go to the console and begin your first Hack. Hacks are pretty straightforward. They're minigames that involve solving a line puzzle or lock puzzle. Completing the hack Finishes Part 7: Security Systems. You aren't done with this yet though.

Guess who? It's Ordis Cephalon!
"who?"
You'll wish you never knew him by the endgame. Ordis is the onboard computer of the Ship you just unlocked. He first mistakes you for a Grineer soldier, then realizes. You are his old operator!
Ordis begins the takeoff sequence and you are tasked with "defending the ship." Just don't die. Once you fly out of there you've done it!
Now to get that Ascaris out of your leg.
The following missions of Vor's Prize will be detailed in a post coming soon.
Until then.....