Although Warframe is all about gathering friends together for a good old-fashioned space ninja throw-down, travelling from one mission to the next has always been somewhat of a lonely affair. It’s not often that we see Tenno interacting with one another off the battlefield, and it’s even rarer to see a Clan Dojo populated with outsiders unless a special event is being hosted. Being a space ninja can be a lonely affair, but fortunately that’s all about to change.

This Devstream Overview we take a look not just at some future player content, but the future of Tenno socialization. Special Guest Art Director Mat Tremblay joined us on the big screen to help shine some light into the future of ‘Tenno Hubs’, and though much of the Devstream was dedicated to stress testing the new system we still have plenty of juicy details on these social Relay Stations.

We’ve got into Syndicate rooms in our previous look at the Devstream, but the Hubs themselves were in a much more work-in-progress state at that time. Since then we’ve made a lot of great additions, including giving the New Loka leader her very own arms and legs!

Many more NPCs have been added to help give the Relay a more realistically active feeling, and beyond the Syndicate representatives you’ll notice plenty of employees going about their daily lives. It’s a level of interaction with the Solar System’s inhabitants that we’ve never been able to properly showcase before. The Hubs are a natural place for us to expand on immersion.

For those whom are unfamiliar with the content our Player Hubs have to offer, each Hub will function as a Relay Station (or town square) for Tenno to gather and socialize. Here Tenno can meet each other in a more neutral territory than a Clan Dojo or mission, and although we do want Hubs to function as a meeting ground for social reasons there will be plenty of other useful things to do in a Hub that further your progress in a variety of ways.

The most obvious of these features are Syndicates, each of whom have their own place on Tenno Hubs for recruitment purposes. Within each Syndicate are representatives that will exchange Medallions that players find in the field during missions for unique bonuses and rewards.

You’ll also notice that Syndicate rooms are placed in alignment to one another, so finding Syndicates you work with (or Syndicates that hate you) should be an easy matter. There’s also existing functionality for the Dev team to swap around rooms or add additional rooms should allegiances change between Syndicates in the future.

When it comes to numbers, it’s difficult to say how many Tenno can appear on each Hub at the same time but right now, we’re working toward having at least a hundred players per Hub. That final number will change depending on a few technical and networking factors, but the more the merrier, as they say!

It’s also a long-term goal of ours to make each Relay Station truly reflect the planet it’s stationed on. Small details like statues from planet-specific events, resources displayed, and the background details outside of the Hub will really help to flesh out Hubs as being locations grounded within the Solar System rather than the Dojo’s that are tucked away.

Speaking of Dojos, Clan representation is a huge part of every Tenno Hub. We’ve spoken briefly about empowering clans with recruitment stations where they can display acquired trophies to help draw new membership, but we’d also love to have Clan rooms to help connect friends that look to gather at a single planetary Relay Station. Clan rooms could also be staged to allow individual invites, connecting Clanmates into a single room that bears their signature mark.

For those less Clan-centric socialites Hubs will also present some cool ways to interact with those around you. Emotes (bound by default to the Q key) allow players to show respect, practice katas or just say ‘no’ to fellow Tenno. Player Hubs have also been designed with verticality in mind, and more parkour savvy Tenno will be able to show off their skills by reaching not-so-obvious areas to hang out in.

As a final note on Tenno Hubs, we’ve mentioned Wyrmius will be headed to an ‘arcade’ within Hubs that will slowly be expanded on. In the current build we have available for testing many of these functionalities are absent, but rest assured that Wyrmius (and other future minigames) have not been forgotten! What we have right now is strictly available for testing purposes and we look forward to expanding upon Tenno Hubs with additional features once they’re online and fully operational!

Although Devstream 42 was all about the Hubs, we did talk on a few non-Hub related subjects.

First and foremost comes the Riot MOA, our Enemies of the Tenno: Corpus contest winner! The original concept drawn up by Volkovyi is a pretty beefy looking robot, and while the Infested winner has made a bit of progress it’s been a while since we’ve taken a look at either of the other winners. As you can see, it’s coming along pretty well.

No attack or movement animations yet, but whatever Corpus are involved in the Riot MOA’s manufacturing are clearly stressing an attention to detail. As the Riot MOA is more of a defensive bulwark than its robotic cousins it’ll certainly be fun to see its animations come together.

As Tenno Hubs and stress testing were the primary focus of Devstream 42 there isn’t much else to share. Instead we’ll end this Devstream Overview looking at the last two critical bits of information our team was able to tease:

• Rather than putting more stances in the drop tables, some new stances will be in the Tactical Alerts.
• Parkour 2.0 will be looked at in the new year

To those Tenno who are able to lend a hand stress-testing the upcoming Tenno Hubs, thank you so much for your patience and participation! We’ll definitely give you more information on Hubs, and their accessibility, as we get closer to their launch.