And so it's like, we're sweatin' this like, okay, so let's turn on Steam and see how many people we can support. And we turned it on, and it jumped. - I remember every day I'd get up and I would check our room entry stats to see how much have we made for the previous day with the hope that at some point it would be enough to maintain the team that we had on it, or at some point it would be enough to maintain the studio. And I don't remember how many days it was that it wasn't, it just felt like really long time. But I really remember the day that we did.
Like, I remember waking up in the morning, and I was yelling, and I'm yelling into the living room. My wife came out, and she's like, "What, what, what? What's going on?" And I'm like, "Look, "Warframe's actually can support the studio." - And I was like, "Okay." Well now the problem is not just survival, the problem is retention and keeping them coming back, and growing the content, and we have one level in the game. Let's fix that, that kind of thing. It was a big shift, at least in my mind, was when the big Steam audience came. - [Narrator] Warframe was making money. A lot of money. Enough that for the first time in two decades, the specter of work-for-hire was no longer giving the executive team nightmares navigate to this website. But Digital Extremes had wandered into the problem that Steve had been warned about a year earlier: How was this game going to retain people? Free-to-play is a fickle beast, and while PvP games tend to keep people longer, PvE lives and dies on the amount of content available. While it turned out that the studio's biggest financial crutch, their large staff, was now their unfair advantage. Not only did they have 250 more people to work on the game now, but these weren't new hires brought in to help the game grow. These were veterans, folks who had made good video games, colleagues, friends, neighbors, people fighting not only for their livelihoods, but for their lives in London, Ontario. Digital Extremes have caught lightning in a bottle, and there was no way the team was going to let Warframe fail. They listened to the community and started adding new stuff immediately. - That year saw clans get added to the game. New warframes are coming out. There's more places to play, and then we have our sights set on launching on PS4. - You know, we had very humble beginnings with this game. Like I said, it was gonna be that kind of space ninjas raiding ships. And then we kinda started to see that players liked hanging out in the game. So we started expanding. We started making custom tile sets for each of the enemy factions. We started expanding the enemy faction types. Putting tile sets on specific planets to kind of get a better sense of the solar system exploration that we kind of had lightly touched on. - I think certainly when we expanded our customization that was a huge part of what made people like the game better, just at a visual level. When we redid the melee system and the parkour system, those overhauls were particularly well received. - [Narrator] The Movement in Warframe was originally pretty similar to most other third-person action games: running, jumping and sliding, but a movement exploit, known in the community as Zoren Coptering allowed players to catapult their frames great distances. It fundamentally changed the way the game was played. But instead of nerfing this exploit, the team saw that the community was trying to tell them something. - You know bullet jumping was brought in a way to traverse levels quicker because players really loved what they called coptering, which was the movement was tied to the slide of a weapon, so certain weapons were really good at this because they had a very quick transition time. So they would fling you across a level, and some of these guys got insanely good and could basically traverse some of the biggest tiles in the game in basically one swing. I was like, "Well, it's kind of game-breaking." But we loved that they love the flow of that. So, instead of just nerfing that and moving on and going, "No, you can't do that." We kinda embraced it and brought it in to the core gameplay, but in a more controllable way. And I think that's kinda been the philosophy is like, the community latches on to things for a certain reason. Instead of just smacking their hand, and saying, "No, that's not my vision." It's like, how can we embrace that, and how can we bring that into the game? And not just remove it outright. For the core gameplay, I think it's been an evolution of things that the community has wanted, things that we wanted, and the marrying of those two things. - [Narrator] Reading the reaction to the community has been critically important for the success of Warframe. Hot fixes would come sometimes two, three times a week, adding new content, fixing bugs, changing the user experience. This balancing act between adding new content and fixing issues the community has is a constant back and forth battle the team has struggled with. And they found the revenue the game makes from in-game purchases can be matched to how popular the latest content drop is. The better the update, the more players play, the more money the game brings in. (electronic trance music) - The hardest part about Warframe's life I think is the fact that it's clear from that data that Warframe needs to update to stay alive. The longer we don't update, the less people come check out the game, the less people stay in the game. So you have those two competing schools, stay in the game and come play the game. And then you have us, who has this five year, now 30 gigabyte behemoth that needs to be updated to stay alive. So how do you explain to someone that you've been talking to that we will fix your bug, but we also really need to add this new thing or people won't come. And they're like, "Well, stop adding shit. You should fix it." And you're like, "We have to do both." - I literally met an acquaintance I hadn't seen in a while, and he said, "I tried playing your game, and I opened that screen with all the cards, and I thought, 'I'm not smart enough to play this game.' "And I didn't play it any more." Raph Koster is one of my favorite game designers, and his book, Theory of Fun, is just like my go-to. He wrote about how many times they changed the new player experience for Star Wars Galaxy. And every time it did not effect their washout rate. - [Interviewer] Really? - Yep. "Here again, we redid it again. Nope, retention's not any better. We still have this many percent of people load it up, play it for a bit, and never come back. And we've done the same. We work on this, and we try to fix those things. We get stats and numbers, and we get data scientists. Eh. So. - [Interviewer] Why do you think that is? - People are smart. They look at it, they see that complexity, they know, they smell that that means this game is gonna take a lotta mental energy. And you're gonna have to read Wikipedia if you wanna min/max it. And they know. I'm either in for that, or I'm out for that. Does this Netflix series have 24 episodes or 10? Right? That's a big commitment to play Warframe. One of the big parts of my job, which is, "How much time are we gonna burn on a new player and how much time are give to that thousand hour player?" - [Narrator] One way they've manged to keep that open communication with the player base was using the power of YouTube and Twitch. Rebecca started a popular developer Q&A stream from the office's canteen. - And we are ready to live-stream. Our first dev Q&A for the Warframe commnity. - Great. - Hello, everyone. Welcome to Devstream 107. - Yay. - This is also our fifth anniversary of Devstreams. We have been streaming since the end of February 2013, it's now 2018. - Oh, my god. That's insane. No way. That's not true. - So if you've- Yeah, it is. If you've tuned in to all 107, then way to go. You've made to more than all of us, I think. - [Narrator] They started an annual fan festival called TennoCon, where players of the game travel to London, Ontario to attend panels, hang out, and meet their fellow Tenno. They even created a way for fans to sell their own frames and weapon skins. This program, called Tennogen, has earned some members of the community enough money, that they've been able to get off unemployment benefits. They have a partner program where they support 200 content creators who stream and upload videos about Warframe. They have a weekly community show called Primetime, and two of Rebecca's community team members, Megan and Danielle, run console specific streams every week. They use the Twitch Drops program, which enables players of the game to get free in-game goodies when they watch Warframe streams. Over the course of Warframe's life, this community has grown organically. Some play all year; some are newbies, Others are returning veterans. But the cycle of players is always tied to new content, so to try and keep things fresh every once in a while, the team throws a curveball. - What was happening was we were doing our routine. And Warframe's routine is great, and it lasts. And it has, sometimes I think it has a saturation point of people needing a pivot for Warframe, so two years prior the pivot was cinematic quests, right? It came out of nowhere. No one was sitting there saying, "I want a story that's gonna surprise me." But they were saying, "I'm bored." So how do you treat boredom? With ambition, right? So you kinda have this repeated scenario, where you can see your players are bored, they're asking for stuff, but what they're really saying is they're bored, right? And yes, you can deliver this feedback loop of, okay we'll buff this warframe, we'll change that, we'll change these missions, and that matters a shit ton. That matters so much. But to treat the boredom at a different level you need to shock and awe. - [Interviewer] Right. I just think it's almost like, the things you need to do are a) listen to your community, and b) not listen to your community. - Well, like, I'm saying basically that, like, take your vitamins every day, right? You will be healthy, and you will be happy. It's good for you. It's good for us. But, sometimes you need a new flavor, right? So you're still trying to keep the maintenance up of this back and forth relationship. But you need to change things sometimes because if we had just released a weapon week after week after week after week for the last five years, we wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation. What we did do was we continued to release those weapons, but we added cinematic quests. We added Arkwing. We added Lunaro, which turned out no one really plays, which is fine. You're allowed to make misetakes. That's cool. But you need to try. - [Narrator] One of the areas where the team needed to try a lot was the game's economy. The challenge of creating real world payment shortcuts for the loot grind fell on the shoulders of Sheldon Carter. And it's a responsibility he doesn't take lightly. - Downturn is, try not to push them so that they're gonna grind their face off to get something, but also give them enough variance so that getting those resources is interesting. Despite best intentions, there's always some, something where we need our community to tell us, "Hey, this is too hard." We have things with Kavats, one of the pets that came out. There's too many scans. You have scan wild Kavats in order to have enough scans in order to incubate a new baby Kavat. And it was just feedback from the community. Like, "Hey, this is taking me, like- "Is this what you wanted? "Did you want us to spend two weeks on this?" No, that's not what we wanted. We wanted you to do it. We want you to have to use the systems that we have, but we don't want you to spend forever. When we first designed Kubrows, or, myself, when I first came up with the Kubrow idea, we wanted people to be able to change the fur pattern and colors, so we have a lever, basically, for all intents and purposes, it was a button you can push, and they're like, "Oh, if you wanna pay-" I can't remember how much it was. "so much Platinum, you can change the color." And then you could've taken a print of that. You can trade it to someone else. So it wasn't, we're trying to give you a way to, like, you can get something cool, and then you can give it to your friends. And we saw a guy pull the lever 200 times, and it's just like, "Oh, my dear god. "What have we done? "We've created a slot machine." And so, it was a couple days, I think it took us to take it out. A day, day and a half. That one is a big regret. Obviously, that was insanely profitable for someone to be doing that, but that's not what our design intent, and that's not what the intent of the game is. So that's why it was, that's why we changed it. When you're dealing with something that is, does have a kind of a cash component, you have to be really be careful. Like, of course, that would be cool in a game where there was none of that. Where you were just putting in earned money. But as soon as you put that as a premium currency, and people can just go (imitating slot machine) "Oh, oh, what can I get? "Oh, I got the gold one!
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- [Interviewer] Okay. And when did you figure out that, "Oh, shit. We need a community team." - Probably when we realized we were gonna do it all ourselves.
Not only do we need community, we probably need to support these people, so I started the support community forums, all that stuff. I think we were so, I don't want to use the word desperate, But I'm kind of going to. We were so desperate for this to work that we wanted to be in the thick of it as this alpha phase was happening, so we wanted to see what the problems were, where the issues appeared to happen for the game, for the bugs, for all these things. And it really just had us glued to our communication outlets, which would have been the forums at the time, exclusively. - [Interviewer] Right. - Just watching. - [Narrator] Rebecca joined the team and helped in any way she could. Even going so far as to voice the character of the Lotus, Warframe's space mom who guides the player throughout their time in the game. The closed alpha was launched and the team kept a watchful gaze on feedback. Through emails and forum posts, they zeroed in on what bugs they needed to fix, what powers felt imbalanced, all while adding in new meshes for the Warframes. Warframe needed satisfied players because if this project was going to work, it needed to start supporting the small team that was developing it. They drew inspiration from the success that many niche games were having on Kickstarter, and decided to put in a Founder's Package for the game. This package would include a bunch of the game's currency, Platinum, along with exclusive equipment, forum badges, Warframe sigils, and keys to the upcoming beta. The team had never sold in-game items before, so they had no idea if anyone was going to buy them. - I can kinda put my finger on the most optimistic I'd felt, which was when we started our Founders program, which was soft of our own Kickstarter version of the game, which was basically, "You can become a founder of Warframe, and that means that you'll sort of have meant it was successful if it turns out to be that way. And I remember watching real time as the first Grand Master founder purchase came through, and at that point that someone spending $250 to support Warframe for what it was at the time. That was like the moment when I realized people will, people care about this game as much as us. - And I remember running into the office in November, and right into the middle of programmer meeting. They're all talking about problems. I just burst in the door: "We made 1,500 bucks yesterday." You know? And they looked at me- I mean that's not enough to pay them. Right? That's not enough to keep the lights on. But, my god, the look of shock on their face that people would actually pay for Warframe. You know? The were astounded. - Yeah, it was crazy, and what really at that time was the most scary was doing to free-to-play, and doing it wrong because we were doing it wrong early on. We were selling power, no customization to speak of really at the time. We didn't really have a lot at the time, except a fun, free downloadable game that you could shoot and be a ninja in. - [Narrator] Warframe is a game that many to consider to be fair free-to-play, but that wasn't always the case. As the game moved into closed beta, it had a supercharge system that allowed players to double the capacity of their gear. But there was no in-game way of unlocking this system. It was only available if you used real-world cash to unlock it, meaning those who were willing to spend could effectively be double the power of those who weren't. - [Beta Player] The reason I don't like the Warframe here leveling up is that if I go into this. There's nothing else to do because I need this upgrade: Orokin Reactor. And without it, I can't take this warframe any further. But, you gotta use real money to do that. - We come back to the studio, I think on January 10th, 2013. We took out the pay-to-win-ish things that we realized were horrible. This isn't- and we realized it because the community was like, whether they paid or not, they were hating this thing, and we were like, wow, this really is awful, so out it goes, 2013 starts off with the DNA now slightly radiated to be fair free-to-play. - [Narrator] With the open beta three months away, the team was desperately trying to get attention from the press, but back in 2013 free-to-play was a term that lots of traditional gaming sites were staying clear of. The team was having trouble getting the word out to new players, but their communication with the community was beginning to create a lot of goodwill around this new IP. The growing buzz would eventually catch the attention of PC focused YouTubers. And it was through that that Warframe got its first big break into the mainstream gaming zeitgeist. - [YouTuber] Ladies and gentlemen, my name is TotalBiscuit. I'm here to ask you now one simple question. WTF is Warframe? Warframe is a free-to-play co-op third person action game developed by Digital Extremes. They brought you games such as The Darkness 2, Dark Sector, and they were, or course, involved pretty heavily in Unreal Tournaments and all manner of different things. They've had a- - In terms of the public gamer consciousness, there was a before that video and an after that video. Like, no question in my mind, so, and for me, like, that was very indicative of how important it is to reach this viewership and everything. I don't wanna say that in like a needle-finger, like, "Let's get the viewers." That's not what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to say is people love looking around and finding new sources of entertainment. So YouTube is one of those. - [YouTuber] Certainly potential involved in Warframe, definitely. It's a very hi-fidelity, obviously kind of triple A quality, free-to-play game. But it, I think, has a long way to go before it can really define itself as absolutely top tier and really have the content that's gonna keep people playing for longer than a couple of days. - [Narrator] With more players coming through the door than ever before, the open beta launched on March of 2013, with eight playable frames and hundreds of bug fixes, quality of life updates, and balance improvements. The team was preparing to launch the game on Sony's new console, the Playstation 4, but that wasn't going to market until November of that year, and free-to-play on consoles was an unproven market. At this stage, Warframe was only available through the basic web portal that the team had set up, so they realized it was probably about time that they turned on a certain valve. - We're now at this point where we can tread water and keep trying to build it. But it was really tenuous. It felt go/no-go, right? Like, there's laws about if you need to lay people off, you have to give 'em a severence, and that comes out of this reserve, right? So there's a point where you are really gonna screw people over if you go right to the limit. So, yeah, it was extremely nerve racking. - And it kinda got its feet under itself to support itself, just as we were running out of money. And so it launched, and we saw it did well, and then it wasn't until we launched on Steam that we knew we were saved coz we were- We knew leading up to the Steam launch, it was making enough money to sustain a small team, but we were 250 people. (typing) (ominous music) - So, the elephant in the room, at least for those of you who have never played it. What exactly is Warframe? At its heart, Warframe is a loot shooter. You play short levels really fast to gather items that help you unlock new warframes. These warframes are varied around combat and elemental themes, allowing you to use entirely different powers, weapons, and ways of movement.
Some are melee centric. Others utilize magnesis, electronics, or spores. One bard class plays music to buff other players, music that can written using an in-game sequencer. You can play single player or co-op. There's a PvP component, an open world area, clans, a story, customizable pets, frames, ships, and loads more. The Warframe of today is strange and varied, a bizarre game built atop the foundations of a very different experience. So to understand the game as it exists today, we must first go back to that early prototype, to a Digital Extremes that had nine months, to make a free-to-play experience that might just save the company. - [Steve] So our company was focused on finishing up publisher stuff, pitching new stuff, things that were getting cancelled, stuff like that. It was kind of imploding, right? It's no fault of the people that worked on those things, I mean, the ebb and flow of the economy, a publisher has a bad quarter. Who's the first to go? Well the contractors, and that's us. So that nine months was trying to build as many of the beginning warframes as possible so that we could a minimum set, and then trying to invent an infrastructure for this kind of so-called "back end," because we have MMO lite features and count persistence. None of that stuff we had any understanding of, building all the stuff you need to for independence. Now you gotta make your own website. Now you have to make your own customer support portal. How do you accept payments from people when you sell them a founder's pack? How do you get certification to take credit cards from people? It was really a lot of like back end infrastructure and database stuff. All the artists, the artist, right, scrambled to make as much of that kind of procedural level stuff that we can do to support keeping people interested. - In one viable product, it was the smallest thing we could put out that people could play that could people get an idea of what we're tryin' to do. And slowly we've bolted on parts and added things to it. And I think that's how we treat everything in the game. Don't worry about it. Ship it. That's fine. It's good enough for 1.0. Ship it. (techno music) - [Rebecca] My name is Rebecca Ford, and my current job title is Live Ops and Community Director. - [Interviewer] Cool. Current job title, what was your first job title? - Community- No, I think it was just intern. - [Interviewer] Okay. So that actually is true. Intern would have been the first one. I started my internship in January of 2011. - [Interviewer] Cool. Had you ever worked industry before? - I was still in third year of university, so I sort of just came and never left. - [Interviewer] Did you finish university? - I did. I did. - Okay. - No one ever asked for proof, but I did. It's true. - [Rebecac] When I first started we were finishing The Darkness 2, so that was just sort of at the tail end of development, and I didn't have a role in any of that really. I just kind of came to the studio and figured where I could help, so I was doing like launch parties for the products, and just general office things. Stuck around and then Warframe really started becoming a reality in early 2012, like, just mentally, and then it really hit the ground in around July, and I knew at that point that this would have been an opportunity, and luckily the people that I worked with felt the same way. So they were like, "Yes, this will need community support." And I was, "Yes. I will do this." So. - [Interviewer] So pre-Warframe, was there a community team? - No. Essay sMany people have a somewhat negative opinion of accounting. Mention the field to a group of students or adults employed in other professions, and they tend to say that accounting is boring and accountants are boring. They believe accountants do nothing but crunch numbers and make spreadsheets all day. Or worse, some people paint accountants as dishonest, or even criminal, using expressions such as creative accounting, and blaming accountants for out-of-control corporate corruption. When a big company fails, the term accounting irregularities is frequently mentioned as a cause. However, there are actually several reasons that students should reconsider the field of accounting when choosing what to study at university. Below are just three good reasons to put accounting on your shortlist of possible degree choices. Essay service is available for you.
Accounting is still in Demand Are many of your friends and relatives moving back in with their parents after finishing university because they can’t find a job in their field of study? If you study accounting, you’re not likely to have that kind of problem. An accountant can move almost anywhere and be able to find a job. Often, company recruiters will be calling before you’ve even graduated and you’ll probably have a job waiting for you. Even in a down economy, companies are still hiring accountants because they need their expertise to find new ways to save money so whether you’re living in the USA, UK you’ll be sure to find yourself a position easily. Accounting is Lucrative Accounting jobs range from entry-level for the inexperienced to controller, CFO, and CEO positions. There is a clear path of career advancement for talented and diligent accountants. The earning potential is excellent, even for those who are relatively new to the field. As an accountant works his or her way up through the ranks, six-figure salaries are quite common. The CFO is normally one of the highest-level positions in any corporation, and accounting is also the most common degree held by CEOs. An accounting degree offers one of the best salaries of all bachelor’s degrees. Accounting can be Exciting You may not have heard of forensic accounting, but if you’re good with numbers and interested in helping solve crimes, including crimes resulting from so-called creative accounting or fraud, this could be the perfect field of study. Imagine being able to discover exactly why a certain company failed. As a forensic accountant, you’ll be assisting the legal team and will probably testify as an expert in court in the event of a trial. In addition to forensic accounting, the accounting field, in general, has a lot of variety. Accountants can work in numerous different departmental areas and all types of businesses, depending on their individual interests. You really won’t be bored! Nebraska has quite a few small towns which make it difficult to find CPR training classes within small locations. Because of this, people may have to travel further than they desire to get proper first aid and CPR certifications or reports.
Everyone knows how important it is to have training that can save lives in the workplace and especially with friends and family. We encourage all living in and around Nebraska to search out certified trainers who will offer paid or free courses. Some nursing homes may be one of the first places to check. If you can find someone who is employed for the fire department, they too can offer to train and certify. Cities which we have listed or that we will be listing in the future include Omaha, Lincoln, Bellevue, Grand Island, Kearney, Bingham, Angora, Anselmo, Ansley, Bristow, Arcadia, Cedar Rapids, Beaver Crossing, Cedar Bluffs, Fremont, Hastings, North Platte, Ashton, Atkinson, Norfolk, Auburn, Columbus, Trumbull, Callaway and more to come. You might also check to see if colleges in Nebraska are offering CPR classes as well. Below is a list of those which may be offering free and paid courses. Listed in no particular order: Bellevue University in Bellevue, Central Community Collegein Grand Island, Hastings, and Columbus, Nebraska. Chadron State College, Clarkson College, College of Saint Mary, Concordia University in Seward, Creighton University, Dana College in Blair, Doane College in Crete, Grace University, Hastings College, Little Priest Tribal College in Winnebago, Metropolitan Community College Area Mid Plains Community College in McCook, Midland Lutheran College in Fremont, Nebraska Christian College in Papillion, Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis, Nebraska Indian Community College in Macy, South Sioux City, Nebraska Methodist College, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Northeast Community College in Norfolk, Peru State College, Peru, Union College, Southeast Community College, Summit Christian College in Scottsbluff, and The Creative Center in Lincoln NE. There is no better way to learn about advertising and copywriting than learning from the masters, a few copywriting tips from the experts can improve your sales letter advertising. Most of these experts have been writing sales advertisements for years and years, and have learned what exactly works and doesn't work.
One of the ways to find the expert cv writer is to start a general search. Most of those who have written superior copy for advertising are going to be at the top list of most search engines. Once you've found those experts, you can start researching and reading all of the advertising copy they've written, and learn how they design, their layout , and what words they chose to use in order to be the top of the search engine. Another way of finding superior sales copy, and those who write it, is to study those sales copy papers that entice you personally to buy. What better way to find good advertising copy then to dive into those advertisements that work for you? You may also want to study those sales advertisements that major companies use. Realize that these companies are at the top of the list for several different reasons, not only have they great copy, ask for the sale, but their product is backed by guarantees and promises. And of course, they continually advertise in order to grow their business even larger. No matter how good a product or service you have, if you don't advertise effectively you're not going anywhere with your business. Studying those masters, those sale paper that entice you personally to purchase and who have brought their companies to the forefront of the industry, is one way to understand and discover copywriting tips. Remember, many sales copy papers or advertising is protected. You cannot copy, or even attach names and namebrands to sales copy without direct permission. Not only is copying unfair, but it can get you into legal trouble. It's great to study the masters and how they have designed their layout, chosen their words, and become great sales copy writers, but you must use your own ideas and your own words, in your sales papers. Studying and experience is what it's going to take in order for you to learn how to write good advertising copy. It doesn't just come out of the blue; learn about layouts, calls for action, and how words can affect consumers before you begin writing your sales copy. Studying a few copywriting tips from the experts or those who are at the top of the search engines can allow you to understand how words affect consumers and how designed allows consumers to purchase products or services. |
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