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The popular online game known as Warframe, a title where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and drive a motorcycle in the year 1999, has unveiled a major update. The Vallis Undermind highlights the unique whimsy that has come to define Warframe in more recent times.

This expansion, made available this week, introduces a fungus-inspired character that performs a unique animation, along with a brand-new biome to discover. But it’s also going back to basics, with a new mission geared at making sure this complicated, expansive 12-year-old MMO makes sense to new players.

Introducing "The Teacher"

Called “The Teacher,” this is the long-awaited quest that trains Warframe players on how to use one of the game's fundamental yet complex systems: modding.

In Warframe, mods are augments that can be added to your character or your weapons to enhance their abilities. These can be simple (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the incredibly intricate. Content creators often produce extensive guides about optimized loadouts that use powerful mods in combination to create overwhelming power.

“Many players likely started their journey, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” noted a lead narrative designer. “I think it was really important, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I want to try more of this.’”

A Joint Development

“The Teacher” was created through a partnership between the core team, who handled the story elements, and an external team, who crafted the gameplay, which will be introduced to new players.

In the quest, the player is tasked with obtaining a new segment for their spaceship, but they’re interrupted by a menacing, powerful warrior called Teshin, who removes the player's powers and close-combat arms, and forces them to engage with the mod system to handily demonstrate its power.

Several developers were longtime players, but others had never played before, according to a lead designer. It was this outside perspective that proved critical.

“Our initial step involved observing new players and have them experience the introduction and document extensively on everywhere they fell out,” the designer said. Early-game menu pop-ups introduced players to modding. But the team noted that they didn’t work on everyone.

“Certain players missed fundamental guidance where the game highlights it saying put the mod in the slot,” he said.

Closing an Important Loop

Warframe’s mods allow players to create incredibly strong combinations that turn the screen into a blitz of numbers. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. There will be some long-time players who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, like creating powerful and specific builds. But it became clear that “The Teacher” is filling a real and significant gap for early players — and that executing this is quite complex.

“There’s lots of little tweaks and little subtle things in the background there to just demonstrate the possibilities rather than explain it outright,” the designer said. For example, one of the goals of “The Teacher” is to show how mods can create elemental damage types; in this case, Magnetic damage that eats chunks out of enemy shields.

“Adjustments to the armament to be a rapid-fire gun, because it shows off the proc rate more,” the designer said. “But you don’t want to explicitly tell players, 'oh yeah, actually on a base level mod, you only got a low probability to trigger a special damage type.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Experienced players will naturally recognize these mechanics and grasp their function, but beginners require instruction to pay attention to these things.

“It’s not a kind of game development that we previously focused on just because that hasn't been our focus,” said a narrative lead. “But part of it not being our focus that we never really told people how to use mods.”

Months of Effort

“A tremendous amount of work is required for just making a really simple mission that — honestly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” said the designer. “But it's months and months of work for loads of people.”

The designer was clearly enthusiastic over contributing to a beloved title — and to craft a mission for one of his favorite characters.

“I'm a huge fan of Teshin,” he said. “He's my 8-year-old internal self's idea of what's cool.”

An Evolving Onboarding Process

In the 12 years since its release, Warframe has been in a ongoing struggle with its own player onboarding process. There are many intricate mechanics that players don’t need to worry about — and won’t even have access to until much later. And others, like modding, that increase in depth depending on your level of engagement. An update earlier this year improved the introductory experience so that players could reach Warframe’s complex narrative arcs with less time on the grind up front.

With “The Teacher,” it’s clear that the developers are reinforcing their dedication to make sure Warframe’s initial hours doesn’t stay locked in 2013. New players can get their foot in the door — even if they miss the menu prompts.