TennoVip has finally landed in China for the first time.
Our beloved Lotus Mother—Creative Director Rebecca, along with Community Director Megan and Chinese Community Manager Zi—came to China to celebrate with Hamsters from all over the country in this ancient capital of thirteen dynasties. Regarding the grandeur of TennoVip, I already elaborated on it in the interview with Lotus Mother next door, so I won't repeat it here.
More accurately, I hope everyone turns their attention to the person somewhat overshadowed by the "First Major Chinese TennoVip Event"—the Xi'an Warframe Campus Tour.
This is already the fourth Tenno Campus Tour event hosted by Digital Extremes and Tencent. Due to timing issues, I didn't have the chance to personally experience the previous ones in Chengdu, Changsha, and Wuhan, but this time I finally made it to Xi'an.
Although the sun was blazing in Xi'an on the day of the event, nearly drying me out into a Hamster jerky—none of the people present backed down, and naturally, I couldn't retreat either.
This campus tour set up a stage around the central plaza of Xi'an's Old City Root G Park, preparing plenty of goodies for the Hamsters attending the event—there was the WFTI scanning personality data through on-site quizzes, the Warframe Fashion Show and Plains racing battles, as well as Tenno enrollment photos and relic cracking sessions.
Every segment had various prizes waiting for Tenno warriors to take home.
Even if you're unlucky and don't get anything good in the battle segments, just queue up on-site and the staff will stuff various small gifts into your hands.
Of course, if you go through all the activities, filling your bag is naturally no problem.
If I had to pick my favorite segment, it would certainly be the Warframe Fashion Show part. Of course, this isn't because I went three-for-three empty-handed cracking relics without getting a single Forma, nor because I was beaten by many Hamsters in the Plains racing, and certainly not because I pulled out the Thunder Pink Bull during the fashion segment and was gently discouraged by the staff.
I mean, what's wrong with my Pink Bull? Why wasn't it allowed on stage on such a joyous occasion? One day, everyone will control the Pink Bull!
Alas, I circled around several times but couldn't find an opportunity to bring my pink smile to everyone present. As the event progressed, the scene was lively with firecrackers and drums, and the band that had appeared at TennoVip returned with various songs.
Anyway, back to business, next is the interview with Chinese Community Manager Zi—in a sense, the topics discussed unexpectedly align with the philosophy of the Tenno Campus Tour event.
Q: How long have you been responsible for the Chinese Warframe community? During your tenure, what do you feel has been the most important change in the overall environment of the Chinese community?
Zi:That's a great question. It has been over a year since I started managing the Chinese community last July. When I first took the position, we conducted an overall sentiment analysis of the Chinese community. Honestly, the survey results surprised me at the time because the community atmosphere was very active and everyone was friendly.
But there were also aspects that made me uneasy. Many new players would hear rumors like "2035" or "Dark Forest," causing them to hesitate about trying the game. At that time, we internally placed great importance on the China region and always wanted to strengthen one-on-one communication with Chinese players to discuss the topics they truly cared about. So, after learning about these rumors, I conducted an internal investigation to find out where the rumors originated and how we could better alleviate players' concerns.
Later, I discussed this matter with Rebecca and Megan, suggesting that we make a video to respond directly. Starting with this video, we will regularly answer player questions every month.
Since then, we've been able to clearly see some changes.
For example, when browsing social media, I often see many new players joining, asking questions like how to form squads, if any veterans can guide them, or how to get started. I also see many veteran players saying that Warframe is getting better and better and paying more attention to Chinese players. But this isn't just my effort; it's the result of collective hard work, and the Tencent team has given us tremendous help.
We also have many volunteer translators who help with translations consistently, day after day; there are also many content creators and veteran players who love Warframe. Everyone is actually putting in great effort to make this community better, safer, and warmer.
Q: Based on current community operations, what do you think are the core demands of Chinese players right now? Also, what communication mechanisms have been established between Tencent and Digital Extremes to translate Chinese player feedback into actual content updates by the DE development team?
Zi:Actually, the requests we hear most often, such as adding more Chinese content and Warframes, hoping to reduce the grind, or making it more convenient to buy merchandise, are quite common. But specifically, we make different observations based on each version update.
Regarding how to translate player voices into more practical updates, the Tencent and Digital Extremes teams have always been actively listening and organizing a large amount of player feedback. For urgent issues requiring quick responses, we reply directly to players and post announcements on Bilibili. For more long-term and fundamental feedback, we hold weekly and monthly meetings with Tencent to discuss the hottest topics among players at the moment. Issues that can be addressed promptly are replied to directly in interactions like developer logs.
If the direction of the issue is correct but there isn't a perfect solution yet, I will take it back to other development team members to push forward and continue to follow up.
Q: Having been on the front lines of the Chinese community for a long time, you probably understand the typical paths of Chinese players joining and leaving better than anyone. I'd like to ask, compared to global players, are there any particularly different "sticking points" for new Chinese players? For example, do they have lower tolerance for the lack of clear mission guidance?
Zi:Since I also came from being a new player, I feel the biggest pain point is the sheer volume of content. When I first started, I was also overwhelmed by thirteen years' worth of content. Moreover, for Chinese players, much of the content was initially in English, so the barrier to entry was indeed not low. To solve this problem, we have been working hard in several directions.
The first direction is to make the new player experience more friendly. For example, we added Mentor missions to teach modding and how to configure Mods. At the same time, we optimized some Star Chart nodes to make early progress smoother and less likely to get stuck. I have a veteran player friend who helped me unlock the Star Chart before, and he said the current experience is much optimized compared to when he played back in the day.
The second direction is that we spent a lot of effort producing brand-new Chinese voiceovers, which hadn't been announced before (it was announced at the TennoVIP site in the afternoon). We hope to make the game's story easier to understand. Previously, in December, players reported that subtitles sometimes didn't match the voiceovers, which was uncomfortable to listen to, so we fed this issue back and re-recorded voiceovers for the entire storyline. Many colleagues from the localization team also spent considerable time with me, going through the speed of all lines and pondering how to translate more naturally. This content will go live in the September update (Narin's Ice Blade). We will monitor player feedback to see if the first wave goes smoothly and whether everyone likes it. If the response is good, we will continue to do more.
Q: From your observation, what obvious differences do you feel exist between Chinese players and Western players in terms of community discussion styles and gaming habits? Have these differences led you to change any community management strategies?
Zi:I think the biggest difference is that the Chinese community is particularly united. Everyone is basically concentrated on a few platforms, so news spreads quickly. This has its advantages—it's easy for me to get feedback when browsing social media every day, and it's also easy to consolidate and convey that feedback to the team.
Chinese players are actually very direct; they speak their minds. When they offer suggestions, you can feel that they truly care about the game; they express feedback directly. Conversely, if they think we're doing well, they are generous with praise and support, which is also a very good aspect.
What moves me the most is that the Chinese community has always had strong autonomy. Many core players voluntarily help us translate, whether it's content from each update or tweets from Rebecca and Pablo. Because they truly love this game and really want to help other players get started, this spirit is especially rare. As for my own role, I see myself as a bridge, helping Digital Extremes understand what Chinese players care about most, and ensuring that players' voices are heard.
Q: For you, what kind of activities or content are you most eager to try in China? Whether online or offline. I noticed that formats like the campus tour are actually unique designs for the domestic market. Choosing Xi'an to host the VIP event this time was also a very unique choice. I'm curious about what other formats might appear in the future?
Zi:When I first started, our communication with players and the events we organized were mostly holiday-themed videos. Later, when we began these monthly communications, the response was overwhelmingly positive. The feedback that kept appearing in player comments was: "When will Digital Extremes come to China?" This was the most common sentiment I received.
We tried something this year by inviting Rebecca for a small offline event. Rebecca fell in love with Shanghai as soon as she arrived, thinking it was a wonderful place, and she very much hopes to come back next time. Later, we released a recap video, and many people asked why Megan didn't come and when she would come next, so we invited Megan this time. I actually hope to do more offline events like this. I think there will be many major updates next year, and I hope to bring more team members to China.
Q: I see many players complaining that shipping costs on the overseas official website are more expensive than the items themselves. Rebecca previously mentioned wanting to hold pop-up stores domestically, so I'd like to ask if there are any more specific plans or timelines for localizing merchandise purchases and offline events, to make it more convenient for Chinese players to buy merchandise?
Zi:I think this isn't just a complaint from Chinese players; players worldwide are giving us this feedback. Including myself in Canada, sometimes buying merchandise requires going through extra steps, and shipping fees are equally expensive. This is a significant issue.
I think Chinese players are quite creative. Rebecca previously mentioned the idea of pop-up stores. Frankly speaking, we are also very eager to try this, but we are currently in the communication phase regarding compliance processes, and there are still some issues to resolve. We are actively pushing forward, so we can't share a confirmed timeline with everyone just yet. Our internal goal is to have some pop-up activities accompany future campus tours, making it more convenient for everyone to buy merchandise.
Additionally, for this TennoVIP, we actually prepared a lot of free merchandise. Originally, we thought it would be better if we could have a pop-up store, but giving them away directly this time also felt very nice. I hope to share some good news with everyone soon.
Q: You mentioned earlier that Chinese localization is underway, with plans for Chinese voiceovers. Since Warframe itself has many coined terms and elements loved by players, how are you approaching Chinese localization in this regard?
Zi:I have actually discussed this question with the localization team. Especially when doing the Mandarin voiceovers, we go through all the vocabulary, thinking about how it should be translated and how the community will view our translations.
For content like Chang'e, which has a deep background in Chinese culture, we won't simply translate literally or freely. The localization team handles it within the context of Chinese culture, choosing the most appropriate expression based on the specific situation to preserve the cultural connotations of the original work, allowing Chinese players to understand it more naturally and resonate with it.
I also participate in this process, providing opinions from a community perspective. For example, the term "Big Mouth" Helminth—"Big Mouth" is actually an unofficial nickname. We discussed how to localize it at the time: should we keep the English, switch to another translation, and how would the community view it? It was a very interesting discussion, and in the end, we decided to keep the transliteration. So, this is all a collaborative team process. Now, every time we make a decision, we first consider how the community will react.
Q: So, when designing the new Chang'e Warframe, do you communicate with Digital Extremes about the direction of content and explanations?
Zi:Yes. I previously conducted a survey, asking the community for their thoughts on Chang'e and inviting everyone to leave messages. Later, I compiled all the private messages and comments and sent them to Rebecca.
Q: So, in terms of the specific process, do you just tell them directly?
Zi:Yes, Rebecca is very approachable, so I just go directly to her.