05 July 2013 – 08 July 2013
Intel video
On 03 July 2013, a video titled Lotus Intel: Grineer Deployments was released with the description "The Lotus has intercepted information on new Grineer deployments." The video showed heavily pixellated images of the Lotus, Grineer spy drones, and the Snipetron, as well as some Grineer text, including a countdown, with voiceover from the Lotus:
Lotus: "Incoming transmission – Attention Tenno: a new threat has been detected. The Grineer have launched hordes of surveillance drones into the System, and our ability to strike undetected will be severely compromised if these drones are allowed to gain a foothold. Your top priority will be to destroy as many as possible. The first drones will become active in less than 48 hours. Please take note: the drones are equipped with sophisticated Orokin cloaking technology. When damaged, they will disappear. The only chance for success is to destroy them on the first shot. Good luck, Tenno."
Twice during the video, blocks of Grineer text were shown for a single frame each.
Commanders,
Glorious news, our new surveillance drones are being deployed as we speak. Central Control will now be able to monitor the location of every Tenno operative in the System. Any attempts to tamper with the drones will be thwarted by their sophisticated defence systems.
Our grip is tightening.
Soon our dominance will be unchallenged.
Your Majesties,
The Twin Queens
In the background is a countdown from 48:00:00.
Operation
On Saturday (05 July 2013), the event began with the release of Update 8.3.1 and was set to run through the weekend. Upon logging in and selecting the event, Tenno received these transmissions on the Starchart:
Lotus: "The Grineer have deployed millions of cloaking spy drones! We must destroy these quickly before they undermine our ability to strike undetected." [picture of Informer drone]
Lotus: "If we can eradicate enough of these drones, it may reveal a hidden weapons cache. Did the Grineer hijack a Corpus weapons shipment?" [picture of Snipetron Vandal]
Mechanics and Rewards
Tenno were tasked with killing Informers, a new enemy unit which appeared in normal Grineer missions level 15 or higher. Informers were floating drones that disrupted the HUD minimap when nearby. They always spawned as level 15 and had to be killed in a single shot, or else they would disappear without dropping loot or affinity (and would not count as a kill).
A global health bar representing the number of Informers killed was displayed on the Starchart and increased from 0% to 100% as the Warframe playerbase killed Informers over the weekend. Every Tenno who killed at least 20 Informers received a Snipetron Vandal with slot and catalyst and a (vanilla) Snipetron blueprint (which had been discontinued and was no longer available from the Market) when the event concluded on Tuesday (08 July 2013). The top 100 Tenno who killed the most Informers received the Primed Chamber mod. The top clans in their tiers received a Grineer Drone statue for their Dojo, which would be delivered with Update 9. The number of top clans varied by tier, from 3 to 10, and the tiers themselves were determined for the event, as the modern clan tiers (Ghost/Shadow/Storm/Mountain/Moon) had not been implemented yet.
Aftermath
Once the community goal had been reached, the original post was updated to say as much. No other message was posted at the conclusion of the event.
The Grineer Informers never quite returned to the game, but Grineer Regulators (with essentially the same function, without the ability to disappear after the first shot) were later introduced to the game on the Grineer Settlement and Grineer Forest tilesets.
One Reply to “Informant Event”