Dancer Archive
Thread: New Dancer Question
Hi ya all..
Just a quick question. I made a new character and she is going to be a dancer.. But who the heck is going to watch a novice entertainer wiggle lol.. thats her hole skill for dancing.. basic dance..
Am i missing something or do i go to local cantina and hope people watch me sway back and forth?
Thanks
That's exactly what you've got to do. Hey, we all started there... 
Honestly most people are really nice to new entertainers, especially the experienced musicians and dancers.
Kae
Another new dancer question:
How do you do band flourishes? What are the differences between regular flourishes and band flourishes? I've heard them mentioned in several of the posts here, but I'm not sure what they are? Thanks for your help!
Bandflourishes are performed with the /bandflourish command. They're the same flourishes, they just make all the dancers in your group perform the same flourish number (for the dance they're doing- if you aren't all doing the same dance, you won't do the same flourish) at the same time, unless they've turned them off. Only the dancer that issues the /bandflourish command receives dance XP, though, so don't do them too often, or set up a system where you take turns doing them.
Kae
Broma wrote:Hi ya all..
Just a quick question. I made a new character and she is going to be a dancer.. But who the heck is going to watch a novice entertainer wiggle lol.. thats her hole skill for dancing.. basic dance..
Am i missing something or do i go to local cantina and hope people watch me sway back and forth?
Thanks
Broma, being a dancer is NOT primarily about "dancing". i.e. your physical skill. Its about being and "Entertainer" Probably 90% of the time I'm in the cantina dancing I use plain old Popular dance. It doesn't move you around (wander) as much as some others. It doesn't require a lot of space. It doesn't take as high of a toll on your AP so you can dance longer when healing people.
So what DO you do? Talk to people. Greet people when they come in. And for God's Sake don't waste your time creating conversational Macros. They are SO obvious that NO one pays any attention to them except MAYBE to understand that you don't care enough to take the effort to actually TYPE something to them as a person. I Cringe everytime I see a dancer let out some obviously canned spiel to someone. I may mistype people's names a lot since I'm a lousy typist much of the time but at LEAST the person knows I care enough to TRY.
Get to know your customers as PEOPLE. Who they are, what their goals are. What they're working on. Make them into your Friends. When a person comes back in after heading out to do something ASK them about it. "Hey! How'd the hunt go?" "Welcome back. Did you complete that mission." "Hi honey. How was Tatooine?"
That way when they come in they're not looking for a generic "Dancer", they're looking for YOU. The Nicest thing a customer can say to a dancer is "I came by to see you earlier and you weren't HERE." That means that they Remembered you and made and effort to come see YOU, NOT just a ..."dancer."
What does that mean in terms of your venue? it means that you're going to have to pick a location and make it HOME for you. Moving from cantina to cantina is fun for seeing the sights and getting to check out lots of different places. But when people come in and you're the new dancer, be prepared for them to basically ignore you since they figure you're just another fly by night who'se here today and will probably be gone tomorrow never to be seen again. Why make the effort to be friendly to a dancer that in all likelihood is going to disappear the next day?
if ALL you want is fast advancement then go to a cantina like Theed on Naboo or Coronet on Corellia. You can be another impersonal face among the crowd ignored by the customers and ignoring them. OR find a small cantina that has a regular crowd of people and make it home. It WILL take you a while to make friends and your advancement WILL be a lot slower.
But consider WHY you want to advance. If it's JUST to have the title of Master Dancer then go ahead and join the big crowds. If its to make a LIVING as a dancer then think in the long term. I used to be working in Keren before I even advanced out of the Entertainer tree into the Dancer tree bringing in 10k-20k a day while listening to Master Dancer who flitted in for a day or two and spent half their time complaining that the tips were really lousy in Keren.
In short think of yourself as a Social Entertainer rather than simply as a "Dancer."
FlawedDiamond wrote:
Probably 90% of the time I'm in the cantina dancing I use plain old Popular dance. It doesn't move you around (wander) as much as some others. It doesn't require a lot of space. It doesn't take as high of a toll on your AP so you can dance longer when healing people
It's also theonly Dancer-level dance that a) has a full set of flourishes b) doesn't have a broken idle animation and c) doesn't look like hideously ugly when a woman does it. While I can use other dances, I find myself using Popular2 most of the time, too.
Kae
I'll add another thing. The dancers who strip down to their underwear and flirt outrageously (using the same /wink and /lick and /kiss macros with every customer) are a disgrace to the profession. I would also dare to NOT call them dancers.
You don't have to show skin to get tips or be noticed. You certainly don't have to be naked, or be one of the 5,000 other dancers on your server who own a flesh wrap (even newbies are running around in them these days). You will be tipped for your personality and the way you interact on a personal level. By showing interest in patrons and remembering who they are, you will be tipped far and away more than the naked dancer or the AFKer.
I have slowed down on my dancing for the last few weeks while I pursue Teras Kasi. But I still drop by cantinas to see who's dancing and perhaps even to take a few flourishes myself.
Yesterday I stopped by the Mos Eisley cantina, where I originally started my career. There were 2 AFKers, one girl in her underwear /licking somebody, and one girl in a long gown and formal headdress who was actually talking to the customers. She was doing formal 1, not even a high level dance. And the majority of the players who came into the cantina were paying attention to HER while the AFKers were ignored and the dirty-undies kid was slurping all over one poor sap.
I sent her a tell complimenting her for her professionalism, and I tipped her. To me, she was the only dancer in the place.
Why the heck would you go afk or macro conversation..
Entertaining is so cool... I was in there once and had a good chit chat with a Dancer and Entertainer.. Great people.. Made me feel actually involed in the game.. But i noticed there are hardly any entertainers in the Cantinas anymore.. =(
Broma wrote:Why the heck would you go afk or macro conversation..
Entertaining is so cool... I was in there once and had a good chit chat with a Dancer and Entertainer.. Great people.. Made me feel actually involed in the game.. But i noticed there are hardly any entertainers in the Cantinas anymore.. =(
Broma being "Involved" is exactly what entertaining is all about. A lot of dancers have quit the profession. Some because they just have trouble Being involved, too shy, have problems talking to people, can't take the occasional abuse, and so on.
Others have quit BECAUSE of the abuse and dancers DO get a good bit of it. Some people resent having to go to dancers to heal BF. Some don't like women in general and enjoy abusing women verbally where there are no consequences for doing so. Some just like griefing people and dancers are easy targets because we work in a particular location and can't easily move away.
Dancing is NOT a profession for the thinskinned. If you can't take insults then DON'T be a dancer.
But it CAN be a rewarding profession. Its HARD to make a decent living. Its HARD to make enough to buy the things you want. But there IS a lot satisfaction in it if you Enjoy a challenge.
Others have quit BECAUSE of the abuse and dancers DO get a good bit of it. Some people resent having to go to dancers to heal BF. Some don't like women in general and enjoy abusing women verbally where there are no consequences for doing so. Some just like griefing people and dancers are easy targets because we work in a particular location and can't easily move away.
Dancing is NOT a profession for the thinskinned. If you can't take insults then DON'T be a dancer.
Great point, Flawed. Maybe our response to all the non-performers out there who claim we don't have expenses for which we deserve pay should be "Yes, but anyone who gets the disrespect and abuse performers do, deserves to be paid for it."
Sinda wrote:
The dancers who strip down to their underwear and flirt outrageously (using the same /wink and /lick and /kiss macros with every customer) are a disgrace to the profession. I would also dare to NOT call them dancers.
They're not. They're strippers, basically.
One thing that drives me nuts is the darn /wink command. If you have someone targeted and type it, you wink suggestively at him or her. I don't mind that if I want to do a suggestive wink but most of the time I want to do a more humorous/normal wink. We need a /winknormal or something that doesn't force suggestivity out of us to do a wink when it is called for. Argh...
C
Chessack wrote:They're not. They're strippers, basically.
One thing that drives me nuts is the darn /wink command. If you have someone targeted and type it, you wink suggestively at him or her. I don't mind that if I want to do a suggestive wink but most of the time I want to do a more humorous/normal wink. We need a /winknormal or something that doesn't force suggestivity out of us to do a wink when it is called for. Argh...
C
Easy solution: Write a macro key that uses
/emote winks at %NT
or /emote winks slyly
Then forget about /wink