Dancer Archive
Thread: in the middle of f'ing nowhere
i have a request. I'd like to see some of the more rp/socializing dancers go to some of the out of the way places. There are several good choices besides theed and coronet. Obviously, dantooine is crawling with people who have a lot of battle fatigue, but there are the leveling starter cities as well. In my experience there hasn't been a dancer consistently in Mos Espa (great for grinding out those prerequisits), Tyrenna (the best place to run beginning bounty missions), or Kor Vella (a good travel port due to less lag and its imperial) in months. Even back before the holo craze when endor was huge there was never an entertainer on the whole **edit** planet that wore their title.
Basically, what i'm trying to say is that when i first started this game there were people everywhere. Now, they only seem to gather in theed and coronet. I get tired of having to travel to one of the hub cities to get rid of my bf because i lag so bad trying to navigate there. I think that the truth is all of you people that bad mouth the afkers want to level just as bad as them, but you need something to do while you watch the screen. Well, go to dantooine and talk to people. Let it be known that you are an entertainer and go dance for the people who need it. You as a community provide a service, so for the love of god go to the people. Masters could sell buffs there as well. As for all of you people who simply want to "play" the profession and not worry about leveling, offer to go with groups just to dance if nothing else. Most groups camp at least 2 times per hunt, during this time you could be healing wounds, the rest of the time you'd just be socializing (what you supposedly want to be doing in the first place). Another benefit to this is that the group would get 2 more missions to do before they have to come back to town, and you make some credits in the process.
Just because places like tyrenna aren't the most populated doesn't mean that there isn't a need for you there, you just have to let people know that you are there. I for one know that i'm so used to haven't to fly back to a hub planet that don't even look in the cantinas of smaller towns anymore.
Anyway, flame if you want, and gripe about afkers if you will, but you have some power to overcome this obstacle and save your profession. The only reason entertainers exist is to heal the mind. Since that's your only true purpose, start capitalizing on it. Help out the noobs in the small towns, and role play a little. Have some fun.
Entertainers didnt create this problem,,,AFKER's did,,,and until afk BF healing is stopped the problem is only likely to get worse,,
AFKer's have driven many many master dancers either into retirement or to drop the profession entirely ,,the ones that need exp only want to entertain as a part of a large group.
Next time you go hunting,,ask a dancer in a popular cantina to join you ,,have you ever considered doing that,,both parties would benefit,,and you might just meet a new friend!!
I do go to out of the way places to dance, sometimes. I am starting to get burned out on it, though, because being a dancer is making me feel unappreciated.
I pay a high fare ticket to actually get to those places, only to have people come in, watch me, and leave without tipping, and a lot of the time without even saying a word to me. The ones that do tip well are so few and far between that it ends up I could have made a lot more money and done a lot more socializing strapping on my armor and hunting with my friends, even though I don't like hunting nearly as much as dancing.
Soldiers, mercenaries, and other tough types, if you want entertainers, especially non-zombie entertainers, to travel to out of the way places to help you, make it worth their time. I am a novice gunfighter, and I know how much good missions pay. We are not asking to make as much as you, but we are asking for not spending a lot of money to come to an out of the way place to perform for you, and then realizing we not only would have made more money, but would have actually gotten to talk to more people and have more fun running delivery missions on the core worlds.
YoursTruly wrote:I pay a high fare ticket to actually get to those places, only to have people come in, watch me, and leave without tipping, and a lot of the time without even saying a word to me. The ones that do tip well are so few and far between that it ends up I could have made a lot more money and done a lot more socializing strapping on my armor and hunting with my friends, even though I don't like hunting nearly as much as dancing.
Very, very well said.
There's a major flaw in telling people who like to socialize to go to the non-socialization areas to perform. We get bored. I've been to Endor, Lok, etc. There's nobody to interact with. Why would a socializer want to go to non-socialization areas? It makes no more sense than telling a combatant to go hunt in the med center where there is nothing to kill.
The combat types have been quite vocal in cheering on AFKers because they want healing in every corner of the galaxy. They don't want to go through the boredom of having to wait for a transport, get on it, go to a more populated world, get healed, and come back. They will scream and yell that it is their right not to be bored.
Well, I am a socializer, and I have that same right. The right not to be bored.
You want me to perform in out of the way places? You have to make it worth my while. And no, credits won't do it. I need RP. If I don't get that, I move on. And since I have never once gotten it on a high-end world unless I have brought my own group of RPing friends with me, there's no reason for me to go there. I'm not out for healing XP. I don't need it. My character's not a master and at this point maybe never will be. She's got all the tech and knowledge she can ever have, and thus knows every dance I want her to know (please, lyrical2/exotic3-4 is not a big deal). She can give out 75% buffs that work more than well enough. Heck I offer them to my guild mates for free and nobody even wants them, so what do I need 100% buffs for?
No, the only reason for me to play this game, and to play my dancer character in particular, is to engage in roleplay. I know it is unusual for someone playing this roleplaying game to be out there looking for roleplay (gasp) but I am. If I don't find it, I move on. It simply does not exist on the high end worlds on my server... so I don't go there except when I accompany my guild-mates on a hunt. And then I am being a carbineer most of the time (except in the occasional camp), not a dancer.
If people want good, talented, at-keyboard, dedicated, socializing, RPed dancers in whatever cantina they are in, then the only way to get that, is to roleplay and socialize with us. That is what attracts us. Not healing xp. Not money. Don't want to RP/socialize? That's fine. Don't. Get your healing from the AFK bots. When they get bored/finish mastering and leave the game, ask the devs for healing NPCs. You'll probably get them. But don't ask me, a socializer, to go somewhere that I can't socialize. I don't pay $15/month to be bored.
C
Well if you are in an out-of-the way place and you are the only entertainer in a cantina, and people are coming in, not talking to you, not tipping, and leaving... well unless you are also afk-entertaining you can do a very simple thing:
/stopdance /stopmusic
Its really not that hard. Those people NEED you to dance or play, right? Just like they need medics to heal their wounds or doctors to buff them. Most medics do not charge they heal just for tips. Does not mean they cannot charge but the problem is many people dabble in medic to heal their own stuff for the price of a bazaar-bought woundpack.
So if you want to market yourself on these remote places, just hang out and when people come in just tell them you'll dance until they are healed for 500 credits. Obviously some people will wait until someone else pays the freight and then watch you and there is nothing you can do about that unfortunately, and some people will call you a cheapo or laugh at you or whatever, but I tell you what, you are right about how much you can make on destroy missions on Dantooine. In the 2 hours I had Doc buffs as a higher-up swordsman (just before master) I was able to do 2 9k+ piket missions every 15 minutes. That is 8 missions an hour, 16 in 2 hours while buffed. 144,000 credits, a bit more really. The buffs cost like 6k. I used 8 Muon Gold which is 1/3 a crate, crates avg 9k so 3k more my expenses are 9k total plus repair my vehicle next time I hit a big city. Not a bad profit. When I am done and my wounds are through the roof and my BF is sick, I really have no problem paying an entertainer 500, 1k, or 2k to dance/play for me.
I think you would find that many people would not be so cheap. The kiddies in the game would be because for some reason they think the credits are like real money. Fact of the matter is, unless I unlock FSCS and need to buy crystals and pearls, with 3.5+ million credits, 2 suits of armor, bunch of great weapons, 4 BER13 heavy harvesters, 2 BER 14 fusions, fully furnished large house... well, there is really absolutely nothing I need money for anymore anyway. To tip someone a few thousand credits is really no big deal.
Any master dancer who left the profession/game because other people are afk-macroing it is truly an idiot. Other people dancing did not take away from their ability to dance. If anything it brings more people into the cantina when they see a large crowd as opposed to one person alone, and if everyone else is a zombie you can more easily talk to that person and even promote yourself by saying, 'hey I am not an afk zombie, have a seat over here friend and I will perform a special dance/song just for you'.
- Broog
There are not a lot of roleplayers, that is true. Nothing can really change that.
I still say for you then it is better that there are afkers. The afkers and holotainers want as much xp in as little time as possible (i am one of those people). They would prefer to be in big groups so they congregate in certain areas. The combat types realize this, and go their mostly for fast entertaining. Sure you can watch the 1 afk novice entertainer for a few hours on Dantooine and maybe get that 300 BF removed I guess eventually, or you can go to Coronet and watch 20-person groups and masters and get healed up fast.
The more people that come into the cantina the more likely you will actually find someone to socialize with. Sure in 5 minutes some of them might run back out but there are a lot of people who do like interesting conversation, and I am sure you can find a few who start talking when they are sitting and watching knowing they have 5 minutes to kill who wake up an hour later realizing the time has flown by and really enjoyed your company.
So yea if you want to RP, you definitely do NOT want to be on Dantooine, because the people there are out to kill stuff, and want to have as little downtime as possible, and to them RP is downtime and unnecessary.
- Broog
Broog wrote:Any master dancer who left the profession/game because other people are afk-macroing it is truly an idiot. Other people dancing did not take away from their ability to dance. If anything it brings more people into the cantina when they see a large crowd as opposed to one person alone, and if everyone else is a zombie you can more easily talk to that person and even promote yourself by saying, 'hey I am not an afk zombie, have a seat over here friend and I will perform a special dance/song just for you'.
Yeah, I've tried that. It doesn't work.
AFK Zombies promote more AFK zombies. I've seen it. You can believe it or not. I tried being the only live one with 9 AFK Macro zombies around. Everyone just walks in, /watches the macro zombies, and walks out. Nobody says anything. I can greet every single person. I can roleplay and chatter all I want. If I am lucky I get a /wave, then they watch someone else, say nothing, heal, and leave. Meanwhile I end up basically talking to myself.
This is supposed to be fun for someone who wants to roleplay? I don't think so.
And have you ever tried dancing through a sewer of AFK macroers? Most of them have no idea how to prevent dance drift (despite the fact that Sultrina has repeatedly explained how to do that), or if they do, they lack the common courtesy to include drift-prevention steps in their looping macros. So the entire dance floor becomes occupied by them, and unless you want to dance "through" 10 other people there is no point.
The solutions as a dancer at keyboard are (1) dance in the sewer and live in silence, or (2) go to a remote cantina and get equally little interaction.
Sorry. I choose neither option. But I won't quit dancing. I just perform for my guild. No AFK macroers in our cantina, and thank the stars for that.
C
I went to Dath on Sat Night and it was a mixed bag for me. A lot of groups that came in where in the same guild and brought their own Master Dancer / Master TKA (Seems to be common combination)person to buff them all. When entire guilds were not in that tiny cantina I made a ton on tips, about 60k in a couple of hours just because I was the first non-AFK dancer they had seen on Dath. Over half the people that came by tipped me and the average was 1-2k.
I admit I am sometimes one of those AFK dancers. I went to Dath in hopes of getting dance healing xps, but that didn't really work out for me. However, you "real" dancers should go there in the evenings on the weekend. You will make your trip money back, be able to buff people all night, and about a third of the combat types that come in to visit you will RP with you if you give them a little push in the right direction.
Spend time looking for better ways to do what you do then worry about the AFKers. They don't get tipped and they are doing something they don't want to do. You are better off then they are unless you spend all your time complaining about them.
Broog wrote:
Well if you are in an out-of-the way place and you are the only entertainer in a cantina, and people are coming in, not talking to you, not tipping, and leaving... well unless you are also afk-entertaining you can do a very simple thing:
/stopdance /stopmusic
Its really not that hard. Those people NEED you to dance or play, right? Just like they need medics to heal their wounds or doctors to buff them. Most medics do not charge they heal just for tips. Does not mean they cannot charge but the problem is many people dabble in medic to heal their own stuff for the price of a bazaar-bought woundpack.
I did that when someone particularly rude came in. He just pulled out a slitherhorn and laughed at me. Boy did that make me feel good.
I think that was the last time I bothered going to one of those out of the way places.
So if you want to market yourself on these remote places, just hang out and when people come in just tell them you'll dance until they are healed for 500 credits. Obviously some people will wait until someone else pays the freight and then watch you and there is nothing you can do about that unfortunately, and some people will call you a cheapo or laugh at you or whatever, but I tell you what, you are right about how much you can make on destroy missions on Dantooine. In the 2 hours I had Doc buffs as a higher-up swordsman (just before master) I was able to do 2 9k+ piket missions every 15 minutes. That is 8 missions an hour, 16 in 2 hours while buffed. 144,000 credits, a bit more really. The buffs cost like 6k. I used 8 Muon Gold which is 1/3 a crate, crates avg 9k so 3k more my expenses are 9k total plus repair my vehicle next time I hit a big city. Not a bad profit. When I am done and my wounds are through the roof and my BF is sick, I really have no problem paying an entertainer 500, 1k, or 2k to dance/play for me.
Did you know I can make that much money running delivery missions just outside the cantina in the time it takes me to heal you?
Hmm, maybe I'll do that.. Put up my master dancer title and start running delivery missions. If someone asks me to dance I'll just tell them I'm making more money running delivery missions.
I think you would find that many people would not be so cheap. The kiddies in the game would be because for some reason they think the credits are like real money. Fact of the matter is, unless I unlock FSCS and need to buy crystals and pearls, with 3.5+ million credits, 2 suits of armor, bunch of great weapons, 4 BER13 heavy harvesters, 2 BER 14 fusions, fully furnished large house... well, there is really absolutely nothing I need money for anymore anyway. To tip someone a few thousand credits is really no big deal.
By asking for tips before even entertaining, one of4 things will happen.
- The person willstart healing themselves and just laugh at you.
- The person will grudginly pay up, but resent that they had to, and so resent you.
- The person will pay because they would have tipped anyway, but will only give you as much as you asked for.
- The person will truly appreciate you and tip well.
Most people will probably fall into the first two. These are the people who are cheap and rude to begin with. The last two are the people that would have tipped anyway, which are rare enough. And making some of them feel obligated to pay will just make it rarer to get a decent tip.
So the net gain is a bunch of people who don't like you and maybe a few more credits. Seems to be for a socializer, the first would cost thm much more than the credits they would gain.
Any master dancer who left the profession/game because other people are afk-macroing it is truly an idiot. Other people dancing did not take away from their ability to dance. If anything it brings more people into the cantina when they see a large crowd as opposed to one person alone, and if everyone else is a zombie you can more easily talk to that person and even promote yourself by saying, 'hey I am not an afk zombie, have a seat over here friend and I will perform a special dance/song just for you'.
And how would they know you didn't have that in your macro? I had someone that asked me to say something to prove I wasn't AFK. Are people supposed to go around doing that? Even if you say something specifically to them, the things macros can do confuse enough people that they may think it's possible to target a nearby PC. I know what macros can do pretty well, and I'm not even 100% sure it's not possible.
No, other people dancing did not take away from the ability to dance. But it took the fun out of it.
I read your post and I jumped to action... and posted on my server forum letting the good folks there know that I'm a Master Dancer and if they're willing to pay for my "airfare" then I'm willing to cross the galaxy, if I have the time, and spend some time in that remote location.
If others don't mind getting tells from strangers outta the blue, then you might want to do a little advertising of your own. I'm sure someone will appreciate it.
I spent some time in Kor Vella last night and twiddled my thumbs in the cantina. Ran around offering mental enhancement and not a soul showed up. Then I made a trip to Dath... argh! It's a horrid place to try to dance! I remember when folks would be luck if one entertainer was there... the place was as laggy as Coronet!
So where do we need to go? What out-of-the-way places need dancers? I visited Endor recently, buffed a group, and that was it. It's not very entertaining when you're the only person in a cantina.