Dancer Archive
Thread: What makes me cry
These changes, the fighting between dancers.
I have been a dancer for a while, not since launch no, but for over a year. I loved it.
After the CU, Itook a hit like everyone, instead of making my 300k a day, I was lucky to get a tip, but thats alright, everyone was in the same boat.
Now, they are taking away the last thing to bring preople in to see us, and our blue glowies say this is a great thing for us. *sighs* I am not saying they are being misled, but does ANYONE know what is being brought in for us? Are they finally fixing the exotics? Are the finally fixing the "too far from dancer" bug?
what makes me cry is...I dont know if I can do this anymore. What am I waiting for? What am I dancing for? I LOVE dancing, I stayed dancer when the cu came out, and am happily a level 60 with a MASTER dancer tag over my head... but really, I am hoping that Panthu or Eshie or SOMEONE can tell me, why I am dancing with increasing numbers of afk dancers and decreasing numbers of patrons, and waiting for some update from the devs?
I want hard facts, what are we getting. What are the improvements? I NEVER asked for anything to be removed and I am in the game, as a dancer right NOW. I dont care about 9 monthe sago, or a year ago or what have you, I am here, now. This is not what I want, so, I would think that with the glowing sunrise on the horizon, as our corrie and the devs would have us believe, they or someone, can tell me, how my gameplay will benefit.
combat got a benefit, sorta... of course it screwed us, but hey, we can take it right? So, what do we get? Obviously it wont screw the combat people.. but bottom line... am I important, and can we make a living.
I beg you for an answer
Ka'th Sandrunner
Master Dancer
Scylla
Trellgar wrote:
I am hoping that ..... SOMEONE can tell me, why I am dancing with increasing numbers of afk dancers and decreasing numbers of patrons, and waiting for some update from the devs?
But yes, the arguing makes me cry.
Would it be nice and comforting for that BF indicator to stay around and make the perfectionists feel like they had to periodically empty it? Yeah. But of all the people I've been asking the past couple days "When was the last time you went to a cantina just to heal your BF?" only one said anything in the past week, and he explained it was because he had been blown up in space...
Message Edited by Doriana on 07-09-2005 10:30 AM
Doriana wrote:
Don't forget we've had a dev post twice in the Dancer forum now (I remember a time when we would have all flipped out over a redname here instead of mostly ignoring it...) stating that he is currently developing our elite inspiration buff system and asking for our opinion on ways to make it useful...
Hey I am totally on board with this... I'm glad they are willing to develop our system into something new.
I just wish they had waited to take our current system OUT (the BF) until they were ready to put the new system IN. That is my only beef with what they are doing. It's a big beef, to be sure... but it's the only one.
C
I mean, I walk into a cantina today and there are half a dozen already masters AFK. There are half a dozen novice dancers AFK. There are half a dozen novice ents AFK. There's me and 2 others, ATK and 1 of those goes AFK after getting a group invite. Sure, some of those AFKers might "reform" into live-ish players given no choice, but.. honestly, if they quit over BF removal I won't miss them and their "watch me" spam and their "highest tipper" bios and their leaving will be a huge improvement.
Of course the other side of that is that in some ways it's the final straw for the people who are actually assets to a cantina and it's almost too much to see yet another round of good people leaving in disgust. So I guess I'm being overly optomistic trying to hold on to as many good people as possible while still hoping that some of those spammers are going to quit (this is assuming they stay ATK long enough to even notice a change).
Don't really see much else to be done at this point other than damage control.
I've been hesitating all morning about replying to your post. Not because I have nothing to say but because I hate to see yet another thread turn into a war zone. We all worry over the future when anticipating changes that we can't control. The degree of sanity with which we choose to express our concern varies with each individual.
The immediate good thing for us, to which I am reacting, is that the devs have finally decided to define us. We have gone since launch wondering if we were entertainers or healers, asking ourselves in which direction we want to go and asking the devs to define how they envision our role in the game. What they have decided on is not what all of us want. But without an understanding of our role, we (the devs & us) were just groping around in the dark.
Since their announcment of this new intent for us, I started refreshing my memory on the sociological concept of "Third Places" and community building. I first became familiar with the concept when Til pointed out articles that he had run across a few months ago by researchers from PARC, Nicolas Ducheneaut, Robert J. Moore and Eric Nickell. To research community building in MMORPGs, these guys played SWG. Their papers bring up a lot of interesting points but more importantly, they point to where the cantinas, as Third Places, have failed in the past.
We do know what is being brought in for us. JFreeman posted in the Entertainer forum thread entitled "Healing XP Slowing to a Snail's Pace" that our role as healers was being removed. I don't know why they decided to remove BF at this time. No one tapped me out and said "Hey Esh..we're removing BF from the combat game..what do you think?" We simply received the annoucement that it was being removed and that "We have some other enhancements to the entertainer professions that we want to do as well (profession-specific inspiration buffs for non-combat professions), but this is what is currently in development." (quote from JFreeman's first post in that thread).
Chrysalide posted in the "Cool Non-Combat Buffs Ideas" thread; first, that he was watching the thread and drawing ideas off of it and later, that he had submitted a design doc for non-combat Inspirations to the leads & producers and had started working on the coding. So yes..we know what is being brought to us. We will be getting additional Inspirations which will be providing benefit to non-combat players.
I realize that a lot of people who are very upset right now would be placated if the new Inspirations were given in the same patch when BF is being removed. Of course, that would have been my first choice. However, that is not how it is happening. Everyone is reacting to this in their own way.
Regarding your question about the Exotics: Yes, there is something in the patch notes about the Exotics but I haven't gotten further information about it. I have been given no indication that additional flourishes will be added to the Exotic dances at this time. However, that doesn't mean it will not happen. My gut instinct tells me that if additional flourishes were the case, they would tell us up front. But I tend to be a bit more pragmatic than to go on a feeling rather than information. And right now, I have no further information.
Regarding your question about the "too far away" bug: The Line of Sight problems causing the "too far away" bug are affecting many game systems and it is a very high priority with the dev team working on bugs right now. All the correspondents whose professions are affected by this are in on it. I have reiterated numerous times that without this bug fixed we're pretty much out of business when it comes to any mechanics providing services to others and they have acknowledged their understanding.
Not playing devil's advocate or even playing one side against another but just as a philosophical musing; I've always wondered why we, as Dancers, have leaned toward defining ourselves within the game context by everything except our abilities as dancers and entertainers. I'm not looking for a specific answer to that pondering. I think we've all heard the rationalizations about game balances, making credits and what players of other professions might deem valuable. Outside of those who's entertainer characters are buff alts, are there any of us who looked at that character creation platform for the first time and didn't think, "Heh..I can dance."?
Message Edited by Esharra on 07-09-2005 06:55 PM
Esharra wrote:
I've been hesitating all morning about replying to your post.
I bought the game because I thought "oh my gosh... a game I can dance in!"
It just sounded totally amazing.
My only concern still remains.. without a purpose that causes people to want us, we cannot be viable on our own. Every profession will insist we don't deserve to make as much money as they do, because all we do is "stand around and chat." It's ridiculously hard to come up with quests for us. And giving people incentive to come watch us makes them feel like they *have* to.
It's a horrible catch-22, in that by being useful, we annoy the people who need us into not paying us, and not coming to see us do our jobs. By not being useful, 90% of the population never come see us do our jobs. It's frustrating, and it makes us say "sure, I love my job, but why do I do it again?"
Everyone wants tobe needed. A game is no different.
Esharra wrote:
No one tapped me out and said "Hey Esh..we're removing BF from the combat game..what do you think?" We simply received the annoucement
Whether you know it or not, Esh, this statement points to the fundamental problems that just keep going on, and on, and on in this game. You are the dancer correspondent. Why the hell didn't they tap you out and say, "Hey Esh we are removing Bf from the combat game, what do you think?" How would it harm them to get the opinion of the dancer correspondent -- someone who in theory should be about as "in the know" about being a dancer-player as anyone in the world? What is the point of having correspondents if they do not ask questions like this when making big changes to the game?
This makes me and probably a lot of other people want to just give up in disgust... it proves without question or doubt that the devs do not care what the players want, like, or think, because if they did, they would've "tapped you out" (as you put it) and gotten your feedback on this. It reinforces the impression that not only I, but many people I know in the game, have that the devs are off in their own little la-la land, totally oblivious to what the players enjoy or don't enjoy in the game.
C
Well to be honest when I looked at the character creation screen the ability to dance was just like any other ability. I chose dancer over musician because I often had to play with the sound turned off. For me dancing was healing without a needle. Simple as that. That's not to say I didn't try to make the dance at least look good. Just as when I crafted medicines I wanted what I did in the cantina to leave the "patient" with a pleasant experience. They had to sit and watch me for a long time in those early days so I tried to make the experience as painless as possible. When I firstread "entertainers aren't healers" I quite literally sat there dumbfounded. It was the whole reason I had chosen the profession. It's what brought me a lot of joy while playing and here I was being told that wasn't what the profession was about at all. /shrug I've always been the odd one out though so no surprise that so many wouldn't share this view. I'm certainly disappointed the devs weren't able to leave me with that, but not much I can do about it now. With luck, whatever they have planned for the future will fulfill that same role for me or at least one that I can enjoy equally. If not, well I still have a respec token I guess. But I will always remember that very first day when I was in the cantina trying to learn how to dance and someone came in and said "am I glad to see you! I need healing bad!"
Esharra wrote:
Not playing devil's advocate or even playing one side against another but just as a philosophical musing; I've always wondered why we, as Dancers, have leaned toward defining ourselves within the game context by everything except our abilities as dancers and entertainers. I'm not looking for a specific answer to that pondering. I think we've all heard the rationalizations about game balances, making credits and what players of other professions might deem valuable. Outside of those who's entertainer characters are buff alts, are there any of us who looked at that character creation platform for the first time and didn't think, "Heh..I can dance."?
Message Edited by Esharra on 07-09-2005 06:55 PM
Wow Esh. You really made me start thinking why I wanted to even be a dancer in the first place.
- Of course there
iswas the healing part of it, helping people get ready to go blast stuff all over again. That was fun and greatly appreciated by those I was able to help. - Then there's the entertaining side of it. I had fun trying to find unique ways for me to entertain others. It was doing things like getting different outfits, learning the different flourishes, trying to follow a musician's flourises and hunting down and dancing with different and exotic pets.
- Finally I come to the ost important reason. I danced because I wanted to relax myself. It didn't really matter if I had a full cantina or an empty one. I did as I pleased. I'd hunt for a bit, then return to the cantina to heal myself and relax, eventually logging off satisfied. I laughed as my different pets twirled around trying in vain to stay in colomn or wedge formation (if the devs remove this I'll kill them. *huggles*) I slowly and surely worked my way from novice ent to novice Dance where I stopped (I'd found the dances I'd wanted). People would come into the cantina, see the dancing animals and laugh. It was great.
Ikewe wrote:
Well to be honest when I looked at the character creation screen the ability to dance was just like any other ability. I chose dancer over musician because I often had to play with the sound turned off. For me dancing was healing without a needle.
I've never made it a secret that I started dancing to be a healer. Because I was working on ID, I started dancing in camps just to heal. Then Ikara gave me a glimpse of the glam side of danceand I was hooked. 
Anyway, I remember going back to AO and telling my best buddy "I can dance there, and my dancing heals people!!" I'm a huge dance emote freak in all games and try to get others to dance with me when ever there is any time for it at all (and sometimes even when there isn't, hehe).
I think that was Esh's point though, that point when you said "omg, I can really dance in this game!"
I had a hard time getting my mind around Dancer not being a healer too. I almost always play classes with healing and it's a big part of my own personal preferred playstyle, but in the end I lovethis profno matter what it "does" because the whole idea of having dance do anything in a game is still just so cool to me.
Panthu wrote:
I had a hard time getting my mind around Dancer not being a healer too. I almost always play classes with healing and it's a big part of my own personal preferred playstyle, but in the end I lovethis profno matter what it "does" because the whole idea of having dance do anything in a game is still just so cool to me.
That's nice and all, but the fact is, as of pub20 Dancing really doesn't "do" anything. Esh may say our role is defined as not being healers any more, but the lack of definition isn't a definition. Right now we aren't much of anything. In a space game, we're the void. We're not stars, we don't have anything concrete to offer people, and we have vague assurances that we'll be getting something. Vague assurances aren't enough really.
Before the CU there were concept docs, discussion forums, and a definitive plan for the Combat professions. A lot of things changed during the course of the development, but there were still these concrete things to look at and mull over. What have we gotten? A few vague dev posts and a lot of ra ra talk from our correspondents and ex correspondents. I'm not saying that to be hurtful to any of you, but it's the way it has been coming out, and it just redefines how second class we are.
I'm just trying to make it clear that after all the things that haven't been done right or have been rushed, we're being asked to trust. We're being told everything we have is being taken away and eventually something will be given back. I'm sorry but that's just not a line I'm happy swallowing. It's taken them until now to get our "base ability" working correctly. It's a simple math equation, and they couldn't even get it to apply correctly. For months Pilots were crippled if they had one of our buffs when they engaged in the encouraged activity of changing squads. For months we ourselves had to pay extra experience if we had one of our own buffs active when we earned our only quest reward (still the only quest reward that costs experience, even though hundreds of rewards have been added since then).
I like you folks, and I know the developers are just people too, but how does the line go? Oh yeah:
I've got a bad feeling about this...