Dancer Archive

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DarkY0da wrote:

I still say Ents should get perma death. 3 deaths in a weeks time and your character gets all skills and xp set to 0.

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Esharra wrote:

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DarkY0da wrote:

I still say Ents should get perma death. 3 deaths in a weeks time and your character gets all skills and xp set to 0.

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Only if they get a TEF for spamming.

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In a sense, there will be TEFs for entertainers in the Entertainer Revamp, but not quite in the way that you're used to seeing. We've thought long and hard to try to find ways to get other professions more involved in the GCW, whether they've wanted to be or not.

In the case of entertainers, there is clearly already a GCW raging full force, although it has nothing to do with Imperials or Rebels. Let's just call this the Entertainer's Galactic Civil War (EGCW), wherein a rag-tag force of freedom dancers/musicians resist the galactic cantina dominance ofan all-encompassing and oppressive Bot Army. So, why reinvent the wheel? It makes good sense to just encourage the the EGCW and apply tried and true concepts from the regular old GCW into this "exciting new form of GCW in MMO gaming" (you can quote me on that).

See how elegant the solution is? This way we don't disrupt anyone's playstyles or "playstyles" (playing the game vs. macroing the game),won't have to do any policing of third-party programs,and we still get to have everyone fighting with one another. We'll have you all right where we want you. Mwa ha ha!

Now... that said...

Entertainers willhave faction chosen for them based on their avatar's actions (Light faction), oralternately, lack of actions (Dark faction). Neutrality in the EGCW is technically impossible, which is good - neutrals are not involved in the GCW, and this simply must be corrected in the EGCW. Light faction points are accrued when the entertainer is actively dancing, playing music, or otherwise engaging other players in a cantina setting according to the tenets set forth for the Light Entertainer. Dark faction points are accruedat the beginning ofeachmacro loop, and perrepetitive andidentical /say (or other form of spatial communication) or/gscommands, and when the system detects repeating patterns of identical emotes.

Your faction affiliation and accrued faction pointswill be shown on your Character Screen, and by default will display as either Covert Light Entertainer or Covert Dark Entertainer. You can declare your faction affiliationto Overt statusby visiting the Theatre Managers in any static city NPC Guildhall Theatre. To go Covert again, simply tell the Theatre Manager that you wish to go Covert - the standard one-hourish wait will apply.

Overt Entertainers will not be able to "attack" one another in the traditional ways (i.e., by simply pulling a weapon and blasting away). Overt status will instead determine whether the nature of that entertainer's activities are considered to be "griefing" the other side or not. For example - a Dark Entertainer operating as a buffbotin a public cantina while Overt will not be considered to be griefing the Light Entertainers, as this is their form of 'kill-stealing', and in the EGCW will be 'working as intended'. Conversely however, actions taken by an Overt Light Entertainer (or any other character while grouped with an Overt LE; CM's and SL's come to mind) against a public buffbot will also not be considered griefing. This way, the "pwn j00 suxxor!","it's a war, so cry more n00b" and "if you're red, you're dead" mentalities can be more widely applicable to an even greater part of the subscriber base.

The New TEF (Temporary Entertainer Flag) will be a method by which an entertainer's faction will be clearly displayed for all to see for a short time, and can be utilized for further system development and application. There will be a variety of ways in which the new TEF can be applied, such as not responding to tells within a given amount of time (Dark), receiving a tip in excess of 10k credits (Light or Dark, as applicable to the recipient of said tip), or other ways that are still in development.

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Esharra wrote:

So how should we compensate the entertainer community? How shall we enable them to compete in a player-based economy driven by kill-stealers and loot-mongers?

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a.) Gaining XP while putting forth zero effort in game play through AFK macroing, and;

b.) Tipped for buffbotting and AFK healing mechanic replication

a.) Passive tipping to go along with passive healing mechanics.

Every character who accrues Battle Fatigue will have 5 credits per point of BF gained placed in escrow. When the BF-laden player /watches or /listens to a Light Entertainer (Covert or Overt), an amount from that escrow account will be transferred to the Light Entertainers bank account based on the number of BF points healed by that LE. The system will detect the amount of BF healed per entertainer, and can divide the escrow payout to the appropriate Light Entertainers should the patron change entertainers being watched or listened to inmid-healing.

Should the character accruing BF not have sufficient credits to place in escrow to cover the 5 credits/BF point gained, BF in excess of the escrow ratio will be unhealable except through the slow natural healing of the cantina (like med center passive wound healing). Should the character choose to use a Dark Entertainer for BF healing, all credits in escrow will be evenly distributed between all Light Entertainers (Covert or Overt)present in the cantina at the time of healing (with the rules for "unhealable" BF applying as well).

If the healing can be simply taken at will, so too then, under the Entertainer Revamp, the credits be simply taken. We think of this as something akin to income tax or social security tax withholding, and is a familiar concept to many players.

b.) The "Good Loot Samaritan" Program

Any time that "good loot" (not the common Reinforced Combat Staff or CDEF loots, mind you, but good loot) is looted by a player from a MOB, there will be a small chance, determined by a system check,that the loot will instead be transferred directly to the inventory of (or bank safety deposit, if inventory is full)to a randomly selected Light Entertainer currently performing anywhere, in any cantina, theatre, hotel, etc.

This will result in the looting player receiving a system message that says "You have completely looted the corpse of all items, but have generously donated the loot to the Arts. Doesn't that makeyou feel good?". The alluded to "good feeling" by donating this loot to charity will be represented by having all of the looting player's currentBF and mind wounds automatically set to zero at the time of the transfer.

The recipient LE of the charitable donation will receive the system message "The Galactic Arts Commission has recognized your contributions, and an item has been placed in your inventory" (or safe deposit box, as applicable). Alternately, the message could be reused from the current system message from TC upon completing the upcoming entertainer quests, "Yuo are a winnar!"

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Knight776 wrote:

Maybe another thing we could do is to create special mission terminals for Combat Medics. The CM would take the mission that has been generated by the gamedue toan entertainer gaining visibility bynot spamming a cantina every 30 seconds with pleas for healing or tips or by not giving mind buffs in an unattended state.

This would create a situation where entertainer classes would have the excitement they have been desiring in the class for sometime, cut down on the AFKtaining through boredom, and also reward at-the-keyboard play. Combat medics would also be adjusted to make the missions more appropriate to their skill level and add excitement to the mission, as well as adjusting them to be more in line with their intended purpose during PVP occasions.

Hey....It could happen.

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This is a good idea, but in maintaining consistency, there are two small amendments we should probably address:

1.) Since you mentioned mission terminals and entertainers in the same post, it is appropriate that the new CM missions should pay between 100-200 credits per mission... no more, no less. This would maintain the continuity inherent between the terms "entertainer" and "mission terminal", and should be seen as acceptable.

2.) Since this is the Entertainer Revamp (2 publishes), and CM's are not Entertainers, the CM mission terminal would simply have to wait until later to be implemented. I think I see a schedule opening after the Nuna Balance.

Okay, to head off any potential misunderstandings...

This thread should be obvious to be satire - but just in case (you never know), I'm saying it here... it is satire! Please do not take any of this seriously! It was originallyborn of a severely fatigued mind after being awake for nearly 36 hours, and has continued along somewhat in the tradition of Warryyr's Musician Dev pro-tempore thread.People seem to be having fun with it, and I am too. At least we're not bitching and moaning and getting worked up in this thread - it's a less volatile way to vent.

I know that most of you 'get it', of course, but as things start getting detailed in the descriptions there's a chance that someone might happen along in just as fatigued a state as I was when I first started this mess and think that I'm serious. The detail in the system descriptions are there because, well, things are funnier when they're based in recognizable reality.

Oh, and to any SOE development staff that may be looking in... have a chuckle if you like, but please do not think that I'm actually advocating this sort of approach! I know that you're all doing the best that you can with a vast game, but we really do need to protect the social playstyle and soon, or this satire could conceivably become foreshadowing of elements of reality in game, if it isn't already. Please help us de-automate the social professions, and return gameplay to game players, and away from automated macros that replace our very functions! Please? Help?

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Wendelius wrote:
All I want to know is: Do we get to insert gems in our slitherhorns to increase our Star Wars 1 playing powers?

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We tried this briefly on Test Center, but the code was quickly pulled... so quickly in fact that most players did not even know that the test had occured.

The main problem we ran into was that even with properly prepared, charged, and ready to go crystals, onceplaced into the slitherhorns they blocked the airflow from resonating within the instruments, and no sound could come out. To make matters worse, the crystals managed to get jammed up in the body of the horns, and no amount of prying, shaking orcoaxing could get them back out again. Even the old soap trick failed to remove the crystals from the delicate valves.Such a waste of what were perfectly good slitherhorns. Eventually we gave up, and bowing our heads in rememberance, were forced to destroy them.

Message Edited by Kreistor on 07-27-2004 12:03 PM

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Xyrdre wrote:

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Tralmek wrote:

Oh, and Deila? Are you married?

The New Entertainer will be an exciting new type of profession in MMO gaming. It will be either a social based profession where players interact with other players, or will be several lines of code that will perform all of the same core functions without the disturbing and frighteningpressures of interacting with other players.

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*Runs this through the Dev translator*

Translation (with a small margin of error): no

Great! Will you marry me?