Dancer Archive

---

Ikewe wrote:

I thought Tempest just renamed it... but I'm not on that server so don't take my word for it.

---

Kind of in a hurry, so I won't reply to the general topic of the thread, but last I knew, the traffic on ATK on Tempest just kind of died down. Some of the bigger supporters of the channel's usage quit the game, and Tempest's buffbots, in their mostly non-public-cantina locations, seem to service the small population, very quietly removing traffic in the Theed cantina over the past 6 months (Theed chosen because it's my point of reference). In any case, I've seen fewer and fewer people actually coming around looking for buffs, or using ATK or any chat channel to try to find buffs, since most people know where to find the buffbots. I'd been mostly away from Tempest for about a month but plan on spending a lot more time there soon and will be bringing someone with me and hopefully we'll get ATK working nicely again.
Anyways, it hadn't been renamed to my knowledge, but I guess that's possible.

"AFK - unattended macroing
This will be going away soon. There will be some issues around losing the ability to do things with recursive macros or while AFK which will need to be addressed as part of this effort, but overall it is better for the game environment to not have this as a sanctioned behavior."

That's from the Devs.

We'll just let them shoo the bots away and then start talking about where to go with entetrainer.

---

Else-Whira wrote:
"AFK - unattended macroing
This will be going away soon. There will be some issues around losing the ability to do things with recursive macros or while AFK which will need to be addressed as part of this effort, but overall it is better for the game environment to not have this as a sanctioned behavior."

That's from the Devs.

We'll just let them shoo the bots away and then start talking about where to go with entetrainer.

---

I'm fully aware of that. My point is: instead of sitting in cantinas complaining...why not do something about it? Its not 100% up to the devs to fix every problem in this game. You guys have the mechanics to do something like this and make a proactive change to the game instead of waiting for a "fix" that will take care of your problems but cause even more incoviences for other players.

Message Edited by Dovakic on 01-11-2005 03:51 PM

Hmmm a middle ground…
Not to be rude but why would the middle ground require us to be tied to one place?
As many others pointed out, I also like to move around, go where the mood takes me.

However, please tell me what stops you (and I don’t mean you personally but anyone looking for buffs and/or heals) from putting few entertainers on your friend list?

The way I usually operate is this:
Most people who know me know I’m willing to travel.
So while they are getting doctor’s buffs or know they will need me soon they just shoot me a /tell “can you meet me at so-and-so location in 15 min?”
If I’m not busy I /replay “sure, omw “

Now please someone tell me why is this so “inconvenient”?
In my opinion this is LOT more easier then waiting in line for a zombie-bot group or trying to figure out whom to beg for invite to a zombie group.

It’s true I wont travel to places where I may need a full set of armor and doctor’s buffs just to buff someone I don’t know and may suggest he/she meets me in the closest cantina.
If I’m busy doing my own thing I will not drop everything on a random /tell for a stranger, don’t think I should be expected to.

As for cookies, you can keep the oreos but better share the peanut butter kind *evilgrin*

Deli'ah

What I'm saying as far as the middle ground and level of convience...the buff bot is always in one place at one time. You dont have to see who's online, send them a tell, hope their not busy, and then if they are, keep trying until you find an available entertainer. When you want a doctor buff you go to coronet, theed, the MO, or any of the other places to get one...most doctors will /addignore you if random people send them tells asking for buffs at all hours to the day because of this.

If there was a city where I could almost always find a live entertainer, both musician and dancer, I know I'd sure use it. All the time.

It goes along with how the real world works. If you need a doctor, you go to the doctors office, you dont expect the doctor to come to you (in most cases, I realize some doctors do make house calls). And the same for entertainers. Your favorite band wont come to your house, they have places where they go on tour, and people come to them because they know theyll be there. Celiene Dion (thats probably spelled wrong) had an entire 200,000 seat concert arena built where she plays a show to a sold out crowd every night. Again..she doesnt come to you, you come to her, because you know where she'll be. You probably couldn't even get ashely simpson to come to your house and perform for you. The point here is, ingame entertainers don't seem to want to operate like entertainers normally operate.

The middle ground is an effort to make your services a viable option to using buffbots. You can't just expect people to not use a buffbot because of some sort of feeling of guilt about ruining your game play...its just not realistic. A lot of us have inconviences in our game play...it seems to me that getting 20-30 entertainers together and being tied to a cantina 1 or two nights a week wouldnt be a very huge deal, and would create a better feeling towards entertainers universe wide.

---

Devil_Tiger wrote:

Here's an ever better suggestion to meet you on your middle ground....

Let's ask SOE to totally wipeout the the entertainer profession entirely and replace it with NPC dancers and musicians in every cantina. All the cantinas would have at least 1 NPC dancer/musician to provide buffs for everyone and there would be regular dancers and musicians for all of your healing needs. The best part is, you wouldn't have to pay/tip the buffbots and NPC dancers and musicians a single cred. In the meantime, everyone who is a master musician or dancer will automatically become master image designers and entertainers will receive image design xp for every music/dancing/healing xp they have. This gets rid of all of us ATK "whining" entertainers to better improve your overall fun.

---

wow. you see, im here honestly trying to help, and this is the response i get. Its not wonder alot of people are very jaded by live entertainers.

The only reason Battle Fatigue is even in the game is to give a practicle reason for combatants to gather in places where folks who enjoy being more social can meet them and spend some time together doing what the people who enjoy being social want to do.... Chat.

The only reason mind buffs were increased to the level they are at now was to give entertainers a sellable good once they realized that making entertainer income tied directly to an honor system DID NOT WORK.

Here are a few things for you to consider about your proposal now that you understand the above two facts;

- What incentive would a combatant have to visit such a place if the entertainers were charging for service and the buff bots remained free and on 24/7 no matter what?

- How would entertainers be able to pay for such a place (keep in mind a large percentage of players WILL NOT pay for any type of entertainer service.)?

- Who would the entertainers talk to during the times no combatant was anywhere near such a place (the #1 reason player city cantinas are empty for the most part)?

- If it DID work, what would stop large guilds that like to run fully automated bots right now from doing the same thing for a 24/7 buff bot?

---

Dovakic wrote:


So heres my idea: Create an intra-server wide entertainers cooperative that creates an entertain city/mecca/etc on each server. Use the entertainment district city specialization to increase your buffs power beyond what a buffbot can give. Work out lose schedules so that players in need of a buff can find one when they need it, easily. Reach out to entertainers from the european servers to help cover odd hours on american servers and vice versa. Get doctors in on it, so players can buff up completely in one place. Offer shops, services, anything you can think of in this city, and give people a reason to use ATK entertainers other than "because they're supposed to".

---

---

Dovakic wrote:

---

Devil_Tiger wrote:

Here's an ever better suggestion to meet you on your middle ground....

Let's ask SOE to totally wipeout the the entertainer profession entirely and replace it with NPC dancers and musicians in every cantina. All the cantinas would have at least 1 NPC dancer/musician to provide buffs for everyone and there would be regular dancers and musicians for all of your healing needs. The best part is, you wouldn't have to pay/tip the buffbots and NPC dancers and musicians a single cred. In the meantime, everyone who is a master musician or dancer will automatically become master image designers and entertainers will receive image design xp for every music/dancing/healing xp they have. This gets rid of all of us ATK "whining" entertainers to better improve your overall fun.

---

wow. you see, im here honestly trying to help, and this is the response i get. Its not wonder alot of people are very jaded by live entertainers.

---

Lets turn the perspective around a minute. You come here honestly making a suggestion that requires US to do a lot of work to coordinate our times, insure someone is at a known location every hour of the day, and ties us down to doing our "shift". In other words you turn our game into a job, all to make it easier for you to find a buff. You call this the middle ground but if you look at it from our perspective you can see that it doesn't feel like there was much compromise from the combatent's side.

Let me propose an alternative, all players wishing to take combat missions must log in, see an NPC in Mos Eisley, and sign up. They will then be able to use mission terminals one hour after signing up. All players wishing to do any PvP must see an NPC in Theed and sign up for their one hour wait after which all overt, TEF, and duel options will become available. See this is what you are proposing we do with our "shifts".

It isn't a middle ground it is a suggestion on how WE can do a lot of work and coordination to make YOUR game easier. Now I do appreciate that you are thinking about how to make it work but the reality is that as long as there are buff-bots sitting in the Dant cantina people won't travel to some centralized spot on another planet to get buffs. As long as a bot can be in place 24/7 without disrupting the play time of the owner (who is playing their alt from another computer), as long as all our skills can be totally automated nothing is going to solve the problem.

Once the tools to automate our skills are gone you can learn to use the tools already provided to insure you can find an entertainer when you need them. An entertainer who is, by the way, trying to have fun in this game just like you are. Many of us already have jobs and play this game to relax and escape from reality not turn it into a second job with really bad pay.

Dovakic,
I understand what you are saying, at least I think I do, but I have to respectfully disagree.
Comparing a game to RL is never wise, because it only leads to a headache.
You see, if there was an in game place bursting with nice people and no zombies I would have no problems dancing there, but only on my own terms.
When I feel like it.
It’s not that I’m rude or anything but because I believe from past experience that once you start scheduling people’s activity in game it slowly over time becomes drudgery with a part time job feel to it.
Which inevitably leads to burn out.
Been there, done that, got a T-shirt. A game I used to love over course of 4+ years became nothing but a never-ending schedule of raids. So, I ran away to SWG world and so far (with few momentarily lapses) I have been able to play this game while still remembering it’s only a game where I go to escape the reality, duties and schedules.

Deli'ah