Dancer Archive

I like some of the ideas. Being able to perform in other locations would be great.

However, I don't know if I like the idea of just giving cantinas over to afk-ers. At least where I dance, the cantina is very busy and there is still a fair amount of socializing going on. Providing another type of location (something like a dance/music school) where people could perform for experience would be nice, but would require adding content to the game.

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WalkerCommander wrote:

The main floor area, where the dancers usually dance, could be designated as live dancer only and not give any experience if afk. This would be in line with your ideas and seperate the two types entertainers. Plus, it would still allow people to receive dancer benefits when no live dancers were available. Just check the alcoves for afk dancers.

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Something not quite as radical as the original suggestion of playing everywhere. It would probably have a more likely chance of being implemented.

I'm willing to go a step further: NO ENT HEAL XP ON THE DANCE FLOOR. I say this because there are ways to bypass the AFK thing. Someone made a suggestion of placing an optical mouse on a surface with a fan running so there is always mouse motion. So, rather than say no Ent Heal on the main dance floor for AFK entertainers, I would say no Ent Heal on the main dance floor, period!

Those who are willing to help out the AFK heal bots can watch them in the alcoves. The dance floor is for the truly dedicated entertainer.

I'm all for that. I can see meeuki's idea of healing anywhere, but I think it may be unrealistic to assume it'll be implemented. Giving the true entertainers the dance floor is much more reasonable, I think.

You raise good points about the AFK issue. But if the devs haven't fixed this in the past 6 months, then I'm going to give up on it. You are right that it should be easy to fix with some moles. Heck, I'd even volunteer to be a mole just to insert some role-playing.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. I see everyone's point about just nipping the problem in the bud, but the problem is, i dont think it's a realistic solution. it would be extremely easy to get rid of afk macroing. nvoigt had a slew of solutions and all of them would effectively curtail the problem. BUT soe has not done that. they haven't even said something like "yeah we are going to look at it." they have heard us, but the only response that i ever remember hearing is "raph winces at the thought of afkers" and "we want to come up with solutions that make ATK dancing more fun".

note that they very coyly stayed away from saying anything about AFK macroing being bad. there are really only two things you can infer from this. 1.) they don't have time to address the issue, and it's such a low priority that they don't even bother mentioning it. 2.) there is a really important reason to endorse it.(which is what they have done with jeassa coming here and saying it wasn't a TOS violation)

now we can all speculate what those reasons are, and argue back and forth on the validity of them, but the bottom line is they haven't fixed this and it doesn't look like they are going to. so we need to be finding alternatives. we could ask raven to hammer it home again and again and again, but if someone up on high behind the scenes is saying "leave it in, for X reason and don't tell them what that reason is" then we'll be screaming outselves hoarse for nothing.

You already know the answer. You've mentioned it in other posts. Yep. The Theed and Coronet starports. The ones that already have huge crowds around them. It will just get worse, with musician particle effects, and dancer and musician lighting effects adding to it. I already know several people who literally can't go to Theed or Coronet by the shuttleport because they will lag out and take up to an hour to get out of the area. Having a group of entertainers there along with the people who need healing will just make it that much worse.

yeah, this would be an issue if the grinders decided to make the starport their home. an entertainment healing XP dead zone surrounding the starport perhaps? i don't think dancers would set up giant groups just outside the healing dead zone to circumvent the system.

i know this idea has been proposed before, maybe we can take a look at it again: make BF healing passive but require wound healing to be targetted. really though, this would effectively put an end to AFKing and I think the idea would get shot down by the devs for that reason. can anyone come up with any other solutions to the starport problem?

(the problem being, AFKers out for entertainment healing xp would congregate at the starport in large groups)

I don't like the idea of moving the dancers out of the cantina. I would prefer, if you are gonna divide where experience is generated based on being afk or not, to do it right inside the cantina. All of the cantina's in the major npc cites have alcoves to the side where you could designate the areas as the only places that you could gain experience while afk.

nobody is talking about moving the dancers out of the cantina, some will still go there just like now some still go there. people concerned about getting xp and being ATK are still going to have go to the cantinas under this system. the only thingthis planis really doing is giving an alternative to the cantinas, one that is not present right now. (or at least not one that that rewards the dancer for finding other locales).

it would enable dancers who previously left in disgust alternativeenvironments to form communities that would be free of AFKers because of the XP restrictions. the playerbase would still visit because there would be no restrictions on them. (they would still get healing).

it's nice to think that the player cantinas were to be a solution to this, but the problem is player cantinas don't get great traffic.

I'm willing to go a step further: NO ENT HEAL XP ON THE DANCE FLOOR. I say this because there are ways to bypass the AFK thing. Someone made a suggestion of placing an optical mouse on a surface with a fan running so there is always mouse motion. So, rather than say no Ent Heal on the main dance floor for AFK entertainers, I would say no Ent Heal on the main dance floor, period!

i always thought the alcoves were a much better location to perform, and i'd like to see the opposite, but splitting up the cantinas into zones is a good idea and could work perfectly in conjunction with this one.

I've had computer problems since and have not been able to check but I think this is a fabulous idea and might be an alternative to the "dancing in the streets" if people really don't like that. One way or another the basic idea here is, "Let's gather the AFKers in one spot (or set of spots) and the non-AFKers somewhere else so they don't step on each other's toes," and I think that is a sound idea.

this is great though, the point of this thread really was not to say "this is the idea that will save everything", more like "here's a possible solution". i should have said something to that effect in the first post. that being said, let's keep this thread going with a few guidelines for discussion.

1. afk macroing is staying, much to our chagrin, so we are finding other solutions that encourage ATK performers at certain locations, and herd AFK performers to others. (hopefully 1 location).

2. the inclusion of certain venues obviously intended for performance in the design of our ideas. (i'm talking about the music stations you see scattered around town, usually next to an entertainer trainer, guild halls, the stages outside guild halls, theaters, hotels, etc.)

i'm sure we can come up with a billion other ideasif we put our minds to it.

I'm pretty sure this isn't an original idea but while we're dancing in the streets (an idea I love!), why not throw the droid engineers a bone and require a entertainment healing bot into the mix? Along the lines of the surgical droids that allow doctors to heal wounds outside the medical center, entertainers would require this same sort of droid to heal bf and wounds outside the cantina. This would also curtail the "but you don't have to use any resources" argument. If it could also store a couple extra outfits, that would just rock!

It would also help with the lack of healing xp currently since you could go to where the hurt people are, whip out your bot, start your dance, and gain xp. Maybe it would require so much dancing xp to be able to use, at least novice dancer, maybe?

Anyway, I do think the cantinas are a lost cause and it is time to look for other solutions.