Dancer Archive
Thread: Guide: Making A Living as a Dancer
Reachwind wrote:
There is a currently NO way a player can survive on tips alone if they want to have the same chances/income as characters who craft, run missions or collect resources. The honor system has never worked.
Your guide is flawed. There will only ever be a small percentage of entertainers (mostly masters) who can survive on tips because there are only a small percentage of players will tip appropriately. A better guide would be to show entertainers where they can get money on the side through a less time consuming/sapping method than training fighting skills and running destroy missions.
1) Pick up a secondary profession. (If you want to be noncombat try your hand at image design or a crafting skill).
2) Gather resources. Sell the resources on the baazar.
3) Run entertainer missions.
4) Dance only for paying customers. (At a player run venue or in the backroom at a cantina.)
As stated by others while you most likely won't survive on tips alone at the same income as some other classes you can easily by following this guide survive and profit from dancing on tips alone. Like every other profession it's harder to make money in the begining and early on you will be doing missions more often. As you progress in skill and reputation you can easily afford a decent lifestyle from dancing.
Sindra's guide is very similar to what I do on a daily basis and although I have spent more time outside the cantina in the past week killing little critters I do so more because I need variety than because I need cash. If dancing in my normal (non busy) venue I can easily make enough off tips to support the maintence on serveral harvesters and a small house in a couple of hours (some days are better than others). Granted in the same time I can make twice as much on destroy missions but it's not nearly as relaxing nor does it fulfill my need for social interaction.
I don't understand why people have even hinted that making a living as a dancer might be difficult. With the character customizations and clothing options available, there should be little in the way of a dancer and a fortune. Here are my suggestions on the road to easy money:
1. Create a Human character, blonde, with maximum breast size, and give her a suggestive name (Sweetlove) or a vacuous one (Bunny) or a combination of the two (Bunny Sweetlove).
2. Buy the skimpiest costume you can afford, or get a young male to provide you with one.
3. Flirt with the young male crowd. Stroke their egos. Offer lap dances. Open a bank account nearby, or perhaps two.
That's it! It's incredible easy! Long threads have been written with elaborate guides to mastering this very simple profession, but what it really boils down to is picking on the crazed adolescent male.
Now, I could understand the difficulties inherent in Role-Playing a dancer with challenges. If you create a Male Mon-Calamari with a paunch, or a Female Trandoshan who is poor and only wears peasant clothes, then you might have a challenge on your hands. But for those who play voluptuous young human females, and then start threads with an aim to sharing their "expertise", I have only disappointment.
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1. Create a Human character, blonde, with maximum breast size, and give her a suggestive name (Sweetlove) or a vacuous one (Bunny) or a combination of the two (Bunny Sweetlove).
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Ok, so basically give up all hopes of having a personalized character to play, and play a trashy blonde with a dumb name..
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2. Buy the skimpiest costume you can afford, or get a young male to provide you with one.
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once again, look as trashy as possible so that other guys will tip me...
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3. Flirt with the young male crowd. Stroke their egos. Offer lap dances. Open a bank account nearby, or perhaps two.
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More playing in a way I DON'T want to, while at the same time probably getting many offers of the kind I DON'T want from customers..
What happened to rping? What happened to having a vision of a character and playing them out?
I'm sorry, but I'm not about to play the game a certain way, that I DON'T like just so I can be doing something I want to do. What fun is dancing if your character is not the one you envisioned to be the spectacular body movement artist?
As a male dancer/musician, I get nowhere by dressing trashy. In fact it usually works AGAINST me. But I also am not fending off guys every 5 seconds either. The sad part is, the tips are just non-existant..especially for the male dancer. But you know what, I still have alot of FUN because my character looks very close to the exact way I pictured him when I started.
Any ladies (or guys) out there have tips on being a male dancer.. what you like to see or what would inspire you to tip even a little bit?
Possibly, but I'd much rather respectnot onlymyself, butmy professionand my audience and still make a good living doing something I enjoy. The day I feel forced to offer a lap dance to some little twirp that wouldn't know what to do about the offer is the day I unlearn all my danceing skills.
Bulbous2 wrote:
I don't understand why people have even hinted that making a living as a dancer might be difficult. With the character customizations and clothing options available, there should be little in the way of a dancer and a fortune. Here are my suggestions on the road to easy money:
1. Create a Human character, blonde, with maximum breast size, and give her a suggestive name (Sweetlove) or a vacuous one (Bunny) or a combination of the two (Bunny Sweetlove).
2. Buy the skimpiest costume you can afford, or get a young male to provide you with one.
3. Flirt with the young male crowd. Stroke their egos. Offer lap dances. Open a bank account nearby, or perhaps two.
That's it! It's incredible easy! Long threads have been written with elaborate guides to mastering this very simple profession, but what it really boils down to is picking on the crazed adolescent male.
Now, I could understand the difficulties inherent in Role-Playing a dancer with challenges. If you create a Male Mon-Calamari with a paunch, or a Female Trandoshan who is poor and only wears peasant clothes, then you might have a challenge on your hands. But for those who play voluptuous young human females, and then start threads with an aim to sharing their "expertise", I have only disappointment.
nice guide abit flawed but nice nonetheless.
as a master dancer my wife gets her credits by running missions with guildmates.
a proper wardrobe could run you as much as 100k+ and your not gonna get that from tips 
If you like role playing and want to make a name for yourself visit places that no dancer goes to,
IE a little cafe on dantooine where the men are men and the wookies still smell.
a proper wardrobe could run you as much as 100k+ and your not gonna get that from tips
Why not? I did. And I never gave a lap dance for one credit of it. You don't need a 100k wardrobe to be an effective dancer, and that was the whole point of my guide -- you're the second person to suggest that the point of a dancer is to get rich. It's not. The point of a dancer is to DANCE. I can dance just as well in a 200c outfit as I can a 10k leotard. In fact, I've gotten large tips standing at a shuttle station waiting for the next flight and dancing to pass the time -- in my casual pants and short sleeved top! Why? Because I was talking to everyone, engaging them, asking questions and listening.
Bulbous, you seem to enjoy being surly and offensive. Why not go back to the Commando board with your brethern and leave the serious dancers alone?
Sskar wrote:
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Any ladies (or guys) out there have tips on being a male dancer.. what you like to see or what would inspire you to tip even a little bit?
i am female and play a fat male trandoshan dancer with big round blue eyes. He is so cuddly that everybody including the often referred to male adolescents like him. i worked on his character being a slightly dumb, very goodheartet and sometimes funny chap.
of course he doesnt get as many tips as his slim female counterparts, but still enough to lead a decent life without the hassle the female dancers sometimes get.
my only concern are the missing exciting outfits for male dancers. i went for striped slacks and muscle shirt.
you're the second person to suggest that the point of a dancer is to get rich.
emm no I never said the point of being a dancer is to get rich.
The point of being a Dancer is also not dancing,Its about Dancing for others.
and you did point out clothes as a presentation.lets break down the cost of 100k in clothes
1 flesh suit used to be 20k now down to about 15k-16k
1 leotard used to be 20k now about 15k to 16k
1 grand ball gown used to be 20k now down to about 16k
bikini tops and bottoms about 10k to 15k
30k in misc items which includes shoes gloves etc etc
Being a dancer is not cheap as some people think.
And I believe you made good tips without the elusive lap dance.
In 2 weeks my wife has gotten about 25k in tips and I wont let her do a lap dance
communication as you point out is what gets a dancer their best tips.
clothing is 2nd on the list after that.
Life in SWG is not cheap for ANY class. what I point out is that MOST dancers are not as lucky as you, my wife and a few other dancers I know.
Most dancers struggle to make ends meet.could be cause half of them do no talking,alot are afk/macroing
and a few more just have no knack for small talk.
Just to clarify myself, I am playing a Mon Cal Master dancer, and I wear peasant clothes. Being an RP dancer is a challenge. Being a human female "erotic dancer" is not a challenge. It seemsthis guide is also very good for the generic dancer. I suppose what I was reacting to is the many threads detailing "erotic dance" strategy, when in reality I see thousands of credits daily being stuffed into the fleshwraps of well-endowed blonde humans without any thought whatsoever about strategy.
Clothes are important, but it IS possible to play a dancer without resorting to skimpy outfits. You can still wear long dresses and dance Formal and make a living. That was my point. Brains over body.
>1 flesh suit used to be 20k now down to about 15k-16k
>1 leotard used to be 20k now about 15k to 16k
>1 grand ball gown used to be 20k now down to about 16k
>bikini tops and bottoms about 10k to 15k
>30k in misc items which includes shoes gloves etc etc
Although I have probably spent about 100k on clothes, I only spent about 3k each on my flesh suit, leotard, and grand ball gown. Master Tailors have become much more reasonable, although there are still some that are charging 10k each I have never seen them higher than that (at least on Corbantis).
Speaking of a "Gentleman's Club" has anyone considered the idea of creating an exotic dancing club. Charging an entrance fee, hiring master dancers, master musicians, selling food, drink and drugs? I haven't heard of anything like this, but it seems like a very logical thing for an enterprising businessman to do.
Yes it IS possible, and some people do understand it and tip well, but the majority walk through the door, plop down anywhere, and end up tipping the most naked female there and leaving.
For example, the other day me and a friend decided to try something. She wore a fleshwrap, and I wore my best outfit I had (something that looked good for a male dancer). We danced side by side not saying a word to anyone. Within 30 minutes she had received just about 2500 credits in tips, while I got not a single one.
So what does this mean? It means I have to work harder to get the same results. Which I don't mind really, I like a good challenge..but some days its just plain tiring to greet and make friends with everyone that walks through the door and get hardly enough for a shuttle ticket when naked_female_twi'lek_dancer_009 in the corner who is AFK comes back with thousands of credits in tips.
I realize money is not the main point of being an entertainer. But its just disheartening to realize that you have to work three times as hard running missions (not even destroy missions since you are too weak to fight) while others have the luxury of just sitting there with their macro going and money just falls into their pockets.
~Sskar :~Þ
When I go to the cantina for healing (when to playing my dancer), I will not tip a guy unless they are the only one there, or they are funny enough to make me laugh. I suspect most of the people that play the game share similar views.
My best public dancing tips come from when I play the drunken dancer. Quite fun to play, and a lot seem to enjoy it. Although I imagine it gets annoying for some, so I don't do it much.