Dancer Archive

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Caerwynn wrote:

>"I'm kind of embarrassed to mention this," says Blackman, "but we have a hairdressing skill tree."

I resent the suggestion that women will only want to play social characters. Shows just how wrong they were, if that attitude still prevails (what, two years at least after that article was written?) no wonder Entertainer profs have been reduced to nothing much more than a bit of fluff. Yes, I know they are promising us more buffs, but Ents will still be little more than a sideline prof.

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I feel slightly offended everytime I read stuff like that too, but then I have to admit that I bought the game after becoming obsessed with the character generation screen on my husband's account. Especially the changing hairstyles part.

After I actually bought the game however I sat down and decided what part of it I would like best (Creature Handler, which I mistakenly thought would be non-combat) and then created a character I thought would do well in that profession and be a good RP fit (wookiee - notice: no hairstyles). However it was the hairstyles that drew me in, much to my dismay.

Not only that, but I had to realize that this was still a contributing factor when I tried games like WoW and EQ2 and realized that I found that I enjoyed playing them that much less simply because I couldn't change my body type. So, in effect, SWG was very successful in what they were trying to do - draw in players who would not normally be drawn in. I probably would have never tried an MMORPG if it wasn't for the the character creation screen and the assurance that I didn't HAVE to do combat if I didn't want to.

Even if that fact kind of embarrasses both me and Blackman. /grin

Well, maybe you have to be a woman to understand this thread...
It is true that I started SWG for completely different reasons than you did. However, the things I do within the game and the goals I wish to achieve are not that different...

My humble opinion regarding this topic is:
The "doll house" part is already part of the game as far I understand. Architect, Image Designer, Dancer and Musician... we do have the abilities to really create something new everytime we play. The possibilities of SWG are well beyond that of what the player base currently does. The game designers could have given us dancers a single dance to dance that improves by the time as you gain ability, maybe choices to make for different styles on the way and you end up with a single dance to dance. Since it is just a single and there is no influence on it once it is started it could have been way more complex, way "better" than what we got now.
Instead we have dozens of dances and we have flourishes. It is true that the ways we can work with that are limited. But they are there. And it doesn't end there. We have venues that should be inspiration, not only cantinas, but theaters, city halls, palaces (well, ok, one palace if you don't count large Naboo Houses).
If one combined the effort of several tailors, image designers, dancers musicians, architects and so on you could perform a full satiric musical about the ridiculousity of the GCW within SWG... but it would hardly be rewarding because the majority of players has way more interest in grinding and becoming more powerful by repitive, mindless tasks than paying attention to this.
Off course our artistic abilities are still limited, which is part of the problem. But how artistic could they be without expecting the player to be an actual, experienced artist.

The second part I am not sure wether I understand. Small social tasks that are reward on their own. Like an artisan who spends his time interacting personally with the customers or... well like an entertainer?
We chat, we entertain. If it goes well we pick up a little of every patrons story, share a little of everything there is, make them leave happier than they came; maybe even pick up some information that might be worthy for the faction (that did indeed happen to me before - bases vulnerability times). Is that what you mean?
Or like, grabbing some friends, looking up POI, meeting people in cantinas here and their, explore their player cities?

Don't get me wrong Panthu. I am on your side in so far that I share you point of view as I understand it. But I do not understand what your comments aim at. Other than exchanging the player base maybe and getting rid of all those who dwell in grinding and pwning.

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Rabenschwinge wrote:
Well, maybe you have to be a woman to understand this thread...
It is true that I started SWG for completely different reasons than you did. However, the things I do within the game and the goals I wish to achieve are not that different...

Like I said, it's the goals of the player that make this prof set appealing, not the player's gender. I agree totally. There are plenty of gamer girls who have no interest in this type of gameplay and there are plenty of dudes who love this stuff. I think the "female" label is just a convenient carry over from the toys and traditional games market.

Bartle Socializer isn't an exact fit either though, because a player technically could fit into that MUD test category and have zero interest in this type of gameplay. They might prefer to carry out their social role in a pure combat and normal combat flavored down time capacity. I think a lot of Crafters also fit in as a Bartle socializer, but aren't interested in what Ent or pure social/non-combat games might offer.

Don't get me wrong Panthu. I am on your side in so far that I share you point of view as I understand it. But I do not understand what your comments aim at. Other than exchanging the player base maybe and getting rid of all those who dwell in grinding and pwning.

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Eek, no! The main reason I think Ent as a social game has so much potential is because it does happen in a world with other offerings, activities, and player types.

My only goals with the post were:

• To establish what the original "social goals" were with these profs


• To look at other pure Social/Female/Non-Combat games as a genre and see what is working for them (I just never actually posted that list, I only did a little intro with the 2nd post.)

One of the things pure social games like TSO or SL can't do though is provide other play content in a fully fleshed out game world like SWG can. The fact that SWG does have PvP, PvE, story driven content, flight sim content, tournament aspects (well, uh, if the FRS ever gets fixed, heh), virtual pets, a player driven market with an advanced merchant and crafting system, so on and so on - all of this stuff is what gives SWG a leg up on any other pure game for providing this type of content and bringing in these types of players.

Call us female, socializers, whatever - SWG intended to meet these goals wellfor us... I just wanted to look at how well it's actually going andconsider some ways it might be improved by looking at the pure games of this genre out there.

I know the game could be better for us, what I am trying to say is, that it ain't as bad as you paint it.

The problem, as I see it, not the game as is, but the player. You cannot entertain someone who does not want to be entertained. For some reason there seems to be a trend to socialize as few as possible, even though the game encourages working together. There are situations when players do actively refuse interaction, even though it is harmful for their characters.

That is not only a problem of entertainers, but of everyone. Joined a hunting group on Dantooine recently? The CU recreated combat in so far that a team progressing tactically, paying attention to each others strengths and weaknesses would be the most successful way of doing combat. What is in fact happening? The missions pulled are almost exclusively missions against "non-hostile, non-flying, non-ranged attack creatures" (as opposed to NPCs). The usual tactic is to rush the lair. When a current spawn is wiped out everyone is shooting uncontrollably at the lair, even when there is another spawn to come.
Even though the least dangerous, yes even ridiculous missions have been chosen, characters get incappacited, the fighting gets out of controll every so often, and the XP gain is way lower than it was if the group was working together (because it takes longer and not every character hits every creature).
This shows that a large number of players is willing to take sever disadvantages in their gameplay and progress just to prevent interaction and diversion. (Some) people do not want any form of diversion!

And that's what I think the true problem is.

EDIT: Nerfed typos

Message Edited by Rabenschwinge on 08-16-2005 08:20 PM

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Rabenschwinge wrote:
I know the game could be better for us, what I am trying to say is, that it ain't as bad as you paint it.
....snip....
(Some) people do not want any form of diversion!

And that's what I think the true problem is.

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First the game is that bad for us, IMHO, because the devs have removed ANY reason to seak us out. It is still fun to entertain but who is there to entertain?

Yes there are some who want no diversion, I've run into groups similar to those you described as have some guild mates. We generally leave them pretty quickly and laugh at how inept they are. However I do not believe that is the majority in this or any other game. It is simply the vocal and highly active minority and catered to at the long term detriment of the game. Maybe I'm wrong and that is the majority of the players but I seriously doubt that.

I've just known too many players who stopped and spent significant time watching as groups did entertainment outside at startports and in front of cantinas. Too many people who didn't realize they were gawking and didn't mind that they had wasted time when the entertainment was fun. However it gets progressively harder to provide that kind of show as group sizes have been chopped, entertainer droids have been broken, and entertainers have been run off due to content loss. The DEVs don't understand us anymore and they don't understand the other non-combat professions either. They understand first person shooters and so design what they know.

Here is hoping SOE wakes up and realizes what they have lost.

Great article! As said with the other posters, the devs have to acknowledge this playstyle more, and understand the needs of the social gamers.

I am a little offended when people say that the entertainer professions are for women, as my only character in this game is a dancer, but they just don't know what they are missing out on. Lots of fun times.

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LyteFoot wrote:

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Rabenschwinge wrote:
I know the game could be better for us, what I am trying to say is, that it ain't as bad as you paint it.
....snip....
(Some) people do not want any form of diversion!

And that's what I think the true problem is.

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First the game is that bad for us, IMHO, because the devs have removed ANY reason to seak us out. It is still fun to entertain but who is there to entertain?

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I am very well aware that you weren't talking about other players. But we're not talking about a single player game either. So we got three problems: To have small everchanging tasks to perform that are rewarding within themselves you need other players. You don't have them. And even with what you are proposing I don't see how you'll get them.

Well I am not sure wether I am going down to a level fundamental enough... but do you really, honestly believe that a fame system, posters of famous dancers and bands across starports, Tiaga's proposals concerning cantinas, addition of the missing dance group commands and even some more commands to perform more complex choreographies with groups, maybe even ways to spy our players for the GCW or whatever... do you really think that would solve our problems?

And if that's not what you mean by your post. That is what you mean by "redesign the profession", I don't know it.As far as I am concerned the recent changes have all been positive. So - it doesn't seem to me that there is a bad design concept there.

All the changes of course were just single feautures. Never a real redesign; only patches and fixes. But it is hard for me to see what you actually want. I could imagine different ways that dancer could, and I believe so could next to anyone here. But do you really think that that will give us more fun? More audience? - I don't think so.

So what is it you'd like to see? That's what's disturbing most within this thread, since I simply don't know - and it's not that I wasn't trying to understand. A re-design from ground up, except the game mechanic of the dance and flourish animation?

Might be that I am only a little pessimistic though because of the war I am fighting against my own guild sisters to recreate the community we were. Feels like running against a small of smiles every day again while forcing myself to smile.