Dancer Archive
Thread: Results: State of the Dancer Profession
The problem is Pippin, we loved being dancers. But the way people treat out profession these days is driving us away from it.
I am very resentful of LAMErs. I can't stand it when entertainers are overly flirty and licking, winking and lap dancing. It degrades me because I get lumped in with them and I don't want to associate with them.
That's why you will only see me dancing at private parties or during hours when the cantinas are dead.
I don't think the AFKers brought this problem about in any large measure. Sure, they contribute to it, but by far the greatestreason whyentertainers want to quit is that they are unappreciated... no wait - unappreciated is too weak a word... the greatest reason is that they are activelyDESPISED by the vast majoritythose who must use them to heal.
As I was earning my XP as a dancer, the AFKers were just light comic relief - no one much cared that they AFK'ed their way to success as an entertainer. Sure, they prevented us 'real' entertainers from getting tips, but tips were never too common, so it wasn't a big deal. And sure, they were the equivalent of zombies and didn't contribute to any discussion, but if they weren't there we wouldn't have anyone to be the butt of our jokes during the tedious hours when no one was coming into the cantina. Heck, I was more bothered by Group Leaders going AFK for half an hourthan I was by the average dancer being AFK for hours. The GL going AFK adverselyaffected my XP gain by preventing new people from joining. The average non GL AFKers, if they did anything, actually contributed to my XP gain if they were grouped with me, so I didn't carethat they were AFK. At least they were helping me to level.
As for the rest of the community, they have no reason to dislike AFKers - AFKers heal just as well as regular entertainers, and in out-of-the-way places they're a Godsend. No one expects AFKers to get tips, and no one is forced to tip them. I really think this obsession with the AFKers is a smoke screen hiding themain reason why non-entertainers generallydislike entertainers. That reason is that most players are too G0DDAMN cheap, and want to get free heals without the embarrassment of skulking out of the cantina without making a contribution. Heck, most are too embarrassed to even mutter a 'thank you'.
But the AFKers brought this about in large measure.
oh please, it wasnt the AFK types that drove most masters away.
it was everything involved
lack of tips, rude obnoxious customers. being told to go do missions to make cash
hmm guess what most are doing just that, making cash doing missions as a different profession
it was the attitudes of everyone involved that brought this about.
to lay the blame at people who AFK is just a lazy way of getting a scapegoat
Large measure means just that -- they contributed a great deal to it. Not solely, perhaps not even in the greatest measure, but still a large contribution.
In my experience, on one server I admit, and on one planet on that server, there was a pattern. Lots of dancers and musicians. Then over time larger and larger hunks of them became LAMErs -- AFK, unresponsive, macroing all the time, in the cantina for hours on end doing this. The people who didn't do this felt like they were in a room with zombies, and got fed up, and either quit or moved on. Again, in my experience, I know no less than nine master musicians, entertainers, and dancers, who have quit performing in public on my server and on my planet, and they all directly blame the LAMErs for it.
Again, read further down in my post. YES -- lack of tips also contributes. People who are active want a reward -- a positive reinforcement if you will --, so if they don't get it they move on. LAMErs don't need a reward, since they're not even at the keyboard to see it and thus it cannot reinforce their behavior -- their reward is (presumably) XP, which is what they are getting via the long-term AFK Macro. YES -- lack of respect contributes. Again, LAMErs don't see it so they can't be offended. Active players see it and leave in a huff (or what have you).
There is a connection here. No tips + no respect = active people leave. Active people leaving = LAMErs are all that's left in cantinas. LAMErs in cantinas = people who come in later and intend to be active get fed up and leave. And after the LAMErs level and they leave too, we end up with an empty cantina. It's all tied together.
So again... LAMErs are not solely responsible for this, but they bear a large measure of the responsibility. Tight-wads who refuse to tip, and combat-wombats and pervs who molest and abuse dancers, also bear a large measure of the responsibility. Which one bears more? Probably it is not worth trying to figure that out because each person who is bothered by these things will have a different "priority" list.
C
I agree with everything you have said..and it wont get any better,,only worse ,,until afk healing is impossible,,deny service only addresses a small part of the problem,,
And even though i dont have a strong opinion about afk dancing and music I think it should be stopped as well,,but afk healing must be stopped and sooner the better
Pippin wrote:
Good god Sinda. I don't know what your trying to do here. Are you trying to get everyone to hate us?
There already is - has been - deep resentment of entertainers. I'm not 'trying to get' anyone to feel anything. If anything, I want SOE to fix the situation so that Entertainers don't completely die off and become the backwater of SWG.
All I see now in the General discussion group is how much people now hate Entertainers. My god!
Where have you been? That's been the case since two days after release.
Ok.. so you don't like AFK... But christ! Your going to cause us to get nerfed but remember one thing... when they nerf us it will go way to drastic.
What is there to nerf? Our mission payouts? The rate of falling for Master Dancers? The animations they slapped together and insulted us with? We're ALREADY nerfed - we have no real purpose in SWG.I'm not happy with that. I want SOE to make us more than eye candy. I don't want dancers and musicians to have to do combat, but there are many other ways to make us more significant to the game structure. I've probably offered my buff idea fifty times as one solution - maybe you MISSED that part?
If you hate this profession so much then please leave!!! Leave now! Sure we have problems. They will be fixed.
Who said I hated the profession? Dancing was my very first love in SWG. It's the only reason I kept my account past the 30 free days. But are you insinuating that I should be happy with the way things are now? Are you telling me YOU are happy with the state of the profession? Pullleeeze. The only way the problems will be fixed is if we become the squeaky wheel and petition SOE to change things - and personally, I think Ravenmist is doing a great job on that end.
That's not all, though. We can also change things by making it known how despised LAMERs are. The last 3 people I've talked to who went AFK for long periods of time had NO idea there was a storm on the boards over it. They had no clue it was that controversial. One didn't care, another one promised to read the boards, and the third one decided she didn't want to be a dancer anymore (clap!).
I think I am going to seek you out and take a screen shot of you as soon as you go AFK.
Lotsa luck, hon. When I pay to play a game, I play. I don't bot. That "Master" over my head was the result of staying at the keyboard and entertaining.
Don't be hatein
Don't be aiming the smack at me, then. Help us fix the profession.
Geddi-Chan, the private cantinas are only a partial solution so far. On Chilastra, we have two flavors of private cantina: the cyber-brothels where players can talk dirty to a dancer for several thousand credits, and the PA halls where occasional parties take place. To date I can think of perhaps one, maybe 2, of the latter that have even been open consistently. I had big hopes pinned on them, myself, but it now looks like until Player Cities are implemented they're just not going to replace the public cantinas in terms of convenience for the adventurer.
Now that I think of it, it's a sad statement on the Dancing profession when there are more - and more successful - cyber-brothels on my server than regular cantinas. Is that what we've been reduced to being?