Dancer Archive
Thread: A tip for those dancers in the dumps about this profession
Agmar wrote:
I see it being said on these boards all the time but it is true I am on my way to Novice BH and after getting owned by aggro mobs when I go to the Cantina I want to enjoy myself, not sit and watch a AFK dancer repeat the same move over and over, I mean you can't expect to be tiped for that. Talk to use impress us look nice(no underwear). Because belive me when I see good dancers I tip well.
Viennt Striffe
Marksman 2/4/4/4
Scout 4/3/4/3
Eclipse
Thank you for your point of view Agmar.
It has reinforced the style I want to play.
Ok bottom line here
Regardless of whether or not i "give" a better service or not fact of the matter remains
Social interaction = more tips.
Beery although your point may be valid in an ideal world the fact of the matter is its not valid here.
You interact you get tips, you don't you don't.
What don't you comprehend about that?
And for the record i am a master dancer have been for a long time now and i refuse to give over my cantina to the afk macrotainers. I do everything in my power to make sure they get just what they deserve. NOTHING.
Ceta
Bloodfin
"Beery, your leaps of logic truly astound me in their discombobulating manner."
Nice use of the ad hominem attack. I don't usually read further when confronted by one, so I missed the rest of your post. Please attempt not to attack me personally if you trulywant to engage in honest andmeaningfuldebate.
Kuildeous said:
"You clearly view your role as a healer with entertainment secondary.
I view my role as an entertainer with healing secondary."
I consider myself as the second type as well. I realize that the mechanics of the game do not fully support this but I consider (from a role-play perspective) entertainment to be my job and healing to be a side effect of me doing my job well. This works better for me because in my mind if I accept that healing happens spontaneously as I dance then it must be some mystical or magical occurrance. I much prefer to think that if I entertain my audience well, which includes dance and interaction, then they will be healed of their mind wounds and battle fatigue, and who knows, they may even show their appreciation. 
Iwen
Kuildeous wrote:You clearly view your role as a healer with entertainment secondary.
I view my role as an entertainer with healing secondary.
I agree with Kuildeous.
If you are dancing in the theater up on stage, then yes, social interaction and chatting are not appropriate.
But in the cantina -- given its layout, and given the role of the dancers -- it is entirely reasonable to do it and it does not run counter to "roleplaying" to chat with the customers.
The bottom line is that by now, all the patrons have seen all the different types of dance animations by now. That's right, all of them. You and I may combine our flourishes in different ways but we are doing the same 8 flourishes per dance. The patrons have seen them all. So just watching my toon animate is NOT going to be very entertaining to the player (even though, from a RP perspective, it may be to his character, which is why his BF is going down no matter what).
While players should definitely give some tips just for services rendered, in general tipping is also related to how well that service was performed. Players who are healing are often NOT socializers and some of them really don't even like the necessity of being in the cantina to be healed. They'd rather stay out in the field. So their opinion is that if they are going to have to come back to the cantina they either will go AFK while healing (in which case how you act is irrelevent) or they want something to relieve the boredom. In my cantina it is like a party atmosphere most nights. Jokes are exchanged; everyone has a good time; there are lots of LOLs even from the non-RPer/non-Social types. We've even gotten compliments for making the down time as pleasant as possible (and tips to go with the compliments).
If you're just going to RP a sullen, silent dancer then you may get a few tips from people due to the SERVICE, but you won't get anything like what you would have gotten if you RPed a nice, cheerful type of person who was engaging with the patrons and made the down time interesting to the player sitting at the keyboard.
Always, always in an online game, you must remember that there is someone else at the other end of that toon you are dancing for. And even if he is a good RPer (and my experience indicates that the majority of people in the game are NOT, and you just need to come to terms with that), he can't help but want to thank you more if he, the player, had a good time.
C
Waho wrote:
Beery, I think it is up to the patrons to tell you what will give you better tips. You are no doubt an excellent dancer, but if a patron wants to chat saying he will tip more, then either don't worry about the amount, or chat him up.
I agree Wemi, I only started my entertainer at the end of August so I don't have all of the answers for the entertainer thing, butBerry, I have noticed that if I greet alot of them, ask them how the hunt goes and also how they were so wounded, I seem to get better tips. Alot of people want the interaction not someone there just dancing and not saying a word. I don't know how it is on the server you play on, but Wemi and I both play on Kettemoor and tell me if I'm wrong Wemi, but I think this is what everyone wants. They're getting tired of the AFK thing, the bots patrolling saying 'tiptheentertainer' and those are the ones who are giving entertainers a bad name. I am 8 boxes away from master dancer and was never away from the keyboard at any of the time except for usual breaks (drinks, snacks, bio) and hopefully I'm getting a good name for myself. This we shall see in the future though.
Beery wrote:
"Beery, your leaps of logic truly astound me in their discombobulating manner."
Nice use of the ad hominem attack. I don't usually read further when confronted by one, so I missed the rest of your post. Please attempt not to attack me personally if you trulywant to engage in honest andmeaningfuldebate.
No attack there. It was an honest statement. Your own ad hominem argument (asking if I seriously am saying something that I'm not) baffled me entirely. Perhaps I'm just reeling from the compelling argument that the Taliban has truly won since we cannot look like nude Barbie dolls. I don't know.
I took the time to read your post even though you decided to attack something I never even implied. The least you can do is read my rebuttal. Or perhaps you have read the rebuttal and just don't want to admit the basic truth that I stated. I'll state it again:
YOU CAN RP A CHATTY DANCER.
YOU CAN RP A SILENT DANCER.
BOTH METHODS ARE GOOD ROLE-PLAYING.
But if it makes you feel better being the martyr by insisting that your play style is the only way to play, then go have fun. I'll still try to sift through your logic to find the good points (because you have had some even when you're rambling about the Taliban), but you're really losing your audience here. It's becoming more and more difficult to consider your arguments compelling when you go off on tangents like you've been doing lately.
) when i need to heal i want to watch a dancer that entertains me. i don't care if they're a master or just started an hour ago.
Hmmm. Thinking about this it seems that often tips are given out of character in a non-roleplayed manner. If you say that the player is bored watching the same 8 florishes and thus won't appreciate it as entertainment but instead expects to be chatted up to tip... then how about considering how her character feels? I mean, if you roleplay, then the character should tip and not you as the player should do. For the character watching the performance *is* entertaining and you as the player can watch your character's reaction by observing the BF bar.
Of course this is all theoretical. I think if I'd not be a dancer but a client I'd tip a small basic tip for the healing and a potentially huge extra tip for special performance or friendly service when appropriate :-)
They could completely remove all healing skills to dancing and I'd still be a dancer. The healing line to me is incongruous and adds nothing to the entertainer's value.
I enjoy the nod by the developers though to the mind wounds healing and thought it was a clever inclusion to make entertainers fit in a combat modelled universe. I absolutely disagree that a tip should be dependent on how fast someone gets healed. To me that reduces to zero any part of the "entertaining" aspect of our profession. It means we shouldn't need to be creative, we shouldn't need to be conscientious, we shouldn't need to be present, we shouldn't need to be social, and we shouldn't need to be entertaining. Well that reduces us to a narrow field mind heal bot and I'd give up the profession if I thought that was the purpose of it. Patrons will tip for whatever they want. Some out of guilt, some out of time, some for healing and some for how we look, how we make them feel and how we entertain. If you can appeal to ALL of those then you'll get some money almost all of the time.
Beery you can say such things to a patron, but do not use the royal "we" or generalization of 'you should tip all entertainers based on healing'. Give your opinions as "your opinion" only please. I think you'll find that attitude discouraging to a lot of dancers who come to socialize and think of things like gigs and bands and parties and entertainment as integral to how they see the profession.
Anshe_ says: "I mean, if you roleplay, then the character should tip and not you as the player should do. For the character watching the performance *is* entertaining and you as the player can watch your character's reaction by observing the BF bar."
You are right of course, to the character (not the player) watching a dance performance with the same 8 flourishes perfomed over and over should be entertaining. In fact, watching a dancer perform a single flourish over and over should be entertaining, right?
But even to the character, isn't watching 8 flourishes going to me more entertaining than watching just one? Isn't watching a choreographed piece going to be more entertaining to the character than one that is not?
And isn't an act that includes funny banter and interaction with the patrons going to be more entertaining than an act performed by mute dancers? Or an act where the dancers have interesting costumes rather than street clothes?
In my opinion all of the above contribute to the entertainment value as seen be the character, and is the character appreciates these things then perhaps she, or he, will tip accordingly. I don't see anything out of character about that at all.
Iwen
Beery wrote:
[.snip..]
if I refuse to chat with you because I'm roleplaying (real dancers don't usually talk while they're performing)
[.snip..]
I agree that dancers don't typically converse with patrons while dancing. However, I have found that smiles, winks, and other similiar simple gestures are very effective at letting the patron know that you are not simply a dancing robot and that your goal is to heal and entertain. When I started being a bit more interactive with smiles and such, I discovered that I not only bring in tips, but make my job a bit more lively. Honestly, not everyone that comes in and starts to watch a dancer will respond the same to a wink or a smile. Sometimes it takes a little investigation or trial and error to get someone to respond and enjoy the entertaining process and not everyone that comes in and watches is going to tip or even acknowledge that you are helping them out.
My point was, that you can still rp your profession as a dancer, or at least from my point of view you can, without talking, but by using social emotes and such. I know that eye contact is a big factor in RL entertainment, and of course, thats not really possible with emotes, so stuff like smiles and winks helps. When I go into a cantina to get my BF and mind healed up, I prefer to patronize entertainers who somehow acknowledge my presence (if the place is packed, of course I understand thats not possible) and seem to be doing more than just running a macro. If my mind is hurt and needs healin, a smile goes a long way.
I might be a crappy RPer, but I do always always always try to send everyone that tips me a /tell thanking them personally. Thats one case where I feel the need to talk, but I think using the /thank would be suffiencient for people too. This is just a personal preference.
All that said, I should probably tack on a warning about how some patrons seem to think that a smile means you want to start a relationship with them or go cyber... This happens, but it seems like this happens even without the gestures too. I got hit on plenty before I started smiling at folks. Its probably just unavoidable, and any discussion of it warrants a new thread anyway....