Dancer Archive
Thread: Dancer Inspirations for Chefs, Tailors, BEs, Merchants, IDs, and Musicians
Petronela wrote:
Panthu wrote:
I think Scip said he asked about getting it switched to Songs instead of Instruments.
Now that would be totally sweet and I know I would force-feed the buff on every newbie playing SW1, like it or not they will get buffed
Hold still newbie, joo ARE getting buffed and no crying about it!
Starwars 1 sounds actually not bad, if its not played unflourished on a slitherhorn.
So buffing them and giving them a Fizz works too
TinuviielSatura wrote:
I still say it's not fair that Musicians get both Weaponsmith AND Armorsmith..
I don't think it's fair to ask Crafters to now have to go to not just one Ent, but two when before they didn't have to use us at all.
It's a fact that AS/WS is a more common template than AS/Tailor. Yes, there are AS/Tailors, but it's just not as common. Chef/Tailor/BE/Merchant/ID are commonly found together in the same template - just as all the engineering lines Musicians got for their set are commonly found together.
This way it encourages crafters to build a personal businessrelationship with one Ent in particular which is how the crafting profs work within their own circles.
If we are going to be split up in our offerings, I think this is the fairest way to do it for all involved.
So crafter gets WS buff and builds weapons and now he wants to build armors he has to go back to get the AS buff anyway.
Its just slightly unfair that Musicians have 4 Professions who really profit from all parts of the buff, and one who does for some producst (architects with harvesters), while Dancers have Chefs and BEs, and the other 3 professions are basicly "hm, what else to give the Dancers so it doesn't look too empty" professions.
Tailor don't profit from it at all (ignoring the XP part during grinding).
IDs... well 50 instead of 20 charges are fine, but well... not really necessary or anything at all.
Merchants... As tedious as it is to move stuff from one vendor to another I doubt many people will get this buff very often since its only useful if you want to plant a new vendor.
First of all, the general buff is not the only one that is passive.
They all are passive. Its just some are more complicated for patrons to receive than others, and that's just the truth of the matter.
We cannot give these any more or less than we could give BF healing.
But I think the more important question is, is this new paradigm sufficient to give us something to do whenever we log on?
It used to be I could enter any cantina where players were at, at any time of the day, and have an audience that I could entertain. I won't have that anymore, and that is why I cannot see myself being a dancer.
These new things we do are very specialized. They only are of use for small segments of the playerbase, and are only useful for very particular functions of those segments. It is certainly nothing of universal import.
And since there is no way to really estimate how many players need the very specific things we can offer at a given time, it seems to me that I just can't "log on and play." I have to wait until I am needed, since I no longer will have any capacity to go where I know there is always aneed.
The problem is, why should a crafter send a /tell to me, if they don't even know who I am? And how can the crafter ever know who I am, if I am too busy out and about trying to pay the maitenance pool?
Moreover, why should a crafter even care about going to the cantina, when they can just call a guild member with a second account, get the dancer on to buff them in their house, then log the dancer off? Unlike the mission terminals that are in the city, the crafter's means of production are in the home. And I am not even saying that this is wrong for them to do. But I have no other game other than this one they have dealt us, and I have no way to tell who needs me, where, and for reasons that have anything remotely to do with wanting to watch a work of performance art.
Which gets us accused of the same sorts of things we were always accused of with the combat folk, of not being where we were needed, when they needed us. But unlike the combatants, the accusation will be true with respect to their needs. We can't be at the workshop, just waiting for the owner to need us. They are far too many workshops, far too little time is spent actually designing schematics in them, and they do not lend themselves naturally to being "performance places."
Message Edited by PoetDancer on 08-27-2005 01:35 PM
Panthu wrote:
We should start another one called "What now? The other stuff we need!" or something instead of hogging this thread.
Okee, I did that instead of replying here.
PoetDancer wrote:
But I think the more important question is, is this new paradigm sufficient to give us something to do whenever we log on?
No, but neither were BF, Wound Healing, and Buffing when we did it for the combat folks. There has been a paradigm shift towards "social" and "non-combat" away from the old "useful to combat", "support", or "healer" as roles for us.
That's a good thing though - we were never allowed to take part in the combat cycle to the extent that we desired. There was the whole issue of how much involvement would start pushing us into bard territory and with crafters and other non-combatants as our intended patrons, we won't have that issue at all (thank gawd).
Another area of service many of us think we should expand into is Event Support. Again, very unbardlike and very open to expansion. Even this though would not give us a full time activity. No service will ever give us a full time activity.
PvE is a full time activity. Other profs that provide services instead of finished goods as part of their role (Rangers - creature harvesting, Docs - downtime Healing, Buffing, Smuggs - Slicing, SLs - uptime Buffing, CMs - uptime healing) all take part in the PvE combat system on their own outside of their service offerings.
Crafters imitate an active system much like the combat PvE system by having ongoing activities beyond just the actual action of crafting. While mining and creature harvesting are part of the crafting cycle in most games, no other game has such an elaborate set up for this like SWG. I admit it still needs some additions and enhancements to fully equal combat PvE play as an option, but it is a more full concurrent system than any other game with combat has ever tried to offer.
Ent has no concurrent activity system to imitate combat PvE activities at all... and that is what we will always want and need. We aren't totally alone here, Politicians and Merchants are some what in the same boat. Pilots have their own system with space, so there is no reason why what I've come to think of as "city professionals" (Ents, Pols, and Merchants) couldn't have a fourth concurrent system to go along with the already existing ground PvE,crafting, and space.
This isn'treally the right thread for this though. We should start another one called "What now? The other stuff we need!" or something instead of hogging this thread. 
It was really meant for Chefs, Tailors, BEs, Merchants, IDs, and Musicians to talk about their needs and wants with these new buffs. Not for us to talk about the other stuff we need that these buffs can't be expected to provide for us in gameplay.
MeciniaLua wrote:
If your a Master Merchant, does the +20 hiring help ? If so what does it do?
Unless they add more vendor styles because of these buffs (rather unlikely I think) the hiring bonus will have no effect for master merchants.