CUEmu - Thread Posts

Echinacea

Thu Jun 10, 2004 1:36 pm

I can't really add much other than another perspective to all of this, but I think that's important, so I'm typing this even as I think that it's probably never going to make a bit of difference.

The guild entertainer buffbot account with fully modded mind enhance clothing for both Dance and Music is why I dropped what I had of Dance (4-0-4-0) and don't expect to keep Musician much longer. I'm just so stubborn, and I've worked at Musician so hard for so long, it's hard to let go. The guild buffbot was the last straw. I just give up. I can't compete. I can't stand being a pure entertainer, I tried that for a few weeks. Drove me absolutely crazy, doing nothing but enduring the spam in the Coronet cantina and staring at those boring grey walls. So if I'm nota Master Dancer/Musician with +25 taped clothes, people will go to one who is. Or at least a Master Dancer/Musician, not just a Master Musician. And for those whose guilds don't have a buffbot account...there's a public, double-masterbuffbot on Naboo in a Cantina with no cover charge who's on pretty much 23/7. (Not counting daily server downtime.)

I wanted to heal in a fun, different way. I wanted to be able to hang out once in a while and maybe add some atmosphere to the game when I wasn't out engaged in PvE. Most of all, I wanted to add to the game in a unique way that other players needed. The prevalence of buffbots ruined that for me. The mind enhancements are what made me actually Master music, not just have the Knowledge line. But the whole point to me doing that actively, at my keyboard, is gone. I've made some wonderful friends via entertaining that I might not have come across any other way...but ultimately, I think the way the entertaining professions work in this game defeats the stated purpose of the classes. Well, except for Image Designers, because there is NO way to AFK that without a 3rd party macro. But the other 2/3 of entertaining can be done by an NPC...because that's all the AFKers are. NPC emulators. And the reasons for that are directly attributable to two things: 1) we have no direct, active control over who benefits from our services and 2) recursive macroing.

I think any changes that come about for the performing professions will be too little andfar, far, far too late. The buffbots won't care unless it impacts their ability to emulate NPCs, and I don't think SOE will jepordize all those extra account subscriptions.

Y'know the worst thing? I wrote the macros for the guild buffbot to function smoothly, and I make fun of my guildmates who log her in for the first time and can't figure out how to get her to run as smoothly as I can...because I've actually played those professions and know how they work. So...I am my own worst enemy now. I love irony.

But at least I don't park her somewhere public and ruin things for the general population of my server's entertainers.

Col. Tarot v Starsider
Elder Master Entertainer and AXIS M.I.L.F.
Mathom © Starsider
Entertainer

Panthu

Thu Jun 10, 2004 3:58 pm

#28

Echinacea wrote:

Y'know the worst thing? I wrote the macros for the guild buffbot to function smoothly, and I make fun of my guildmates who log her in for the first time and can't figure out how to get her to run as smoothly as I can...because I've actually played those professions and know how they work. So...I am my own worst enemy now. I love irony.

But at least I don't park her somewhere public and ruin things for the general population of my server's entertainers.

Yes... it's a weird spot though, for everybody. It just needs fixed... multi-fixes for all. o.O

Tarot is insanely fun and serves her guild, the public, and other Ents. We just shouldn't be in this position, any of us. Ent Healing needs some mega re-design period. I don't think it's an us against them thing, I think it should be everybody against a goofy system.

P A N T H U Y GlitterUsagi
M i n d B o d y S p i r i t
Dancer ImageDesigner Doc

rebus_ks

Thu Jun 10, 2004 5:25 pm

#29

bawler14 wrote:
In a game where devs have "OK'd" AFK macroing in an effort to curtail use of third party programs and in which second and even third accounts are becoming popular, time is in great supply for many people.

First, allow me a slight rant, and then I'll get to my discussion of the three proposals.

With all due respect to you, Doasa, I believe that the reason that the devs have OKed AFK macroing is that they are lazy, stubborn, and consider themselves to be too busy to fix something that is not game breaking to them. Almost anything can be AFK macroed, including some guy with a big gun camping and looting meatlumps. This is the only online game I've ever heard of where 'playing' AFK was allowed and even tacitly encouraged. There are good reasons for going AFK, and there are good reasons to macro, but there are not good reasons to do both at the same time.

1. Disallow grouping commands in macros, or any command that would prevent or make in considerably difficult to create so called "BuffBots" or at least "BuffBots" who can buff for hours on end. Set up a system to detect looping macro commands and disallow certain commands in looping macros.Yes people could circumvent this with third party software, but cost/benefit is hardly worth it for most people and the game should already have ways of detecting this software.

As a solution to AFK macroing the entertainer professions, this is the solution I like the most. As a programmer, I wish many times that the macroing capabilities of the game were even richer, but I realize that I would be one of the few to actually use such a system properly. When it comes right down to it, there are many commands that probably do not need to be able to be run in a macro, and /join is, perhaps, one of them. Hovever, this point is moot because there is an option box to automatically accept group invitations. Take that away, and you may be on to something.

2. Give Entertainer Buffs a material cost. Furthermore with the introduction of material cost, Entertainers could expirement and make more potent buffs. However, this comes at the cost of continuity and the freedom we've enjoyed of having no or little material investment in out profession.

This is an interesting idea, but I can't see how to make it work in practice, at least not from an RP standpoint.

3. Set up a system that requires orencourages a keyboard presence to buff, similar to what was done in the past to prevent AFK Harvesting. I would love to see an encouragement system that allows for an increase in buff strength/duration in return for ATK presence. Yes, such a system could become burden, just as the harvesting/surveying system has burdened harvestors and surveyors.

The problem with all these approaches that I've seen is that they do too little to fix the problem, and too much to annoy the people who are actually doing it themselves. I've seen many people suggest rewards such as "so and so would like to do flourish 5, press ok for extra xp" but that doesn't do anything to help masters or hinder bots, nor does it help when, and here I speak as a dancer invading your humble musician forum, flourish 5 looks uglier than sin.

Also, the little popup box for sampling does nothing to stop AFK sampling. You can still sample merrily away with the popup sitting on your screen and come back in the morning. All it does is annoy the people who are sampling ATK.

I know that it's probably been proposed many times, but I still favor what I'm going to call solution 4.

4. Hard code the AFK time limit to 15 minutes, say, and make it so that you can not turn the auto-AFK option off. Also, make sure that a macro running does not reset the AFK timer so that this whole solution actually works. Once you go AFK a /dump is run, and you can not get any XP from weapons use (to stop AFK spawn camping).

Yes, there are ways to get around even this, but it would cut down on the number of AFKers tremendously. Saying "we can't stop technically savvy people from still AFKing so we should just let everyone do it," is like saying "we can't stop a burglar from coming in and stealing our fine silver, so we should just leave the door unlocked." And anyone who says that it's their right to play the game however they want can go look in a dictionary to learn what the verb 'to play' means.

I hope some of what I've said is not too out of line, but that's how I've been feeling lately.

Tralmek

Fri Jun 11, 2004 12:06 am

#30

Call me a masochist if you want, but I am on one server or another these professions: Master Dancer, Master Musician, Master Image Designer, Master Artisan, and Master Doctor. (I've mastered virtually every profession and have never AFK macroed it, but these are the primary professions I stick with.) I play these characters often and am familiar with the problems facing each. I can tell you for certain that doctors have no love whatsoever for the AFK healers and will often use buffpacks to go around and buff the AFK tumblers in order to prevent them from further ruining their profession with quickgrinds. The reason you do not see many Docs complaining about AFK buffbots is that the bots figure out that they need to be in a med center with an access fee to make any money. Because of this, there is little to no business taken away from real Doctors who work for their money. Overall the buffbot doctors take away little respect of money from real Doctors.

Does your guild buffbot have an access fee on its cantina? Idoubt it. What prevents someone from coming in and raping your buffbot, getting a free buff? There is nothing to prevent this...therefore, your guildbuffbot is degrading the ability for real entertainers to get money and is also eroding what respect the Entertainment community might still have.

I have learned many things since launch, and while you are correct, Entertaining is primarily a social profession, it is also a job that I take very seriously. My job is to make people leave the cantina feeling a little happier, a little more fulfilled than they did when they came in. A buffbot cannot do this, however if people can continue to treat her like a PEZ dispenser for buffs, they will eventually expect all entertainers to be nothing more than buff dispensers, and they think that all entertainers should be like broken vending machines, giving away our product, our time, and our hard-earned money to them.

-Lilo

Feeling no connection with the Force since 2003
*feels an outer glow*. The HAWT side is with me
Have a question? Read the Stickies!
Remember: Only YOU can prevent forum fires!
Official AFKophobe

Fragpuppie

Fri Jun 11, 2004 12:51 am

#31

OromeRadiant wrote:
player cantinas are useless wastes of lots if they aren't serving their purpose... namely healing and buffing visitors.

Which brings up the question as to player med centers....I've never seen a single person in one.

buffbots are about the only way, short of a serious and costly gig-hiring scenario that player cantinas will ever be of any use.

Which is one of our many complaints also.

Also, you questioned whether or not she actually is 'playing' the game. When she's online, she decorates, stocks vendors, chats, etc... she's even been known to accompany major base assaults/defenses. The fact that she provides a service while not at the keyboard is actually very analogous to how vendors work.

I'm glad she is an active member of the community, and is an active member of the entertaining profession when she is ATK. But AFK performing is not active. Listen I don't flame AFKers, I don't even ignore some of the marginal ones in Coronet and theed. I always train em when they come atk for that once a day. HOWEVER I'm not happy to see em.

Would you suggest that crafters who only log on to fire up factories, restock vendors, then log off again are not 'playing?' Should their vendors 'swith off' when the player logs out?

I'm not suggesting that, however there are functions that are intended to be done at the keyboard. Healing, crafting, killing, sampling (not mining), harvesting. Lemme go out on a limb here....and put in a big disclaimer that this is my opinion. The SPIRIT of the game is for a person to play the game at the keyboard, doing all your stuff and interacting with others. AFK defeats that purpose be it buffing or just standing and spamming at a spaceport. The dev team goes back and forth on it and will do whatever they damn well want nomatter what you or I think, and probably break more than they fix in the process. The fact that you can afk combat was the final straw for them I think. They have stated that AFK play was not intended, and yes we are fixating on the one element that affects us the most.

Her macro stays fine-tuned, with entertaining emotes, informative messages, etc. She is an officer in our guild, a city militia member, and is active on our guild forums. She is very much 'playing' this game just like everyone else. She just happens to be using the same tools as those annoying afk'ers in npc cantinas, so you all feel she is open for vilification too. Sorry, but you guys need to think about it some more, and get off the high horse of "we're the only ones playing the game as intended, and alternate playing styles should be banned."

If we are on a high horse, its that we are trying to fill ALL the aspects of our profession when our characters are online, to heal, to buff and TO ENTERTAIN. I have not be entertained by someone AFK, and don't think I would ever be, but I am open to be suprised if someone can do it. I still contend that AFK is not "playing" you are not "playing" simply because you pay your monthly fee. When you are atk you play, when AFK you are not. I never think that someone isALWAYS afk, so yes, by definition they are "playing" when atk, but you just aren't when AFK

I hold no love for afk'ers in npc cantinas. If they're grinding exp, fine, let them group up, then they should banish themselves to a back room before going afk, and lay off the spam.

If only they would.

If they're in it for the profit and are hoping to steal audience members from live performers, I'd say that's selfish and unethical. If, however, they took their afk butts out of there, and performed out where there were no entertainers, consequently making less profit, I'd say they were providing a valuable service that is generally not being provided given our galaxy's current population distribution. And the sacrifice of not making as much money in exchange for helping out other players should be respected.

FYI, Its not black and white for me. I mean, I don't like afk play in general, but I do see the benefits that afk in remote locations provides. It doesn't make me use em, but i see why they afk. I just despise the afking in the npc cities more. And.....aroo? "Sacrifice of not making as much money in exchange for helping out other players should be respected"???? How can it be a scarifice if they are NOT THERE. To sacrifice you have to give up something and an afk bot has nothing but hopes. A hope that someone will listen to them, a hope that they will get tipped, a hope that the server doesn't crash. I respect their choice to afk as it is semi-condoned in the current system, but the only way I can respect a decision to go to a cantina out of the way is that they will not be a nuissance in the entertainement hubs anymore.

And on the 'convinience factor'... I never said it SHOULD be convenient, but when someone tries to make it convenient, why must they be scorned? Are you saying it SHOULD NOT be convenient? Is that the driving force of the ATK zealots? INconvenience? Also, regarding medical convenience, there are doctor buffbots, too. I also don't have any issues with them. Honestly, I don't see as much outcry from the doctor community regarding afk'ers as I do from the entertainers, and I still think the reason is the spam pollution in the npc cantinas and the spillover of generalized, mis-placed hatred for all things afk.

No we don't want inconvienience, blame the devs for that one. I'm just saying that convienience is the battle cry of the afker, and they always bring up people who say that its soooooo hard to get to Coronet to get healed so they are so happy to have an AFK entertainer in a player city. Fine......put in an AFK medic to heal my wounds also and if the entertainer also buffs, make it a doc doing them also. Fact is tho that medics do NOT afk heal in this fashion and tho there are AFK doc Buffbots, I have yet to see one on my server. I can't count the number of afk Buffbot entertainers I've seen. Lets call it lots. True, there are fundamental differences between medic and entertainer in terms of method of healing, ease of macroing, resource usage, etc., however we both heal. Why is it that people EXPECT us to be convienient to them and doing it 24/7 and only to want to do 2/3 of our job. We must be the only ones who care about entertaining.

I too am hoping that the ending of the misguided hologrind will put a damper on the large numbers of 'master fast as you can' afk-ers you guys have to cope with in those crowded little cantinas you guys seem to love so much

The cantinas are our homes, its where we do the craft of our profession. Artisans can work alone at home, combat professions in the field. We live in the cantina. And its been like our crazy loud uncle Walter who never shuts up has moved in and brought all his friends from his support group. Its just not home atm.

Fragpuppie Uber
Master Entertainer, Master Musician
Guild Leader - Performer United Professional Society (PUPS)
Band Leader and Booking Agent - Frag's Puppies
President and CEO - Fragpuppie Enterprises and Uber Instruments
Coronet, Corellia, Chilastra

Shaizann

Fri Jun 11, 2004 9:19 am

#32

First, I'd like to say that no matter what system is implemented there are people that will find a way to afk even if it's with EULA violating 3rd Party software. Dranon is right, we can discourage the lazy/not savvyafk players, but not all of them.

Second, I have an idea to incorperate material resource usage into our buff process and have it make sense from an RP perspective. This is mainly anidea to fixour self buffing quandary and buff botting, but If the Devs want to make the arugument we pay nothing but time to buff patronstherefore it's ok tonot have self-buffs and buff bots then mabye we need to suggest a material to use. I think this idea can also be extended to help add another hinderence afk playing. Here is my idea:

The Musical Techniques line provides us with the the colored lights/dazzle/spotlight etc. effects. Presently these effects are not necessary to do for buff enhancement and functionally do nothing except help enhance performance aestetics. I always thought it was odd that I can make a colored light flash over my head simply by willing it into existence. Mabye a device could be created (e.g. Performance Effects Modulator) that you could only use if you had Novice Musician. Yes this would neciesitate adding a simple light effect to Novice Musician, but that's not a bad idea. This device would be the place from which the colored lights come from. This device could run on batteries or some other resource. Say, you need to load your Modulator with flash powder to get the /dazzle effect to go off, for example.

Now, Shailas, you say, how does this affect buffing? Well the Techniques line also directly impacts how well we buff people. So, I suggest modifying the buff process to include the needto do some of light effects (that necesitate a resource loaded modulator)in addition to the flourishes are needed now. This provides a plausible (to me anyway) RP reason to cost us resources to do our buffing. Such a cost seems to be something that the Devs really want to see to legitimize us self-buffing. In addition, it will would be desireable to make use of the Performance Effects Modulator not possible to be marcroed. Mabye put a small countdown to /dazzle like the ID countdown window or something.

Anyway, those are my two credits on the matter.

Shailas V. Zann
Elder Grand Master Entertainer

"Guess what!?! I gotta fever!....And the only prescription is more cowbell."

Shaizann

Fri Jun 11, 2004 9:20 am

#33

First, I'd like to say that no matter what system is implemented there are people that will find a way to afk even if it's with EULA violating 3rd Party software. Dranon is right, we can discourage the lazy/not savvyafk players, but not all of them.

Second, I have an idea to incorperate material resource usage into our buff process and have it make sense from an RP perspective. This is mainly anidea to fixour self buffing quandary and buff botting, but If the Devs want to make the arugument we pay nothing but time to buff patronstherefore it's ok tonot have self-buffs and buff bots then mabye we need to suggest a material to use. I think this idea can also be extended to help add another hinderence afk playing. Here is my idea:

The Musical Techniques line provides us with the the colored lights/dazzle/spotlight etc. effects. Presently these effects are not necessary to do for buff enhancement and functionally do nothing except help enhance performance aestetics. I always thought it was odd that I can make a colored light flash over my head simply by willing it into existence. Mabye a device could be created (e.g. Performance Effects Modulator) that you could only use if you had Novice Musician. Yes this would neciesitate adding a simple light effect to Novice Musician, but that's not a bad idea. This device would be the place from which the colored lights come from. This device could run on batteries or some other resource. Say, you need to load your Modulator with flash powder to get the /dazzle effect to go off, for example.

Now, Shailas, you say, how does this affect buffing? Well the Techniques line also directly impacts how well we buff people. So, I suggest modifying the buff process to include the needto do some of light effects (that necesitate a resource loaded modulator)in addition to the flourishes are needed now. This provides a plausible (to me anyway) RP reason to cost us resources to do our buffing. Such a cost seems to be something that the Devs really want to see to legitimize us self-buffing. In addition, it will would be desireable to make use of the Performance Effects Modulator not possible to be marcroed. Mabye put a small countdown to /dazzle like the ID countdown window or something.

Anyway, those are my two credits on the matter.

Shailas V. Zann
Elder Grand Master Entertainer

"Guess what!?! I gotta fever!....And the only prescription is more cowbell."

Shaizann

Fri Jun 11, 2004 9:22 am

#34

Ack!, sorry for the double post...

Shailas V. Zann
Elder Grand Master Entertainer

"Guess what!?! I gotta fever!....And the only prescription is more cowbell."

Landlubber

Fri Jun 11, 2004 11:44 am

#35

Tralmek wrote:

...however if people can continue to treat her like a PEZ dispenser for buffs, they will eventually expect all entertainers to be nothing more than buff dispensers, and they think that all entertainers should be like broken vending machines, giving away our product, our time, and our hard-earned money to them.

-Lilo

One of the major problem from my point of view is that this has already happened. I'm afraid that this is exactly how a large share of the playerbase sees us.

______________________________________________________
The Ti'lya Brothers: Ailar (Entertainer/Chimaera, DG Trader/Bria),
Klofi (Smuggler/Chimaera) -- Cancelled,
"You have a right to be upset. Anyone who is attached to any profession that doesn't get a lot of new content has a right to be upset." -- HanseSOE
______________________________________________________
Raph Koster on: "SWG: What went wrong?"

NewJedi

Fri Jun 11, 2004 4:10 pm

#36

If the devs removed the macro function from the game and clamped down on EULA violators who use third-party macros, there would certainly be a few cheaters, but nothing like the avalanche of AFK'ing we see now. As someone said, SWG is the only MMORPG I'm aware of that actually encourages AFK play. To me, it's truly bizarre. If the stupid macro function weren't in the game, there would be immense pressure on them to fix the interface, to add content, to make the game more friendly for at-the-keyboard play. The macro is an easy way out for them, just as it is for AFKers. I hate it.

bawler14

Fri Jun 11, 2004 5:08 pm

#37

The devs have already stated they will not remove Macroing... I believe instead of fighting against macroing... which also has advantages for ATK players... we should fight for more selective macroing... or a stricter AFK policy and detection as Dranon brought up... The devs won't remove macroing... but there are other ways to prevent ENT from becoming synomous with AFK. We need to find these avenues and attack them in force... We've gone after macroing before... and in my mind we have found it to be a dead end street...

                        /  \/  \                           
                       /| 0 0 | \                          
+----------------.oooO--|  /  | --Oooo.-------------------+ 
| Doasa Arsim            \_-_/       Events Coordinator   | 
| Master Musician    .oooO   Oooo.   Master Entertainer   | 
| Fifth River Cantina(   )   (   )   Four Rivers, Correlia| 
+---------------------\ (-----) /-------------------------+ 
                       \_)   (_/

NewJedi

Sat Jun 12, 2004 7:50 am

#38

They may not remove the entire macro function (which would be my personal preference), but I can't for the life of me understand why they want to allow recursive macros. How in the world do those make SWG a better game?

As it happens, just last night I asked them why they don't abolish the macro, or at least the recursive feature. It will be interesting to see what response I get.

Landlubber

Sat Jun 12, 2004 8:46 am

#39

Hmm, removingmacroing completely would just about kill any band performances. Am I supposed to type in all song lyrics and bandflourishes manually each time my band is performing a particular song?

You get my meaning - the macro function does have it's advantages. Recursive macroes now, that's something else. My song macroes consist of a series of aliases which call each other, so if the ability to call another macro would be removed, it would hit me as well, but then I'd justneed to have all my commands in one alias. Not very pretty, and even less readable or easy to maintain, but at least it wouldn't completely kill bands...

______________________________________________________
The Ti'lya Brothers: Ailar (Entertainer/Chimaera, DG Trader/Bria),
Klofi (Smuggler/Chimaera) -- Cancelled,
"You have a right to be upset. Anyone who is attached to any profession that doesn't get a lot of new content has a right to be upset." -- HanseSOE
______________________________________________________
Raph Koster on: "SWG: What went wrong?"

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