Dancer Archive
Thread: A Moral Question About AFK'ing
*shrug* Sif's responses seem on-target enough. The poster to which Sif replies seemed pretty clear in stating why the actions bothered her. None of them seem to have anything to do with AFK, aside from perhaps her own distaste for the notion of AFK.
As to macroing, that's the type of macroing I support. I go to Rori right before I log for the night. Nobody is entertaining in the cantina. I set up my macro and have at it. My macros do not spam any text whatsoever.
Rori. This is a sort-of adventure world that costs the same as any other world to get to. The Rebel Base is usually filled with people with mind wounds waiting for me to show up.
Yet to ATK entertainers are ever there. Why not?
Chessak:
/report NancyB
Given the state of Customer Support in this game, I expect you'll have to do that over and over again for 2+ hours, but they will fix it eventually.
Entertaining is a non-competitive business. The people I know do it for fun and I have never met an entertainer that was greedy or envious of people getting more tips. Contrary to all other exploits, if the next entertainer reaches a skilllevel that allows him to play a higher song with me, or dance a higher dance with me, I should be happy about his progress. That said, what you do in your private home or PA hall does not concern me.
What concerns me because it directly affects my own gameplay:
People in cantinas stand all in the middle of the dancefloor, like a huge mess of puppets who have been put there without consideration. Entertaining means forming a band or dance troupe. Band flourishes. Fun. It's not everyones style. But those who are there have a hard time putting up a real performance, because they have no space. If you ask people if they mind moving out of the way for a syncron performance of 6 or more people, those online will be excited and move or ask to be included. The other half, the Macrotainers,will remain, clutter the floor and make any performance impossible. If they were there and just not willing, that would piss me off, but it's a public place where they can do as they wish. But those people are ruining good gameplay because of their inconsideration because they want to gain xp and risk alienating their fellow entertainers. Public performances may not be everyones style. But I will not let anyone tell me to change my style when those that hinder me are cheating, inconsiderate egoistic Macrotainers. We can discuss style. We cannot discuss harassment.
( The syncron performances is stuff many people in retail have never seen. Before macrotaining, it was a common sight and fun for both dancers and audience even if it was basic )
I need training as much as the next entertainer. I cannot get training from Macrotainers as they aren't there to train. However, they think I should train them for free anytime they ask.
Macrotainers make people think the title of Dancer, Entertainer or Musician basically means you are a lazy bum parking your bot in the cantina while you are away. Entertainer is not in demand because you can get the services in most cantinas for free from a Macrotainer, who you don't need to tip because he will never know you were there in the first place.
Cantinas are meant to be hives of activity, crowded places of socialization. As it is, it's crowded with silent unmoving people. Walk into a cantina. Did anyone greet you ? If so, you have just met a live entertainer, congratulations. If not, don't you think that atmosphere is a bit frosty for 20 people to hang out ? I have had friendlier welcomes from Stormtrooper partols.
I can afford to take the chance -- I have enough money. But not EVERYONE can afford to take that chance.
I'm planning to go back to Rori occasionally. Everyone was quite nice and they tipped pretty well. I also spent a lot of time by myself, but it just so happened I was trying to write a nice song in SW2 so I didn't mind it much. When people came in for healing I switched to dance because I'm better at healing with dance than music. They seemed to appreciate that.
So at least one of us has been there and plans to go back. Can't speak for anyone else.
C
Klortho wrote:
Because when people like you setup your bot to do the healing in the Cantina it does not pay for us to go since people can go into the cantina and get *free* healing from you and when we show up, they run in get healed and run out without so much as a "thank you" or a /tip or anything. Some of these planets can cost up to 3-4k to goto and why go if there is not any satisfaction to the ones who sit at the keyboard. Some of these missions can pay up to 25k and the people are too stingy to at least make up what I had to pay out of my own pocket to go.
I certainly can't speak for all macro's, but if there's an ATK there, I either move on or log out. I believe that if the concientious macroers see a pattern of ATK in those spots over time, you'll see less AFK entertainers there.
And I certainly can't speak for why adventurers do what they do. Some tip well, some don't. Same as in Theed, but with greater variance in the tip amount.
If you're telling me the problem with AFK is that they're bot-healing on planets you won't go to (for whatever reason), I have no sympathy for you. You can fix that problem yourself.
If you're telling me that the problem with AFK is the retarded ones who stand mid-floor and spam constantly, there I agree. But that's not a problem with AFK. It 's a problem with the behavior of the person controlling the character that would manifest itself whether or not they were at the keyboard.
"If you're telling me that the problem with AFK is the retarded ones who stand mid-floor and spam constantly, there I agree. But that's not a problem with AFK."
Sure it is. If they were at the keyboard you could at least ask them to move.
"If you're telling me that the problem with AFK is the retarded ones who stand mid-floor and spam constantly, there I agree. But that's not a problem with AFK."
Sure it is. If they were at the keyboard you could at least ask them to move.
what planet are you from? i'd like to go there.
seriously, that's doesn't really work. usually either the person has no capacity to grasp what they are doing is assinine, or they know the what they are doing is assinine and they don't care to listen. personally i think the majority fall in the former category. alot of people don't really consider the fact that they are playing the game with other people, or just plain aren't very good at playinggames with other people and see the world they are in with blinders on.
go for a drive downtown at 4:45pm today and you'll see exactly what i mean. it's just the way people are. you are always going to have people standing in a gathering spot spamming "PLZ INVITE" 1000 times. there will always be people in a rush, always be people who lag the group behind... it's just the way it is.
1. Find an out of the way tavern/cantina. If you MUST AFK in Coronet, go hide in the back; you're stealing healing xp from the entire ATK entertainer group if you don't.
2. Stand in an out-of-the-way, but visible spot (NOT up front/in the middle) in your out-of-the-way cantina, and don't use one of those dances that runs you all over the place.
3. Always have a /join macro, too... Nothing is more annoying than being ATK and getting deprived of the elusive healing xp because someone is watching the wrong dancer.
4. Don't /say or /shout anything in your macro, ever. If you ask for tips, you should be shot.
5. Don't AFK for extended periods during primetime when it's likely other entertainers will show up unless you're hiding off by yourself.
I often AFK all day while I'm at work on remote planets... most of the people that I see in the evenings are glad I was there.
Incase you still don't understand, I'm doing this for fun, that's why you find me sometimes playing SW1 on a mando when I know that Jazz on the Ommni will more then double the experience I get. I don't care how fast I get to master, I care about having fun, you cannot have fun with a 24/7 unattended macro.
actually i had alot of fun with it. so... i guess it's a stalemate? **edit**, except Jeassa said afk macroing is ok... oh crap and the afkers outnumber the atkers.
you know what, by that logic, you atkers are really cramping my style with all your in and out of game whining and tip nazi antics. i think they should get rid of atk dancing alt
of course i am not serious, but i wanted to let you know how utterly rediculous your arguement is. you are not more important than me, and vice versa. you do have tools to ignore me though, like i have tools to ignore you. and the question of tips? heh. go ahead and whine. if you haven't figured out how to be stinking rich in this game with only a few minutes of work.... well i'm not sure there is any help for you. i personally don't care if a person ever tips me again.
now the question of not being able to roleplay because an afker is stealing your business.... what about if another atker was there? they'd be stealing your business too right? oh yeah but they can watch the afker for free is your point... back to the tips. lol.
Don't group with me if you intend to macro, go in the side room or whatever, I like to play the audience and they like it when I do that. I cannot do that if the robots that grouped with me don't respond. And from experience I learned it's bad for me to group with a AFK bot, I won't explain why since I allready wasted a big post on it which you don't understand, so I doubt you will ever understand this.
Alot of people allready think of us as a joke, a waste of server bandwidth and want to see us replaced with NPC's completely since that is the same as a AFK bot, no not the same, the NPC's are more interactive...
Incase you still don't understand, I'm doing this for fun, that's why you find me sometimes playing SW1 on a mando when I know that Jazz on the Ommni will more then double the experience I get. I don't care how fast I get to master, I care about having fun, you cannot have fun with a 24/7 unattended macro.
meeuki wrote:Sure it is. If they were at the keyboard you could at least ask them to move.
what planet are you from? i'd like to go there.
seriously, that's doesn't really work.
Must be a lot of jerks in your cantina, Meeuki... And at-keyboard ones at that. Yuck.
I have never, not ever, not once, in 3.5 months of dancing, been in a situation where a crowded dance floor was a problem with any at keyboard individuals. Almost always, when they crowd me they say someting along the lines of, "Ooops, sorry" and either move, or switch to a less "roaming" dance. When the band size in Keren got up to 12 active people one night, Sry, the leader, stopped and said, "OK, we need to organize. Musicians over by the bar... Dancers break up into three equal groups on each side and in the center... everyone switch to a non-roaming dance please."
After about 1 minute of shuffling and jokes about people bumping each other, we sorted ourselves out, and there was PLENTY of room for all 12.
Now this is perhaps more organized than I usually see it, but I always switch to "static" dances (footlose, popular, exotic) when it is crowded, and so does every dancer I know, and we always try NOT to "stop on" each other's toons.
If the people in your cantina would, while at keyboard, say, "*bleep* you I am dancing how I want where I want and I don't care if it ruins your dancing," then they are bigger jerks than the worst AFKer I have ever seen and deserve to be smacked (figuratively of course). But honestly I have never seen this happen.
To be fair I am sure most AFKers also would not say anything so rude, and if the player happened to walk in and look at the screen and see he was in the way, I bet almost all of them would move their toon. The problem is that, being AFK, the odds are they won't see it (they may be fast asleep or at work), and so there is just no chance of "reasoning" with them. An at-keyboard player, at least you have a chance of reasoning with. It may not always work, but at least it's possible.
Take your rush hour analogy. If someone is 'bleeding over' into your lane risking an accident, and is actually there driving, you can beep the horn and get his attention, and probably he will realize his mistake and move back over. But if he had just set his car on autopilot and was asleep in the back with ear-plugs on, and his auto-controlled car was 'drifting' due to a bend in the road, you'd have no choice but to get into an accident, because beeping at a computer-controlled car does no good.
C
Sigrun wrote:
If you're telling me that the problem with AFK is the retarded ones who stand mid-floor and spam constantly, there I agree. But that's not a problem with AFK. It 's a problem with the behavior of the person controlling the character that would manifest itself whether or not they were at the keyboard.
That's simply not quite true. While you are right that it is at its heart rude or at best ignorant behavior, if someone is AT keyboard you can discuss the situation and reason with him. You cannot reason with an AFKer (no matter how nice he might be if you could). People who are AFK get to avoid the unpleasant consequences of their own rude behavior by simply not being there to deal with those whom they upset.
So this IS an AFK problem. At-keyboard people have a harder time being jerks because they have to sit there and deal with your response to their stupidity. AFKers do not have to deal with you, so they avoid the unpleasantness they generate.
C