Dancer Archive
Thread: Cross-Server Entertainers' Roundtable!
Message Edited by kirah_ashlin on 06-18-2005 02:45 PM
kirah_ashlin wrote:
I'm trying to patiently wait for a synopsis of the meeting
Me too! what was talked about?
ApelaSunlighter wrote:
I feel like dancers are broken .. I have always felt this way, Unfortunately I feel very alone in this thought!!!
Why??
The transition from base dance to flourish to base dance is very choppy!!!
People say we cannot remove the base dance entirely!
why cant the base dance be the starting and stopping position of the flourishes for the base dance
IE: formal: tendu derrier right foot (arms third position if I remember correctly) Yes it would be better to
stand stagnant than to magically jump into an impossible spot !!! this is what I mean by broken
each base danceflourish has a starting and ending position that is the same
if we pose the flouishes will no longer end in the middle of a continuing dance and
we wont look so stupid.
I am a real life dancer and this bothers me to no end. Dancers dont have pre set dances they do in order to exectue steps!!
Oh no, you aren't alone. This has driven me bonkers from my early days of dancing in SWG. I personally would love to see thewhole thing replaced with small animations that could be strung together and stored as a routine (to be run as an idle, but still be uniquely your own). The way the mo-caps were done, there are plenty of animations that could be strung together seamlessly and we could have whole option trees based off of how an animation begins and ends...
... BUT, there have been so many other problems with Dancer and changes of this depth would take so many resources, this has never really been something the Devs encouraged the Dancer corrs to talk about. I personally am hopeful that with these new props and other changes, attention really will come to our actual "dancing" at some point down the road and we'll be given better animation tools.
In the end though, this is still the only game that's tried to legitimize the practice of emote dancing and I sorely miss it when playing other games even with everything that drives me nuts with the whole Base Dance/Eight Flos set up.
Panthu wrote:
ApelaSunlighter wrote:
I feel like dancers are broken .. I have always felt this way, Unfortunately I feel very alone in this thought!!!
Why??
The transition from base dance to flourish to base dance is very choppy!!!
People say we cannot remove the base dance entirely!
why cant the base dance be the starting and stopping position of the flourishes for the base dance
IE: formal: tendu derrier right foot (arms third position if I remember correctly) Yes it would be better to
stand stagnant than to magically jump into an impossible spot !!! this is what I mean by broken
each base danceflourish has a starting and ending position that is the same
if we pose the flouishes will no longer end in the middle of a continuing dance and
we wont look so stupid.
I am a real life dancer and this bothers me to no end. Dancers dont have pre set dances they do in order to exectue steps!!
Oh no, you aren't alone. This has driven me bonkers from my early days of dancing in SWG. I personally would love to see thewhole thing replaced with small animations that could be strung together and stored as a routine (to be run as an idle, but still be uniquely your own). The way the mo-caps were done, there are plenty of animations that could be strung together seamlessly and we could have whole option trees based off of how an animation begins and ends...
... BUT, there have been so many other problems with Dancer and changes of this depth would take so many resources, this has never really been something the Devs encouraged the Dancer corrs to talk about. I personally am hopeful that with these new props and other changes, attention really will come to our actual "dancing" at some point down the road and we'll be given better animation tools.
In the end though, this is still the only game that's tried to legitimize the practice of emote dancing and I sorely miss it when playing other games even with everything that drives me nuts with the whole Base Dance/Eight Flos set up.
See, here's the thing about what you just said...this has always bugged me.
You tell me how many resources it took to totally rewrite the Jedi system, including Force Sensitive, the Village, the FRS (which has now be RE-written and is awaiting Lucas approval). That's a TON of resources.
Adding space and Kashyyyk took a TON of resources.
This game has nothing BUT resources to utilize. I'm sorry, but they have them if they want them. I'm afraid it's simply a matter that they don't WANT to utilize them "just for us."
So, the "it would take so many resources" reasoning just isn't valid in my mind. If they wanted to do it, they would. If they can add space and all of that on top of this game, if they can totally overhaul the complete Jedi system, if they can tear down and rebuild the combat system, they most certainly can fix things for Entertainers to make them perform better.
They just need to utilize their resources like we're important, too. I'm not trying to slam you or anything, I'm just saying - I see no reason why they couldn't mobilize the resources needed to do things right for us, in a timely manner, if they wanted to. I don't see any reason why we don't deserve to have a massive effort undertaken for us, given all the hell we've been through in this game.
Message Edited by Warryyr on 06-21-2005 11:05 AM
Warryyr wrote:
This game has nothing BUT resources to utilize. I'm sorry, but they have them if they want them. I'm afraid it's simply a matter that they don't WANT to utilize them "just for us."
Message Edited by Panthu on 06-21-2005 05:09 PM
Panthu wrote:
Warryyr wrote:
This game has nothing BUT resources to utilize. I'm sorry, but they have them if they want them. I'm afraid it's simply a matter that they don't WANT to utilize them "just for us."
Well, I don't like to ever talk about this, but it is timely so I will. Please don't stone me. *ducks*
The main reason Dancer Corrs have never been able to get attention for these things has been Musicians. This is largely why our Performance Enhancement list had such a struggle... as you see, Props are mostly just for Dancers. Re-working and improving the Base Dance/Song and Eight Flos set up really needs to be done totally differently for Dancers and Musicians.
We had so many shared interests in improving the day to day gameplay for Ents as a whole (including IDs), Ent Corrs usually try to come together on our Issues lists and try not to get too specific to each area where it can be helped. ID has always been the odd man out, this has been to ID's disadvantage imo.
Anyway, I've been reading the Musician forum too. Many are already feeling some Dancer envy... can you imagine how much worse that would be if it came out that Dancers would now be able to craft and trade our own custom crafted animations with no improvement in the way music is played?
Yikes. I can. It would be ugly.
The best thing for Musician and Dancer would be to get their own separate identities... but I don't think we can try to do that until we both are strong enough in our common interests (which I'm hoping we will be after these changes). I know they already do have one way they want to improve the Song/Flo set up for Musicians I think they'll get in asap, but I don't think they have any improvements in the wings for dancing that are in line with it... so when that happens, it will be the Dancers with the envy.
At that point, I think the split will be made and we can move on with our separate interests, but still be supportive of each other's issues. (I also hope IDs will get as much support from us at that point.)
Message Edited by Panthu on 06-21-2005 05:09 PM
This makes total sense. I'm a master dancer, so of course I love the new props we're getting. But, I'm a dabbler musician that has only gone up the knowledge tree, and the thought of having to get another one just for the instruments we already had is very annoying to me.
I admit I've primarily been a dancer, and if I don't have the points to spare, I will just end up dropping the musician entirely. However, I think it's a good thing that you bring this to people's attention. I don't know about the rest of the dancers here, but I've always felt a strong kinship with the musicians and I really hate to dance without musicians around. So, I think by bringing this up, this should be a "wake up call" of sorts. We're getting the props, it seems, which is huge. I think since that is the case, it's time for us to rally around what the musicians want. It's definitely going to be their turn.
Warryyr wrote:See, here's the thing about what you just said...this has always bugged me.
You tell me how many resources it took to totally rewrite the Jedi system, including Force Sensitive, the Village, the FRS (which has now be RE-written and is awaiting Lucas approval). That's a TON of resources.
Adding space and Kashyyyk took a TON of resources.
This game has nothing BUT resources to utilize. I'm sorry, but they have them if they want them. I'm afraid it's simply a matter that they don't WANT to utilize them "just for us."
So, the "it would take so many resources" reasoning just isn't valid in my mind. If they wanted to do it, they would. If they can add space and all of that on top of this game, if they can totally overhaul the complete Jedi system, if they can tear down and rebuild the combat system, they most certainly can fix things for Entertainers to make them perform better.
They just need to utilize their resources like we're important, too. I'm not trying to slam you or anything, I'm just saying - I see no reason why they couldn't mobilize the resources needed to do things right for us, in a timely manner, if they wanted to. I don't see any reason why we don't deserve to have a massive effort undertaken for us, given all the hell we've been through in this game.
I agree with you here, Warryyr, but I think the problem is that the developers of this game are and have been working basically in crisis mode since the game was released. Think about it. Ever since this game started, the biggest projects have pretty much been the most broken, most noticeable, most iconic systems - ergo droidsmiths, Jedis, space (now that was a novel concept - adding a space component to a Star Wars game!), the combat system, GCW changes and so on. The problem is, they're still in crisis mode. How many bugs can you think of that have been around since launch? How many bugs have been added from past fixes and are still not working? How many quests are still bugged or not delivering their rewards properly? How many professions still don't have a fully fleshed out or realized role? The game is two years old now and it's still not in a predominantly stable or balanced state. It's no wonder at all that they won't devote the resources to give Entertainers a significant upgrade, there's simply too much else to do that's more "important".
The only good thing is that maybe the dev team is large enough now, that they can devote some of them to less critical, but still significant projects and I kind of wonder if that's why we're starting to get a little attention around here even while they're planning smuggler, squad leader, and so on revamps, GCW revamps, and whatever next expansion they feel they need to release in 6 months or whatever (and at this point I wish they'd cool it on the expansions and focus all that effort on the core game instead).
We'll have to wait and see what these changes bring us. I, for one, don't especially like what I'm hearing so far (except for the crafter buffs) and am apprehensive of where this may lead. But admittedly I don't know where we're going yet. I just know I'm not liking some of the stops along the way.
Message Edited by DanceRulez on 06-21-2005 12:08 PM
Personally I cannot wait to see dancers with their twirly props
Panthu wrote:
Anyway, I've been reading the Musician forum too. Many are already feeling some Dancer envy... can you imagine how much worse that would be if it came out that Dancers would now be able to craft and trade our own custom crafted animations with no improvement in the way music is played?
Message Edited by Panthu on 06-21-2005 05:09 PM
kirah_ashlin wrote:
I'm trying to patiently wait for a synopsis of the meeting since I had to make an unexpected departure (stupid cat knocked Coke on my new wireless mouse and I couldn't get it to work for over an hour . . . grumble).Oh, and Lilo - Shianne apologizes for disappearing without even so much as a goodbye.
Well it was a little disappointing to him for such a beautiful woman just up and disappear, but he consoled himelf by getting out a shaving kit and sitting behind Paks. *wonders if Paks has noticed the large "got HAWTpants?" lettered across her back*
Message Edited by Tralmek on 06-22-2005 01:43 PM