Dancer Archive
Thread: In Testing May 20th
I'm not concerned that this will cause buffbots to again be the major source of competition for us. I see the impetus for the buffbot situation as two-fold; players went to bots because of convenience, and secondly, bot owners were in it for the credit income. All the NPC cantina bot owners on all the servers with whom I ever tried to negotiate a compromise made it very clear that their goal (after they got tired of asserting they were something akin to Mother Theresa) was credits and they weren't interested in compromise unless I could offer them enough credits to make it worth their while. After all the excuses and rationales were aired, this was their bottom line and where any discussion with them fell through. While the bot owners may think this is a good thing for them in that they can guarantee secured payment for the bot's services with this, I suspect their intended customers will reject it..not only as a contribution to inconvenience but also as a demand for payment where one was never demanded before. While combatters were open to giving a donation to their friend who ran an extra account to provide them with a service that was unavoidably necessary, I don't think a mandatory payment for an unnecessary service is going to sit well with them.
Where this may contribute to botting is with the combat group bots. Some of these are Squad Leader bots, some are Doc bots..some are still entertainer bots. Grouping has become the determining factor in combat as much as mind pool used to be. While combat effectiveness and fun-factor is greatly enhanced by working cooperatively within a balanced group, many combat professions are still capable of running solo (or semi-solo) missions and pulling missions with higher payout, if grouped with other (and higher level) players and many combatters still prefer solo play. I could see credit botters turning to entertainer skills to provide a means of securing payment for the more marketable skill of running a combat group bot. (If any of you combatters have information contrary to this, please prove my suspicion wrong!)
On the contrary, I think that our greatest competition for customers will be with the FS grinders. FS grinders are not motivated by credits. Their goal is achieved whether or not anyone even enters the cantina. They are botting for the dance xp and the nominal amount of heal xp gained is just icing on the cake. If entertainers set a mandatory price on their services and others choose to obtain those services for free from a FS grinder..they become the competition.
To summarize: We were not informed of this addition prior to the release of the patch notes and I'm not sure of where the devs are intending to go with this. As correspondent, I am remaining open-minded about it until I have more information and more feedback from you with which to draw a fair assessment to present to the devs.
Speaking only for myself, I won't be setting a cover charge for someone to watch me dance. I will still be negotiating fees for performing at events when appropriate and I'll still graciously accept tips from patrons who come to see me perform. I've made myself disgustingly rich as a performer and have no desire to change the way I've been doing things.
Esharra wrote:
The notes for Mother of All Patches, dated May 20th, may be found here.
The notes pertaining to entertainers are as follows:
Profession: Dancers, Entertainers, Musicians
- Added the ability to set a /covercharge for performers.
- Performers can now set themselves to have a cover charge. Use the command /covercharge . You can reset it by /covercharge 0 or null)
- Audience members who "watch" or "listen" to the performer will get a pop up box asking if they wish to pay the cover charge.
- Once the performance is complete, the performer will receive the cover charge funds when the audience member stops listening/watching.
- More than one audience member at a time may pay the cover charge and view the performance.
- Inspirations should give proper experience bonuses now.
- Fixed a typo in the inspiration buff text.
- Extended performer experience rewards to all members of the buffer's band
- Extended experience types affected by inspiration buff.
Message Edited by Esharra on 05-20-2005 08:10 PM
I think it's a good thing that the devs are thinking of us, and I really and truly appreciate the effort when they come up with things to make us financially viable. But, like many of you, I'm afraid that it's just going to lend itself to making bots useful again. And, I hate saying this because I don't want the devs to think that I don't appreciate what they're doing or that I hate this idea, because I don't. But, unfortunately, unless they are going to get rid of afk, this isn't going to help us. It's just going to hurt us, and I'd rather us not get this. 
Get rid of the afk, and this is fine.
Questions I have:
If the covercharge is set to 0, will the watcher still get a popup? I think that would be annoying and build resentment on the part of the watcher.
Will the watcher not get heals or buffs without agreeing to the payment?
I also have another concern. Back under the old system, my own personal rules were not to charge for healing, but to charge for mind buffs. Right now, I have a feeling that since the inspiration buffs are minimal and a replacement for mind wounds, I would more than likely actually not use this feature and just rely on tips. If something happens that replaces mind buffing, whatever that may be...there's a good chance I might charge. I know that many of us probably wouldn't use this feature much for what we have now. Whether it's because the other dancers aren't going to charge, or there are the bots, those of us who used this feature would probably never have any business. I personally don't agree with the "give everything away for free" mentality, but that's neither here nor there. I guess what I'd like to have is something that cannot be afk'ed, but actually give greater benefits at mastery (not time needed to complete benefits). If we had something like that, I would probably use this feature. But, like I said, it can't be afk'able, and another important thing to consider is that it can't be deemed "necessary." Otherwise, we're going to find ourselves on the same side of the resentment stick as before. 
Also, what does extended experience awards to the band mean? Don't we already have that?
And, what other types of experience get a boost from this? 
Esharra wrote:
Where this may contribute to botting is with the combat group bots. Some of these are Squad Leader bots, some are Doc bots..some are still entertainer bots. Grouping has become the determining factor in combat as much as mind pool used to be. While combat effectiveness and fun-factor is greatly enhanced by working cooperatively within a balanced group, many combat professions are still capable of running solo (or semi-solo) missions and pulling missions with higher payout, if grouped with other (and higher level) players and many combatters still prefer solo play. I could see credit botters turning to entertainer skills to provide a means of securing payment for the more marketable skill of running a combat group bot. (If any of you combatters have information contrary to this, please prove my suspicion wrong!) Good point, Eshie, and one that was beginning to form in my mind as I was reading through this thread again. There would be nothing to stop a "groupbot" from adding (or keeping)novice entertainer to their skillset just to charge for the "service-especially a former buffbot whose owner has moved their elite entertainer skills into elite combat ones and created their own personal mid to high level CL-bot. I doubt that the dev team even considered that possibility. It might be enough in and of itself for them to rethink the cover charge altogether.
Speaking only for myself, I won't be setting a cover charge for someone to watch me dance. I will still be negotiating fees for performing at events when appropriate and I'll still graciously accept tips from patrons who come to see me perform. I've made myself disgustingly rich as a performer and have no desire to change the way I've been doing things. I do hope that the function is either toggle-able or does not create a pop-up when the amount is 0 or null.
Jagii wrote:
I am curious.
What happens when the dancer stops dancing?
Does the dancergetany payment or experience?
Does the viewer get no buff?
What about othermembers in the entertainer group?
= Andrew
Chilastra.Palacek
I think it said that theperformergets payed when the patron uses/stopwatchso if they accidently stop all they have to do is tart up again... I think... But then... the patron would have to /watch again and then they would get the pop up again... would they then get double charged? Or only one charge per /stopwatch
Jagii wrote:
I am curious.
What happens when the dancer stops dancing?
Does the dancergetany payment or experience?
Does the viewer get no buff?
What about othermembers in the entertainer group?
= Andrew
Chilastra.Palacek
The code isn't turned on yet. We are getting the popup when we start watching or listening but nothing further. It will likely come in the next few days.
Good questions, Pal. Here's the rest of our test list so far:
- Can they get an inspiration without paying?
- What if they don't have enough credits?
- What happens when we start/stop watching or listening to ourselves?
- Is there a problem related to the /stopwatch bug?
- Interactions with group members?
- If you're already listening to one person, and you switch, do you get charged for both?
- What happens if the entertainer stops performing?
- Has the "too far away" bug been stealth fixed? (so far neither of us have gotten it tonight)
Message Edited by Esharra on 05-21-2005 03:11 AM
The answers to this type of stuff will come with time on the test server.
--Qilue-UCW-- wrote:
Jagii wrote:
I am curious.
What happens when the dancer stops dancing?
Does the dancergetany payment or experience?
Does the viewer get no buff?
What about othermembers in the entertainer group?
= Andrew
Chilastra.Palacek
I think it said that theperformergets payed when the patron uses/stopwatchso if they accidently stop all they have to do is tart up again... I think... But then... the patron would have to /watch again and then they would get the pop up again... would they then get double charged? Or only one charge per /stopwatch
Esharra wrote:
What happens when we start/stop watching or listening to ourselves?<
This one made me burst out laughing. I can totally imagine starting to play my Mandi or dance and getting a popup box telling me I have to pay myself a cover charge. ROFL.
C
As things stand right now, we didn't get the popup ourselves. Others watching got it reliably.
Message Edited by Esharra on 05-21-2005 03:10 AM
Chessack wrote:
Cindal wrote:
I heard similar comments from our audience members at our Friday night jam session. The feeling was that this will be exploited.
As this appears to be an automatic popup there is nothing to prevent a "bot" from setting up with a lower fee and spamming "Watch me for free, tips are welcome..." or something along those lines. Perhaps we can test to see if it functions while AFK but with the new Health system and proper pauses set into your macro an entertainer need not ever stop so this appears to lend itself to AFK play.
I'm not sure that this will be a big concern. Why do the macro-zombies do what they do? Well, I can imagine two reasons:
(1) to gain XP and level up as fast as possible. If that's what they are doing it for, then they are temporary zombies. There's no reason to be a zombie afterwards, so we don't have to worry about what they will do (unless they switch to type 2).
(2) To earn money from doing nothing (apart from setting up a macro). If they are there to earn money, I would be highly surprised if most of them are going to rely on tips. In fact the beahviors of the buff-bots show just exactly how these people really do behave. There were some on our server in fact, Cin. They did things like, you had to bank tip them once, to get on their "buff list", and then (somehow with a macro... I dunno how because I don't write those sorts of macros) you had to be on that list to get a buff from them. I only know about this because I heard some people from my own guild (/sigh) talking about it on guild chat, about how to "get on the buff list" so you can receive your buff at will from the buffbot. The bots are not doing what they are doing out of altruism. They are doing it out of the height of selfishness. There might be one or two who think that tips will be better if they spam about not having a cover charge, but the mentality of these people suggests that the primary thing they will do is set ridiculous fees and then force people to pay them. In fact, I view it as much more likely, along with the small group size thing we already have, that "entertainment cartels" would form, where you can't get into the group unless you agree to their set cover charge and the like.
It will be interesting to see what happens when Dejah takes her Mandoviol and her Theatrical dance and wanders into Coronet after this goes live, and plays for tips with no cover charge, as she always has, and always will. My guess is she will receive venom from the buffbots if they find out she is there (but how are they going to know, since their players are AFK?) and appreciation from the players (and, more than likely, a lot more money in tips than I would charge for a cover fee anyway).
I know this: the largest tips I have ever gotten, on the order of 50k etc, have always come right after someone asked me "How much do you charge?" and I had Dejah respond, "I don't charge, hon." (Or whatever).
You think the buffbots are going to do that and rely on charm for tips? I don't. They do what they do out of laziness and greed.
C
On our server, when the bots first started springing up, they were free and spammed that message. Most bots remained free although they did start listing their highest tippers. When the first nerf to solo grouping came, some of the bots started denying service to those players who used them and did not tip.
I helped a new player doing entertainer last weekend - Sunday was her thrid day in the game. Monday nightI was in MO and saw her AFK and spamming her ability to do inspiration buffs. Didn't take her long to switch from ATK to AFK 'tainer.
I do not see the bot going away - those that respec'd away may well respec back before the respec window closes.
Esharra wrote:
To summarize: We were not informed of this addition prior to the release of the patch notes and I'm not sure of where the devs are intending to go with this. As correspondent, I am remaining open-minded about it until I have more information and more feedback from you with which to draw a fair assessment to present to the devs.
I think this is good news though. I didn't really talk to any of the devs about Ent stuff when I was there (I know, it was weird 
) , but other people did and I kept having other people come up to me and say "so and so just said this about Entertainers." Off to nap! /sign
Panthu wrote:
*hugs Eshie* I just got back from E3 and I'm a dead beat.
/laugh Drygo
Panthu wrote:
I just got back from E3 and I'm dead beat.
You should be! All that boozing and carousing! And I had to stay here and work. But there are people who are aware that they're not allowed back in my house without offerings of E3 swag!
Anyway, I'm thinking this may be an early addition and the big picture will keep being trickled down to us in this fashion.
And that's one Trickle Down Theory that I like! While the glamour of an all-at-once Revamp is very exciting, it is much easier to see what the puzzle needs if you can examine one piece at a time. And is definitely easier to track bugs.
Off to nap!
Me too! Welcome back!
Message Edited by Esharra on 05-21-2005 08:08 PM