Dancer Archive

Sigrun,

I know you don't get it just like you don't get the fact that this is the WRONG forum for thsi discusion.

i think this is a good report.

i don't agree that afk macroing should be addressed now...

AFK is nothing that needs 1000 hours of coding. All AFK needs is enforcing the existing rules. But that another thread, let's leave it there,

I already posted this in the musicians board, but I think it's a general issue:

One point that goes for any class and any topic in this game: communication. It would be nice if you could bring this point to the DEVs attention. Most if not all of us are computer game players. All games have bugs. All games have design problems. However, it is much (!) easier to live with them, if they are acknowledged by the DEVs. Why do we have to list bugs ? It's the DEVs responsibility to present a list of known issues.

Example: tipping. Tipping was broken lately. They fixed it two days later. Instead of warning us that tipping is broken, they kept silent. I think most players could have lived with 3 days time or even four, if they had the chance to avoid that bug. They had not. Losing money that will not be refunded to a bug that was known to the DEVs and hit me due to their failure to communicate their knowledge is... I don't know... so much of an offense that I don't even know how to descibe it.

I'm not threatening to quit. I think that's not working, and I'm hooked anyway. I won't quit, whatever happens. I still have my UO acount though I haven't UO installed for at least a year. So much for quitting anything. BUT: Friends ask me daily about this new game, about the cool things they've heard about it, about the cool graphics they see. And they ask me if I can recommend it. If they should buy it.

And I have to say: No, don't buy this, you will not like it. I wish I could say otherwise. I wish they could play and group with me and have fun. But I will not lie to them about the state of the game. And the state of the game lives and dies with communication. Not Bugs, not features. Communication. And as it is there is no communication. There is a huge amount of rumours and information too little too late.

I think good communication will outweight any profession list by far.

Thunderheart is a good step in the right direction. But it's only one step. More of a symbol than a real help. Please include this point in your report.

From my personal point of view, communication is what lost them ~20 potential customers. And it's only my own idiocity that is keepingthe one that's left.

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nvoigt wrote:

All AFK needs is enforcing the existing rules.

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What existing rules?

Looks good Ravenmist.

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Ravenmist wrote:

The horde of AFK people are one of the reasons many claim things aren't fun tho.. just one piece of many tho. I definately think more content and other ways to make the profession more enjoyable is hugely important to the survival of our profession,

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I haven't been around much for the last few weeks. Frankly, I haven't been playing -- except for weekly gigs with my regular band, I've completely lost interest in SWG. It's a crying shame because there was a time when I thought the Entertainment professions might just be the single most creative addition to MMRPGs since UOL had chefs. I can't remember having as much fun as I had in my first 2 months in this game.

There are many reasons why I've lost interest, though, and among the top 2 or 3 is the lack of desire to associate myself in a profession with those who want to acquire skills with unattended gameplay. This isn't the place to go into the many ways they've destroyed the social atmosphere in cantinas - suffice it to simply say that this is the outcome of their approach.

Sure, it's easy to say I should just "be better than them", and while that's not even hard it's also hopeless. The Zombiebots are everywhere and the only thing that will ever rectify the situation is to completely remove XP from players who are AFK for more than 10 or 15 minutes.

It will then no longer be the issue it is today:ACQUIRING SKILLSTHROUGH UNATTENDED GAMEPLAY.

I haven't cancelled my main account yet, as I'm hoping that SoE will figure things out one day - the fall rate, bugged animations, lack of higher level dances, lack of flourishes are all issues that need attention right along with the AFK problem. I couldn't care less about becoming a Jedi - all I ever wanted was to have fun entertaining. Thank you for doing what you do, Ravenmist.

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Ravenmist wrote:
Also, so you know, and as I said earlier if you where paying any attention at all. I favor the change to the AFK system that makes it impossible to gain exp while Macrotaining.. not stopping someone from AFK healing all together. So your people in the middle of nowhere would still be able to do that. I'm not saying this is whats going to happen, just saying its what I personally see as the best solution to get rid of the majority offenders/abusers.

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I am all in favor of this with one small added downside to those who watch / listen to the AFK tainers and it comes from my own patrons...

Why not have a AFK entertainer heal at 1/10th of their healing abilities ?

I read some posts here that the entertainers are the only ones complaining about the free heal droid conveniently at a location near you but I experience differently, even when I'm talking to my fellow entertainers in spacial chat I get questions from customers who think I'm AFK. Last night I had one ask me if I knew a tailor, he thought I was AFK while I was just talking in spacial and emoting and everything. They are so used to AFK entertainers that some people just assume that if they see a entertainer that they are AFK, I find that insulting.

About the falling, last night I was playing music with 3 dancers around me, they were all 3 doing Exotic but you should've heard them at times... It's amateur night, how embarrasing, oops here I go again... *sighs*

I agree that we need more dances, less action cost for the higher dances, more flourishes, fixes for lyrical and formal dances, I very much prefer formal 2 now that I learned it it looks more classy, more like the /dance emote everyone can do.

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DarkY0da wrote:

It sounds good. But what about missions ? Or are missions as good as they are going to get and we really need to hope that we do get tipped ? Or as part of the AFK fix.. will a popup maybe be used that instead of MORE xp will instead get us a tip from a NPC ?...

Anyways thanks a ton. And the only thing I really had a question was the $$ part related to missions/tips.

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I mentioned missions briefly in my letter, saying, "The desperately need to be fixed issues I see include our Missions, and the graphical bug that goes along with our Lyrical and Formal dances". It was just a brief mention of them but they are still definately a high priority right now and will be until their fixed. No eta on them being fixed yet however.

Guys don't side-track the thread. If you see AFK Macroing as a problem and want to say so once, fine... But let's not start an AFK/non-AFK flame war on this thread. Make another thread and have your flame wars there.

Ravenmist -- Excllent job as usual.

I have another suggestion, not sure where to pass it on so I will do it here. I think each year SOE ought to sponsor nominations and an award for "best correspondent." I want some place to submit Ravenmist's name. :-)

C

Thanks very much Ravenmist

nice nice, just piping in that I was told to master entertainer from a little cube.. and the only time i went afk, was to grab a snack from the kitched

The social aspect is truly what makes this profession enjoyable.. if something could be done to enhance the roleplaying and interaction, then id welcome it.

but anyways, just to pipe up, that not all holocron dancers are afk-dancers

My number one biggest complaint about our class is that the dances we get at master have only 1-2 flourishes and therefore it's like we're actually becoming *less* accomplished as we progress in our profession. If I could have only one thing for our class it would be for all the dances to have eight unique, attractive, motion-captured flourishes. The last time I got a non-ridiculous-looking new dance with eight well-animated flourishes was when I started out as a novice entertainer with Basic 1.

Also, if our action costs for the high-level dances were comparable to a musician's that would be nice, too.

Sinda wrote:

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...The Zombiebots are everywhere and the only thing that will ever rectify the situation is to completely remove XP from players who are AFK for more than 10 or 15 minutes.
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I have seen master dancers afk dancing. There not there for XP, they want tips. What I would do it this..
If you go afk, lock all forms of communication, remove the ability to acquire tips, and remove any XP gain.

DO NOT REMOVE THE ABILITY TO AFK ENTERTAIN.

As a combat player that looks for an entertainer to get rid of BF, if you removed afk dancing I would be sol. If you did the sugested things above, at least I can have someone to watch. Also, as a player who is bringing up an entertainer, the #1 issue I have is not the afkers, they just look like NPC’s and make the bar look more filled (I like that), it’s the constant spamming. I find it hard to talk to someone with all the text flying.

Sinda wrote:

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It will then no longer be the issue it is today: ACQUIRING SKILLS THROUGH UNATTENDED GAMEPLAY.
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Merchants to it all the time, they don’t even have to be logged in. So do all crafter who get User XP. Craters that go AFK next to a bunch of factories get XP. I think the same will apply to politicians.