Dancer Archive
Thread: Idea for solving AFK macroing For players and DEVs alike to read
Thank you so much for calling me dishonest because I go hide in the back of the cantina out of sight where people have to come and try to find me while I afk macro dance/music in my sleep and while I'm at work. Playing an entertainer is not hard. Playing a skilled roleplayer can be. Guess what... I have 12 years of roleplaying experience from many, many, many Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, Shadowrun games, Legend of the Five Rings, Star Wars, Mechwarrior, Providence, Exalted, HackMaster, and more!
I would guess from all that experience that I can play a pretty **edit** good entertainer in the real sense that I entertainer people instead of just pushing flourish buttons over and over and over and over and over... Excuse me if I don't want to be forced to stand there in an empty cantina for six hours each night pushing a short macro button every few minutes. Excuse me if I want to find a nice, quiet, out of the way cantina where the people are genuinely glad to find an entertainer there and don't treat you like an ass. Where they respect you for the profession you've chosen.
AFK-macroing has no ramification on the profession if people would just have some common sense about it. Just because you stand around in a cantina while you push the flourish buttons doesn't make you any better of an entertainer than someone who macro'd their way through most of the grind.
At least since the macro program is in the game they don't have to worry about trying to change the code all the time to prevent people from using third party programs to macro.
At least when I afk macro I do it out of sight so entertainers that are at the keyboard will get preference over myself. I even include a message in my AFK auto-repsonse that tells anyone that sends me a tell to go watch or listen to entertainers that are not AFK, unless I'm the only one in the cantina... which happens quite frequently on Nashal, Talus.
There is nothing wrong with someone AFK macroing. What your problem is, are the people that use those macros that shout "TIP ME!" or have the little droid-bot's running around with a name like "TIP THE DANCERS!". Guess what, not all AFK macro'ers do that. I bet there's lots of Entertainers that you hang out with that have used afk-macroing and you just don't know about it because they do it in out of the way places and don't make and a$$ out of themselves .
If they remove the ability to afk macro from the game, the Entertainer profession will die. Only the people that have gotten the xp they need might keep playing it. Other people won't put up with the abuse from other players and just stop playing the profession and you will see people buying novice entertainer just to heal their own wounds and fatigue and then surrendering the skills again later.
As a master dancer who has been there for every button pushed I want to put my 2 cents in.
I do not agree with afk macroers....but....I ignore them and make sure when I am in the cantina that the customer ignores them also. This doesn't work with all of them, I have started to notice people watching obvious AFK entertainers and am thinking this may be to avoid tipping (though with me that is totally optional) or socializing which is ok with me. I go to the cantinas now to get away from tailoring and to socialize. I have come to know and enjoy talking to the people at my regular cantina (Hi everyone in Kaadara!) and for the AFK people thats their loss. I am proud in my master title and know that I earned it, and yes I do have a life of work and family, I play only a couple of hours a night, it took me awhile.
Ispa E'gri - Master Dancer and Novice Tailor now performing at the Kaadara cantina on Bria, nightly shows available (and whoever is spilling their sunburn and making me fall, PLEASE STOP! hehehe)
The only time I macro is when I cannot be at the computer. Work and while I'm sleeping. I have shorter run macros for various dance numbers and songs so that I can actually spend some meaningful time conversing with the patrons instead of typing in short bursts here and there while I try to pound the flourish keys every few moments.
I always go hide in a back room somewhere when I afk macro. If someone comes and finds me just to get healing, GREAT! I am able to still provide a service to some people that might otherwise have had to fly offplanet to several different cantinas to just get healed soem fatigue and mind wounds. I just saved them some money. If they tip me, great... if not... oh well. Doesn't really matter to me in the end.
You cannot generalize all macro'ers with the same lame a$$ generalization. Not every afk'er has a macro that spams "TIP ME!" every so often. A lot of us probably do hide in backrooms, hotels, and houses... out of the public eye.
What seperates entertainers from each other is not their ability to sit in front of the computer and punch buttons over and over... but how intelligently they play the game and how well they truly entertain their patrons.
You know, I don't want to spend time killing all the little things.. I think I'll make a macro so I can just go and get myself to master bounty hunter and take out all the big stuff in the game. After all, why should I bother having to work for the rewards of the game?
(Yes that last part was sarcasm..)
They got rid of macro sampling because it was pointless to run a harvester. How is afk entertaining going to ruin a large portion of the economy? It's not. They will do nothing about about afk entertainers, period.
Your biggest problems are your whining. And you sense of elitism because you sat at the keyboard hour after hour pushing the same buttons over and over. Especially the people that claim to have not used any macro's at all and did each and every single flourish themselves all the way to master dancer.
I wouldn't call those people better. I'd call them stupid for not taking advantage of a system or tools provided by the damned game itself. I will play the game the smart way and actually enjoy playing the game instead of being forced to grind out 200k+ entertainer xp just because some a$$hole thinks I should sit at the computer and watch the same dance moves over and over... or listen to the same songs over and over and over and over.
You seem to be on the wrong server for those attitudes Sorrow. I thought Starsider was a roleplaying mecca.
WhileI agree with you its unlikely CSR's would run around for something like that as there are much more legitimate things to do and while I agree it doesn't seem to affect the economy or any other ingame system like harvesters do, I think you'restatement about the elitism is inaccuate.
People don't feel elite because they were present pushing buttons and not using the in-game tools. We've been well aware of the in game tools from the beginning in Beta. People feel superior being present and in game in earning their dance experience because they actually learned something. People who macro and afk learn nothing for the time in game.
They do not learn how to socialize with customers, they do not learn who the locals and regulars are, they do not learn and make friends with other entertainers or patrons, they do not learn the contacts in the area to help people out, they do not learn how to actually use their skill in an original or creative way. They do not learn anything substantive to entertainment at all.
They also have no experience for what the cantina is like for the patron and customer and so cannot comment on the dance profession or its state with any earned authority. Likewise they are useless in helping the profession progress by engaging the developer's ear.
They have shut themselves off from the community in all ways from patrons to other entertainersand so are not going to be treated as part of it with as much respect. The present people have been there to be abused or insulted, or have been there to provide a special something that a patron might need. Most present dancers have stories of tipping medics or patrons in bad luck, or showing them around to the med center, or lending clothes to new dancers or sharing information to help people. AFK and macro'ers don't.
And while "elitism" might be bad, and it might engender a lot of anger and bitterness that doesn't help any of us in game, its a lot more valid then "not using the tools" the game gives us.
These are people who invest of themselves in the game to help create a living social online community, they've earned a place to complain because they voted with their time and efforts and they can be pretty bitter when people who don't invest in the community suddenly decide what they have to say is actually valid.
Master Dancers who don't know a quickchange step? Or how to synchronize moves or how to make some customers feel at home or how to help other dancers? That's something to be bitter about.
If you have to add an "I was being sarcastic" postscript to your writings, perhaps irony is not a good fit for you. One of the things that is great about Twain and Swift is that they never ended a piece with "By the way, I was just kidding!"
Tiaga wrote:
It is pretty crystal clearly against the EULA to me. If you try to convince yourself otherwise you are just deluding yourself to try and excuse your actions. Just because they haven't said anything or done anything yet doesn't mean they condone it. However I think their actions with sampling have been pretty clear. They are just terribly busy dealing with bugs.
You know, I don't want to spend time killing all the little things.. I think I'll make a macro so I can just go and get myself to master bounty hunter and take out all the big stuff in the game. After all, why should I bother having to work for the rewards of the game?
(Yes that last part was sarcasm..)