Dancer Archive

Well dear, at least you are honest about it, I'll give you that much. Now a little about myself. I have been an at the keyboard dancer for longer than a year. I have never saw any reason to macro unattended. But don't get me wrong, even though I play a dancer on Bria, do not think that I refuse to understand your reasons for enjoying unattended entertainment. I do. In fact, I understand it all too well. Let me tell you the dirty little secret entertainer players are loathe to share: live entertainers cannot dish out game mechanics as efficiently, effectively, or as cheaply as an entertainer buffer. I, anyone in these forums who plays live, or anyone else simply cannot duplicate what a buffbot does. Because what can an entertainer player do in terms of the game mechanics?

1) Heal Battle fatigue.

2) Heal mind wounds.

3) Enhance the mind statistics.

What can an unattended character do?

1) Heal Battle fatigue.

2) Heal mind wounds.

3) Enhance the mind pools.

4) Be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

5) Is able to dispense these things and not be around to feel bad if its insulted.

6) Will continue to dispense these things for motivations unrelated to finances or the motives consistent with play, normally understood (ie, because the prime account "parks it" for his motivations, not the entertainer's).

So the deck is stacked against someone who plays live in a mechanics sense. Never denied it, and I cannot say its unreasonable for you all to do so. Many of you have second accounts if for no other reason than to get lots. So what else to do with your character than turn it into an unattended entertainer? I'm sure if you could create an unattended doctor that was not constrained by resources to do the same things, you would. Indeed, some have gone this route with dubious results. I'm sure you'd do it with smugglers in order to have a slicer available for free whenever one needed it. Yet the mechanics are such that this is impossible.

Now for entertainment characters, automation IS possible. In fact, it is rather easily facilitated. But make no doubt dear, running a buffbot is not playing. Its an abandonment of play. It simply defies any common sense understanding about what play is. Because in order to play this game, one needs a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers and such. Simply paying 14.95 a month does not make one a player any more than someone who does not pay 14.95 a month is a player. Play is something that is actively engaged in for enjoyment. It is not something you automate and let run while doing other things. Stepping away from the pinball machine does not mean you are playing pinball, just because the pinball still bounces.

Now I have a perfect, fool proof solution to the problem of unattended entertainment. Simply take away the dancer's BF healing function, wound healing function, and buffing ability, and give all of these functions to doctors. Doing this will eliminate all the reasons to macro unattended. Yet even if all these functions were eliminated, I would still want to be a dancer. Many here would still want to be dancers. And I would venture to say my income would not suffer as much and my gameplay would still be as good--if not better--than today.

But the developers would never do this. Why? They want us to be dependent on each other. Don't ask me why, because I'd much rather deal with players thatlook forward to seeing me, rather than characters who could care less if they see me or some unattended character who makes no bones about the fact that it is boring, merely because it refuses to make the effort to be amusing.

But just because unattended characters do not play doesn't mean that non-players do not influence the game world. To set a buffer, you need notbe a playerat all. Simply login and press F1. You can even shut off your monitor, disconnect your mouse, turn off your sound, and influence the game world in a manner that mimics actual play. And I'm not saying this is right or wrong why you do these things at this point, but only acknowledging what it is, and what it isn't. Its impossible to play a buffbot, so non-players must do it. Because in order to do so, a live player must do the following:

1) Pay money to not sleep, eat, or do any other thing but be available to dish out game mechanics at all hours on all days, perpetually.

2) Pay money to perhaps stare at the walls of one cantina and have no need or incentive to explore anywhere else.

3) Pay money to not care about being tipped, being acknowledged, or advancing in any areas other than to be available, cheap (free), and effective.

I cannot do those things at the keyboard. You cannot do those things at the keyboard. Yet, this is fast becoming the benchmark of what you want an entertainer to be. But you never really wanted to play, watch or listen to entertainment. You only wanted the goodies that came from entertainment: BF healing, mind wound healing, and buffs.Some have evenflat out argued that you think the music is horrible, the dancing only appeals to the sexually deranged, and the efforts to play these things are pointless. And I really don't thinkthey are saying these things becausethey truly mean them.They are saying these things to be mean spirited toward those who play these professions.

Why? I think its because you do not resent us as much as you resent SOE for putting you in the predicament you are in. Finding an entertainer is just one thing among many that you must find: like credits, maitenence pool payments, power collection, and doctor buffs. And the fact that we as a group of players are upset over the use and promulgation of unattended characters is threatening to the ease and convenience many of you enjoy. And it has turned into an abject hatred of what we do and why we do it, reducing our gameplay in your minds into silly and trite things, like viewing it as an online chatroom, or claiming that its unjust to make you all a captive audience for our behalf. Make your opinion all you want, however, because for every one of you that claims that what we do ruins your online experience, I find another that feels we enhance it.

Because they know that the truth of our profession is not a mere nine songs and about a dozen dances. Those are merely the building blocks of what we do, not the essence of it. And we do not run a chatroom. The use of dialogue types is just one of the things we do to fill in the space between /startwatch and /stopwatch. Because we know the things we do take time; time you'd rather not have to spend. We know you all hate having to go to the cantina, and we try to make this as enjoyable as possible. This is at least how it was designed to work. Because to tell you the truth, BF healing, mind wound healing, and buffs are only the reason people come to us, and not the reason players tip us or appreciate us. It has always been this way. My biggest tips were for those things where I wasn't healing, like player events. Likewise, I have healed characters and got no tip. So in reality, the mechanics we offer to players really has no value to them at all. The thing that we get tips for is what we do WHILE we give out these things: attentive, creative, and immersive play.

And yet, if I ever was in a situation where someone was deliberately hurtful toward me, I always had the option to leave, and deny the cantina my services. The fact that buffbots really don't care if people insult them one way or another is a prime reason in my opinion why we have so many jerks. Because as long as a jerk can get everything he or she needs and still be a jerk, it will encourage jerky behavior.

And we have seen a lot of that toward entertainers. Because people likeyou know they have us over a barrel and can say whatever they feel like and not suffer any consequences in the simulation. I don't deny it. If everyone who plays an entertainer decided to take a hike, the galaxies will still be given everything they needed from unattended characters. And in fact, I am certain that the ratio of entertainers to customers at 4 AM is something like20 to 1.

And I'm sure it givesyou and others who systematically hate what we do some comfort to know that many entertainers are followingyour advice: They are quitting the game, quitting entertaining, or both. And it may soon come to the point where you may truly have no choice but to get BF healing, mind wound healing, and buffs from a dedicated, unattended master in every cantina; be it in a player city or NPC city. And the cantinas will still be boring and dreadful to have to go to, just like now. But instead of a place where you might find something amusing going on from a live player who makes it his or her business to keep your eyes off the BF meter as it ticks down, it will be a place where you will have no choice but to put your ctrl-c screens up, press alt-tab, and suffer through a process that becomes much more meaningless as to why you even have to do it at all.

Which is why buffbots, ultimately, do not solve the problems of those who hate having to go to the cantina. Because sooner or later it is going to dawn upon those who use buffbots, "why should I even have to be part of this charade of going to the cantina at all?" Similarly, those who have buffbot accounts will say, "why should I even have to pay $15.00 a month, pay maitenance on a cantina, and suck up RAM so that people can freeload off me?" And buffbot owners are going to start charging for what by all rights is free: BF healing, mind wound healing, and buffs. You may have already started to do this on your own buffbot. But have you considered that you will be unable to answer requests from the playerbase when they say, "why doesn't SOE just give these entertainment functions to real players who play doctors or chefs? Why should I have to pay an automated character a darn thing?" with the same logic you use every time of, "if you don't like it, tough. I spend my skillpoints, subscription fees, etc. to do this service, and I have a right to do it just like you have a right not to use it?"

Because that logic won't cut it when it gets to that point. Because we who play this thing and find enjoyment out of it will have long since moved on, and customers will find no utility of supporting a system where something so vital for play serves no purpose of growth or enjoyment from any party. They will be asking the developers to remove the cantina feature entirely, and remove these professions.

Don't get me wrong.For awhile, you will have a legion of patrons who run to the buffbot, let the buffbot do its work, press alt-tab to check the forums, tip, and leave. They will do this day in and day out. But each and every time they use a buffbot, they become less and less convinced that you do a service that is worthwhile, and more and more convinced that their gameplay experience would be a whole lot better if they just didn't have to worry about entertainment services at all.

Why is that? Because everybody else in this game besides unattended buffers have toput forth some effortinthe game world to advance and succeed. Crafters must buy power and pay maitenence, combatants must take missions, and scouts must gather hides. Andwhen players live in a galaxy where most of their entertainment services come fromvacant, unattended entities, each and everyonewillinvariably say to themselves,"why should we even tip or somehow be grateful to these unattended characters that do nothing but set a repeating macro, yet feel entitledto our respect and credits simply to give us some service that SOE feels we need?" Indeed, how will you respond dear, when they argue this to you? Will you use your same old line of "I provide a service, and its up to you to use it or not" along side of all the other lot mules, guild alts, and second accessory accounts? That won't cut it anymore.

Because your customers at this point will not be asking for entertainment to be enhanced for your sake, and many live entertainers who would benefit will have long since cancelled our accounts. They will be asking SOE to eliminate these professions entirely, and give actual players such as doctors or chefs the opportunity to provide the same services. And its not going to hurt you when they put forth the convincing case that they should eliminate these professions, it will hurt players like me, who have tried to play these professions the way that SOE originally intended them to be played. Because there is something inherently problematic in the notion that a player need only spend the effort each morning to press F1, and dispense their mechanics for an entire day for players they do not see, for reasons other than enjoying the things it does, without the least amount of effort to sustain it, perpetually, and without any sort of "endgame goal" for it to be anything other than it is: a 24/7 dispenser of mechanics.

And if it ever gets to that point where the entire business of entertainment is to get mechanics from a vaccant entity, then the patrons will have every leg to stand on when requesting these professions be removed. Becauseentertainment at this point become a farce of what a playable profession should be, an embarrassment for the development staff, a nusciance for the patrons, and more of a headache to actually play than to let the system play for the entertainer. And even though I enjoy and am good at entertaining, I am but one voice. For every one of me, there are ten of you who do not give SOE any reasons to keep and sustain these professions. In short, players like you who abandon play for the sake of dispensing the mechanics do not give SOE any incentive to keep and develop these professions. You only give SOE, the patrons, and the development staff reasons to think it was a mistake to include them at all.

SoI know which side the developers will take in this forseeable future argument, and it won't be the buffbots. Because the prevalence of buffbots does not give the development staff any reasons to keep these classes going. The prevalence of buffbots only give the development staff reasons to think that it was a mistake to include them at all. Because the bottom line is that in order for a game or a profession to be fun, you have to give someone incentives and reasons to play it. Not give incentives and reasons to "not play it." And if the cantina simply becomes a place where unattended characters give mechanics to unattended audiences, the entire entertainment experience is less a simulation of life in a galaxy far, far away, but merely a silly farce...and a bad one at that.

But make no mistake, the situation cannot be sustained in its current state for much longer. The player base as a whole (ents, buffbot owners, and other players) will at some point find reasons to disapprove. And at this point, the developers are going to make unattendedness a non-viable option, or they will create a fix to eliminate entertainers entirely anddivide up their fuctions to give to other classes. Either way, the current charade of unattended characters manipulating the environment in a way that mimics play will end. Either to give players a reason to stay at their monitor, keyboard, and screen in the cantina, or to make it so no player need not spend the agony of going to a place where entertainers are merely computers looping ui, and the audience is pressing alt-tab.