Dancer Archive

I have more of a problem with the jerks that walk into cantina and don't tip the entertainers than the entertainers who go afk. Even if the person is afk they still deserved to be paid for services rendered. I personally only use the really long macros (the ones maxed at near 1000 characters) so that I can talk to people without having to push the button in the middle of typing, and for those times when I need to go do some chores but don't want to log off for 5-10 minutes.

There really isn't a need for allowing longmacro commands to be activated from within another macro, but it's a bit difficult to tell which are meant to be helpful, and which are just plain cheesy (ie the situation presented above).

If someone is AFK they do most definately not deserve tips. They aren't rendering any service. They are just running a macro.

It's probably been said a hundred times...afk macroing gives the patrons an excuse NOT TO TIP. And they will take any excuse they can get. If you could just walk up to a medic and heal yourself by looking at them they would all be broke too, and many of them are anyways. At least they know who's stiffing them. We have no way to account for who we're healing and no choice in the matter unless someone offends us enough to earn themself a /deny. By that time they're usually all healed up. I have had some wonderful tips but I assure you they are coming from the same (few)people, and it's those few who keep me popping into the cantinas. It's a rough life, Ihope they are working on some changes to this profession. If it's stay this way too long I'll have to find a new one myself.

Yesterday I was in a group and I hadn't recieved a tip for 3 hours, and this is a VERY busy cantina. I asked the rest of the group and no one had...in hours. One of the group members suggested we strike and so we did. It was an eye opener. Of course we couldn't stop the afkers so the patrons were more than happy to watch them. And...their general response was "you chose to be an entertainer, don't be greedy" and "help your fellow (insert faction)"

Unfortunatly there wasn't much we could do, with the afkers dancing and playing away. They basically laughed. So the ten or so of us who weren't afk walked out and left them with zombies.

So you can clearly see how the afkers are affecting the people who are actually playing. If it didn't affect my play I wouldn't care in the least.

"If someone is AFK they do most definately not deserve tips. They aren't rendering any service. They are just running a macro."

I agree with this. That's why I choose to go into the back of the cantina and hide from prying eyes when I macro afk. Still, because I choose to do this on a backwater planet, I'm often the only entertainer there... and people have realized I am usually back there and they're glad for it. It means they don't have to spend 100 credits and some skill points on novice entertainer just to heal themselves. And I get tips for it. I don't plan on making tips while AFK. I don't plan on subsisting on tips or Entertainer missions either. They're bugged right now.

"So you can clearly see how the afkers are affecting the people who are actually playing. If it didn't affect my play I wouldn't care in the least."

Well, if they're in the same group with you, you can stop the musicians at least by just using the command /stop or /stopband. It's not all afk'ers that are affecting you. Just the rude, insensitive and ignorant afk'ers. There are people that afk macro like me that aren't going to affect you.

Just wanted to update you guys - CS was very nice about changing my name so now it's Tsuuli

nope no structures yet. Saving up for it. Good idea about sending mail out. I should do that. Thanks

My wife played an entertainer and really HATED having to push flourish everytime. She is not a good typist and it was difficult.

I do a LOT of afk mining. No the FIX did not stop this in the least. And yes, there is a need for harvesters even with AFK mining. You can only afk mine one item, generally you need a lot of an item and afk mining does little for that .

So, I made my wife a macro for dancing. She tweeked it and now is really happy with her dancer. She only runs it when she is at the keyboard playing so she can chat.

The macro makes a huge difference.

I made a Dancer on another server. I have used macros exclusively. I am there most of the time. Got up to Novice Carbineer to make some money. Now I'm afk dancing on Dathemore at the science outpost... I have a script saying

I am afk. You don't have to pay. At least Im out of the way.

There is nothing wrong with using macros while you are at the keyboard. (There is a reason not to, but not on the same level as this) It is while AFK for long periods of time that there is a problem with it.

Don't you feel even a little bit of guilt for doing something after they tried to stop it?

* The reason not to macro while at the keyboard.. I macrod through the entertainer level dances up to formal. (Yes, I was at the keyboard the whole time) I stopped macroing at that point. I know popular, poplock, formal, lyrical and exotic very well. I can hit a flourish to do exactly the moves I want. On the other hand.. However I discovered I know nothing about the flourishes in basic, rhythmic and footloose. So I can't make those dances look the way I want. However, this is a case of "how to do it better" not a case of "how to do it right".

I think I've said it elsewhere, but I think it's worth repeating.

If you can't out perform an AFK macro-er, then maybe you don't deserve a share of their tips.

Personally, I AFK macro, because I dance in a small town. If I am not there, my patrons typically go without any entertainment at all. When I am around, I chat and interact with the patrons of the cantina. When RL calls, I leave myself logged in macroing to provide a sorely needed service. The regular patrons appreciate it. They don't begrudge the afk-macroing, because without it, their SWG experience would be more difficult.

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Tuscus wrote:

Personally, I AFK macro, because I dance in a small town. If I am not there, my patrons typically go without any entertainment at all. When I am around, I chat and interact with the patrons of the cantina. When RL calls, I leave myself logged in macroing to provide a sorely needed service. The regular patrons appreciate it. They don't begrudge the afk-macroing, because without it, their SWG experience would be more difficult.

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Tuscus, you're not the first to use this justification for AFK macroing -- and I'm not going to make moral judgements on what you say you do by putting you in the same category as the LAMERs.

However, having said that, at the heart of this issue remains the one thing AFKers of any typecannot address: that is the respect of the player community for the Dancer (or Musician) profession. The resentment stems from them feeling as though we are the only Masters who can macro our way to the top (even more so than artisans/crafters) without actually playing the game. I've even had LAMERs tell me that precise thing - they want a fast, "easy" Master skill. Just as some of us use the "providing a service" justification for macroing, many players use our AFKing as a justification for not tipping.

I submit that neither one is really going to go away. We will always have players who resent tipping, and we will probably always have AFK macroers to some degree. But I also submit that there are ways to change our profession so that we provide enough of a value to the game community (other than Eye Candy), and to make our services interactive so they can't be macro'd, that the few AFKers left won't matter much.

How? I should macro this part since I seem to be repeating it every time I post Allow us to buff mind by actively targeting a player. Make the duration competitive with a doctor of the same skill. And while now our Mind buffs are Master level only, allow lesser mind buffsbyNovice Dancers (not Novice Entertainers). That way all of us can offer a service for which we can justifiably expect a reward, and for which it's going to be exceedingly tough to write an AFK macro.

I guess I also see our product as being similar to that of an artisan, in the sense that once they have set up factories, harvesters, and vendors, the creation and distribution of their product is relatively AFK, as well. They do not have to be online to earn money from the distribution of their wares. They log in to move resource harvesters, pay maintenance, restock vendors etc. In a similar sense, distribution of "dancing" is something that can be done while we are afk, after we have done the work to "create" our "product," in the sense that we have gone shopping for outfits, worked up our skills, and designed "macros" to keep us online and at least somewhat entertaining for our audiences.

I agree that some people will deride us because it is possible to afk our way to the top, and those people may use that as an excuse to not tip all entertainers. I'm not sure that those people wouldn't find a reason not to tip, anyways. I know people who only tip entertainers who are interactive, andI canrespect that point of view. But I make sufficient tips with my current system of working the crowd when I'm there and being available for them when I'm not to more than make up for a few pennypinchers. I guess I haven't been exposed to this large mass of SWG players that are supposedly lurking out there hating dancers and musicians who go AFK for periods of time.

It's not a supposed mass. They're out there. I encounter them regularly. The vocal ones are not in the majority, but I have heard lots of them grumbling about AFK Macroing.

On my own server, right now, today, there is a 14 post long thread complaining about AFK Macroers.

So, yes, there are lots of players out there who do not like that we can do it, and don't respect us because so many of us do use the technique.

C

I've never ran a looped macro.

I got to Master Dancer, and each second as was at the keyboard paying attention. I have now capped all dance/ent heal xp (900,000 dance and 500,000 entheal) and I no longer get xp messages - which is annoying because I can't tell when I'm healing or not now .

I just can't get my head around AFK macroing - if you're going to play a multi-player game then PLAY it.