Dancer Archive

Message Edited by Darlena on 01-27-2005 10:40 AM

People have been down on entertainers since about July of '03. The first few weeks of the game being live dancer was one of the most taken and mastered professions. Even the now deserted cantinas could and would have groups of 10 or more live dancers with a few musicians. Then slowly people realised they could make more credits on Dathomir or Endor killing monsters than they could ever make having fun and chatting with each other while the combat players came and went from those same missions.

As for buff bots... Those came about once people learned the path to jedi involved "grinding". It didn't take long before the "grind" mentality carried over to the PvP community. The people who stayed with dancer even during the "grind" started leaving once the new people to the game started learning to treat all dancers and musicians as bots. On Tarq where I play there is always a group of people that stay with dancer or musician and don't bot. They come and go as in game goals change but there is always a good solid group of actual players.

There has never really been a golden age of tipping. The tip system never worked because frankly most players when given the choice between free or pay will choose free. Now you'll see from some of the others how they make wonderful tips and how great the income they make is... The reality is though that even those who make very good tips (like myself) do so for reasons other than actual random tips. We make friends with a few wealthy players who routinely give us tips well above what would be considered market value for the actual service we provide.

Back before the buff bots it was wonderful We still had some people who AFKed, but it was mostly people who just AFKed overnight to get xp a little faster. Most people who did AFK played fairly regularly too. We had some very heated arguements over just that back then, which seems really silly now considering what we go through daily these days.

Entertaining was this wonderful social chat session. Everyone would talk with each other about whatever was on their minds. It was so relaxing. The combat players would come in and talk with us while they healed their BF. Spinning wild tales about their adventures out in the wilderness. We could make a living off of entertaining too, since players appreciated us then and tipped regularly. Much of the day was doing great dance/music routines with each other, and finding neat new ways to change dances mid flo.

Then the hologrind started and everything changed The kiddies working towards Jedi came to resent us because they felt our profession was a boring hurdle to their "uberdom". And, soon the cantinas were filled with hundreds of AFK hologrinders. Not long after that they boosted our buffing ability, and soon the hologrinders realized they could make money from being afk 24/7 and the buff bots were born. They appeared slowly at first; mostly it was just tons upon tons of people afk grinding xp. But, before long, buffbots began appearing everywhere.

By this time players had forgotten what it was ever like having live entertainers in the cantinas. We had become taken for granted, and hated because they thought of us as an unneccessary requirement. A lot of the social gamers had left by this time too, leaving the majority of SWG a power gamer haven. Finally they killed the hologrind but, while it cut back the number of AFK people some, the buffbots blossomed into what they are now. And, here we stand now underappreciated and struggling to survive.

I left live myself shortly after the hologrind began. I guess I saw what was coming and sought to escape it all. I ended up on TC which was this wonderful close knit social community. I made some of my best friends there. Pappi, Joanna, Sheena, Khira, my hubby Zak, Ahsidh, and on and on. For a long time it was wonderful there still. Most people didn't care about the hologrind, and many of the TC players were the more mature sort. I rediscovered entertaining there and that was wonderful too

But, then the kiddies finally made it to TC too. Thankfully it was in short bursts whenever this blue frog stuff came along, attracting hundreds of power gamers to TC. But those short bursts have taken their toll too these days. Many of the regulars I once knew have long since left for other games, more are lost each time, and the TC that I knew has moved on as all things do.

But, I still have fun, and I'm still here And, the day this afking goes away and the chance of things becoming what they once were returns, I will dance and sing my heart out

Message Edited by Utess on 01-27-2005 02:03 PM

What was it like ?

Smells were better. Colors were brighter. I had a beam of Sunshine on me where ever I went. Everyone danced and played and the flowers just sprouted up under our dancing feet.

But really...

There was almost always a full group + extras that would form up a second group. They were all ATK. Anyone went afk for more then 20-30 minutes and they got booted. AFKers went off into the backroom or the side rooms and they didn't have spam going every few seconds. And anyone that AFKed their way up was really looked down on.(which is why most people didn't do it)

We all talked in Spatial mostly. We had players hang around the cantina while they crafted. Or while they waited to form up a hunting group. Or to try and sell stuff to the players that came in. It honestly was the HUB of player interaction. If you wanted to make connections and find info you went to the cantina.

Players would come in to get healed up and often times would suddently find they had just spent an extra 30 minutes there. HAVING FUN. Players would take their first shot and trying to Roleplay a character in the Star Wars universe. And they would have fun doing it.

You would have regulars that would just come in to hang out after their daily fighting. You got to know them and they got to know you. You would get random tips in the form of loot and clothing(far more often then it happens now). People would gladly invite you to come along and do a little hunting with them. Just so you could have a break from the cantina and the split credits from missions was nice as well.


So what was it like ?
It was what a MMORPG is supposed to be like. Fun and lots of interaction with other players. Players that were there to have fun and interact. I mean why else play an MMORPG ?

Message Edited by Darlena on 01-27-2005 03:32 PM