Dancer Archive
Thread: Why is Dancing regarded so poorly by those in other professions?
In order to get dancing/music exp you just need to stand in one spot and hit hotkeys, or have a macro do it for you.
Also some combat types don't like being forced to come to a cantina to heal their battle fatigue. They see battle fatigue as an annoying game mechanic that slows down their progress/fighting.
Before I dumped my Novice Pistoleer skills, I used to run around and hit my hotkeys to shoot creatures, to either finish missions or make combat xp. Just because it involves moving, doesn't make it less difficult to do. Actually to most people, Dancer / Musician would bore them to tears. But myself and lots of others like to roleplay and interact with other people.
Alot of people don't use macros either, I personally still don't. And if you want nonstop combat, may I recommend Unreal/Halflife/Quake/etc. Even in EQ / AO / AC / UO you have forced downtime. If the game doesn't suit you, move along.
Durney Kova
Master Entertainer / Master Musician / Novice ID w/ Expert Hairstyles / Novice Dancer
Dancing (along with musicianship)is the second-hardest profession in whichto become Master. It requires 24 skill levels. The onlyprofession that requires more is the Squad Leader. Most elite careers require 20. Why, then, is it that dancing is looked down upon so much by those of other professions? I heard a musician yesterday saying basically that dancers didn't deserve to receivetips, and that the little moneydancers make is more thanadequate compensation. This from a fellow performer. What do others on this forum think of that attitude? Is it just sexism directed at a career that predominantly features females, or is it something different?
Beery wrote:
Dancing (along with musicianship)is the second-hardest profession in whichto become Master. It requires 24 skill levels. The onlyprofession that requires more is the Squad Leader. Most elite careers require 20. Why, then, is it that dancing is looked down upon so much by those of other professions? I heard a musician yesterday saying basically that dancers didn't deserve to receivetips, and that the little moneydancers make is more thanadequate compensation. This from a fellow performer. What do others on this forum think of that attitude? Is it just sexism directed at a career that predominantly features females, or is it something different?
Yes, your profession does require a lot of skill boxes(glad you came to the realization that other professions required more), but that doesn't mean anything when it comes to receiving payment for services rendered. You see, what a lot of people don't get is how you can expect payment when you don't really spend credits on anything to perform your abilities.
All the other professions require players to purchase/obtain weaponry, armour, resources, etc. Entertainers overhead, by comparison, is far, far lower. Then there is the fact that, to perform your services, requires no risk whatsoever. When a combat-type heads out on a mission, there is always the off-chance they may die.(of course, the effect of death in this game is currently none due to the corpse loot issue, but when that is resolved expect it to cost a lot). For an entertainer, working in the safety of a cantina/hotel, there is simply no risk involved. Therefor, any /tip would be a good /tip. You didn't have to risk anything for it, you didn't have to spend anything to perform your abilities that allowed you to get that /tip.
It's the old school mentality of healing costing you nothing and therefor should be free. Is that perception correct? Perhaps, perhaps not.
All I know is this... when the game launched I was a medic and I also had some entertainer skills. I found that my time spent in the Cantina earned me MORE money then my time spent in the MedCenter.
That right there should tell you something. It should tell you that, hey, you're not as bad off on the payment front as you think.
And for the record...I, personally, do /tip the entertainers. Along with stimming their action bars so they can keep entertaining longer. It's only fair that they receive some compensation for providing a healing service.
But the moment it becomes mandatory is the moment I pick up novice entertainer once again...
vortexala wrote:
you didn't have to spend anything to perform your abilities that allowed you to get that /tip.It's the old school mentality of healing costing you nothing and therefor should be free. Is that perception correct? Perhaps, perhaps not.
Of course it costs us something (or if you want, we spend something): Time.
Now, we may be enjoying our time doing it, but the fighter types are enjoying their cool new weaponry too. See, if people aren't going to pay entertainers to spend their time in the cantina, then why should they? Tonight because Naritus' login server was hosed for many people, almost none of my friends were on, and those that were, were AFK. I got bored and started running artisan missions. 1200 a pop to take a shuttle from Moenia to Dee'ja Peak (240 cr. cost round trip) and you can get 2 at once... 2400 credits to go and craft something and deliver it. 2400 credits to come back. 240 credits for the shuttle... I netted 4500 cr in about 20 minutes.
Now, if I were interested in money alone (which I am not), I would come to the conclusion that my time is much better spent running simple artisan missions between Moenia and Dee'ja Peak than dancing in the cantina. Or, heck, I can go take an explorer mission to kill 15 diseased Nunas or something and make a pretty 1K or so in about 15 minutes, and get some fun Star Wars combat action doing it.
Either way, I am making way more money than I am as an entertainer (and, I assume, than you would as a doc). So the question is, again if you are interested in money, why on earth would you dance? You're wasting your time in the cantina.
Now, I play a dancer because it is fun, and I love doing it. I am not in it to get rich and I realized going in that it was not a 'big money' profession. But to say that Entertainers are not incurring any cost is just baloney. We are incurring the cost of time, the cost of all the other profitable things we could be doing rather than hanging around in the cantina to heal the sorry butts of all the people who think they're better than we are.
Right now, the only thing that is keeping dancers in cantinas and peopel's BF getting healed is this: we enjoy it. If people don't throw us a bone once in a while in the form of a tip, though, we may decide that we don't enjoy being poor enough to keep at it... and go do something else. Then there'd be no entertainers left to heal up BF, and oh boy, if you think you are hearing entertainers whine, you can't imagine the firestorm of griping and moaning when the grinder combatants can't get their BF healed to go back and kill things.
C
Chessack wrote:
Right now, the only thing that is keeping dancers in cantinas and peopel's BF getting healed is this: we enjoy it. If people don't throw us a bone once in a while in the form of a tip, though, we may decide that we don't enjoy being poor enough to keep at it... and go do something else. Then there'd be no entertainers left to heal up BF, and oh boy, if you think you are hearing entertainers whine, you can't imagine the firestorm of griping and moaning when the grinder combatants can't get their BF healed to go back and kill things.
C
Trust me Chess... I can imagine the firestorm that would ensue. Hell, I've been through it in Beta when we Docs tried to standardize a pricing scheme. So, yeah, I already know what that's like 
But the cost of 'time' is universal. It costs an artisan time to go out and get resources, it costs a combat type time to go out and kill stuff(or whatever it is they do), it costs Medics/Docs time to go out, get resources, craft meds, and then heal
But it also costs other professions more then just 'time' to actually do their professions. There are other expenditures involved, other money-sinks. For an entertainer, where is the money-sink? (Clothing isn't a money-sink, it's a luxury item)
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't "hate" entertainers. I DO think you deserve payment for the service you provide, and I pay for those services on a regular basis. But I don't think that the Devs should be spending time on a way to implement a payment mechanism for Entertainers. There are other ways to get the money for your profession, increased payout on Entertainer Missions(Profession Specific Missions, something not all professions have btw 
) is just one idea.
I know a thing or two about the problems you face in receiving payment for services rendered, and I know how hard it is to get money in this game as a provider of services, But there are other ways to get the money you need...even if it isn't part of your profession.
Beery wrote:
Dancing (along with musicianship)is the second-hardest profession in whichto become Master. It requires 24 skill levels. The onlyprofession that requires more is the Squad Leader. Most elite careers require 20. Why, then, is it that dancing is looked down upon so much by those of other professions? I heard a musician yesterday saying basically that dancers didn't deserve to receivetips, and that the little moneydancers make is more thanadequate compensation. This from a fellow performer. What do others on this forum think of that attitude? Is it just sexism directed at a career that predominantly features females, or is it something different?
(e) None of the above.
While someone else mentioned the perceived lack of "risk", I think that's a pitiful excuse for Class Snobbery, myself. Especially when I can clone for 1000cr and death doesn't hurt one bit.
No, the reason some other players dislike entertainers is, (1) They do not understand the social value of a profession like this, and consider roleplaying for [insert derogatory 'carebear' term here]. Their type are reflected in the attitudes of the PC Gamer article I cited here - if it doesn't have huge penises .... er, I mean GUNS, it's just not k3wl.
But (2) perhaps an equally important reason why entertainers have a bad rep is due to the clueless twits among us who think underwear is sexy, constantly spam for tips and sometimes even macro appeals for sexual favors in exchange for cash. A few of these (and they are by no means the majority) are enough to give all of us a bad image. The bad news is that they're the majority left in the public cantinas these days. The rest of us have taken our skills to where they are appreciated.
instruments and clothing dont cost credits? houses dont cost maintenance?
everywhere you go there is a credit cost, from tavelling to minor supplies.
services rendered whether from AFK macroers or from people who are there interacting is the same.
you want conversations? get it from the group your in while hunting/missioning.
there are entertainers who are there 100% of the time except for when nature calls, just got to find them.
could be half of them are out lvling another class to support their clothes and house maint habits.
I dont afk/macro but dont have the time to talk cause i spend all my time flourishing to make the song better.
Jazz without nonstopflourishes really sux.
In order for the dancer to get a tip, the dancer spends time to get that tip from someone. Let's say that someone is a ranger.
In order for the ranger to get money, they did some hunting missions, which took time and paid money directly. They also harvested quite a lot of animal parts, which took time. They then sold those animal parts to someone. Let's say that someone is a tailor.
In order for the railor to buy the animal parts, they needed money. In order to acquire their first money, they did some crafting missions, some survey missions, and some hunting. All of those tasks took time, and paid money. Since then, they make money by selling clothing. Selling clothings makes money. Selling clothing takes time: purchasing the raw materials, harvesting the raw materials by hand, purchasing the raw materials from someone else, loading the vendor, making custom orders for customers. And so on. The tailor sells one of her most expensive items to someone. Let's say that someone is a dancer.
The dancer bought the outfit in order to have a more interesting stage presence, or because she wanted to, or for whatever reason she liked it. She bought it with one of the few things of value in a virtual world: time. She bought it with her other valuable commodities: a willingness to spend so much time learning to be a dancer, and a willingness give up being able to be a master pistoleer/master doctor.
In the end, it comes down to a few things: what you want to do, what it's worth to you, and what it's worth to other people. Now, a dancer doesn't expect a person to tip a 15-minute mission number of credits for watching for fifteen minutes, even though a person can do a heck of a lot of those missions before getting so much damage that it'll take a master dancer 15 minutes to fix them up. But a little consideration wouldn't be looked at askance.
And, you see, a lot of us have other things we do on the side. Because we like doing other things. If we can be with our friends, and dance, and chat, and make money on missions once in a while, and *never set foot in a public cantina filled with nitwits who do things like "will u give me a lapdnc?" "I'm sorry, I don't do that sort of thing." "but i tipped u" [check system messages, find twenty-five credit tip there]*, we start thinking about never coming back.
Is all this enough to get me to drop my master dancer title? Never.
But do I expect people to treat me like a human being, whose time is at *least* half as valuable as theirs--when I heal them, buff them, and send them on their way in record time?
HELL YES.
I think many players don't want the downtime it takes to heal up, firstly. Secondly, many really don't want any role play to factor into their gaming. Then there is the risk/reward argument (because being told to strip isn't stressful, is it?). Maybe if dancers had to eat or buy something in order to perform, other professions would feel less surly about us.Theysee see us getting XP and that should be payment enough. All of those things are factors in the dislike of dancers.
Mostly, I think our reputation is damaged by those who beg for tips and those that are forever afk. In public cantinas, this is commonplace. I will often just leave a cantina if the majority of performers aren't really there or if they are spamming for tips, unless there is someone who needs healing and is interested in some small talk. In a group of five, if three people are obviously AFK (for a LONG time), it makes all of us look like unattended, spamming by macro beggars. How soothing to one's mind is that?
I must say, I really haven't run into a great deal of poor treatment in game. Mostly, I read about it here on the boards. I've gotten some great tips and I've had entire nights were I didn't get any. Some nights, I end uplosing money because I try to always tip the medics (because I don't want them outrunning missions whenthey could be healing my action bar). I tip the musicians. No one has been outright mean to me (yet).
Fewer master musicians and dancers are staying in the cantinas. I think many work by special request only. I think that's a trend that will continue to be followed too. The people that are good at entertaining aren't in the public places to balance out those who are just grinding it out. Thus, our public image is very poor.
"Right now, the only thing that is keeping dancers in cantinas and peopel's BF getting healed is this: we enjoy it. If people don't throw us a bone once in a while in the form of a tip, though, we may decide that we don't enjoy being poor enough to keep at it... "
You're exactly right. Once I've finished getting my Master Dancer there'll belittle to keep me in the cantina. I can't be bothered to heal ingrates for free when I can be doing something else for MUCH more money AND more respect. Once all the people who want to dance havebecome bored with the endless monotony and the disrespect we get from other players, the players who need mind heals will be begging us to come back. Of course, rather than doing their duty and simplytipping us a littlefor our service, they'll probably complain to the developers and ask for mind damage to be taken out of the game.
Seems to me that most people who play this game just want an arcade shooter - they don't give a dam about Star Wars, and they're stingy too. It pi$$es me off.
services rendered whether from AFK macroers or from people who are there interacting is the same.you want conversations? get it from the group your in while hunting/missioning.
Spoken like someone who hasn't the slightest comprehension of the meaning of "ENTERTAINMENT".
As a dancer, my job is to Entertain. I do that quite well, I think, judging from the tips and praise I receive for doing nothing more than interacting with my customers and staging dances that are synchronized with my dance troupe and our musicians.
The folks who show up and /startdance rhythmic, then go AFK, are tarnishing the image of the entire profession. If it were in my power, they would all be demoted to Meatlumps.