Dancer Archive
Thread: I'm a dancer, and I AFK macro.
I see your points and they are interesting but the one question that stands out is: if you don't like the problems associated with the entertainer class and the way the populace treats you (seems to be the main reason why you afk/macro), why do you want to be an entertainer? It's not going to go away when you become Master Dancer. You want to power your way through entertainer/dancer so you could go learn something you enjoy more? Why didn't you just do those?
I'm not really understanding why you would want to learn a skill that you find boring to learn instead of learning one that interests you like the TK?
Reasons for AFKM:
Firstly, I realized that trying to chat and do enough flourishes to maximize my dance xp was not going to be easy, and hitting the same 8 keys to do the same 8 moves (some of which look rediculous) every few seconds was not my idea of fun.
This explains nicely why you would macro. It maximizes your RP potential and decreases monotonous button-pressing boredom. I am down with that.
It does not explain why you do it when you are AFK -- as opposed to, say, /sit down and just leave the toon like that till you return, or (heaven forbid) actually disconning until you return, if it is going to be hours.
Secondly, just to see if I could do it, I know its not very difficult, but I still had to learn something, its not like I bought the game knowing how to make an indefinate macro for dancing. Also making short macros made the Ent class much more appealing, being about to execute a serious of moves instead of near-spastic pressing of f-keys proved to be much more fun.
I am also down with this idea. Yet again, this explains why you would macro during the process of actual at-keyboard game play. It does not explain why you would feel the need to keep doing it while AFK.
Third, discovering the indefinite macro meant I could power my way through entertainer and dancer and pick up on a profession I would enjoy more day to day, TK or Pistol, or whatever.
OK, now you have lost me. You want to power your way through a class you don't enjoy....? Why in the world are you that class in the first place. In D&D if I hate sorcerers, I just don't play one. I surely don't, for example, play one, get it to 20th level, and say, "OK, now that it is 20th level (max) I can play a rogue, which is what I really wanted." I play the rogue in the firs place.
If you want to be a Tera Kasi/Pistoleer character, great... why take the time or bother with master dancing? I don't understand this one at all.
Forth, After visiting a couple of cantina's on different planets I realized that the general populace doesn't seem to respect our class.
You think the fact that you stood in the corner of a cantina and AFKMed your way to Master Dancer while you were out at the movies or playing golf is going to get you more respect? This one makes no sense either.
Also after a long conversation/flirting with a single patron, many do not tip.
While I understand that it might be frustrating, I am not clear on why this leads directly to AFKMing. I guess you feel, "If they don't tip why should I sit at the keyboard for them." I suppose I can understand the sentiment, but it seems like the easiest thing to do is just not play an entertainer if that's how you feel.
I play an Entertainer because being one is fun. I stay in character, I RP her, and I enjoy it. Tips and XP are nice but they are not why I play the class. They are little bonuses. The RP itself and the fun are why I play.
I guess if XP + Tips = FUN for you, then I can understand the AFKMing from that respect, but I also feel sorry for the people who think that. They are missing out on the true fun of a roleplaying game: playing the role of a fictional character that you made up.
Then there are rude customers who just throw endless sexual inuendos at you and call you a whore or make obscene emotes and etc. Every time this happens I don't even want to play, I simply turn on my macro and go AFK until they leave.
Is there something wrong with the /ignore command that makes you do this? I had a guy asking for lapdances once. Sadly one of the entertainers posed giving him one. I just /ignore'd both of them and went on RPing with the rest of the band. Nobody else paid them any nevermind either. That's no reason to go AFK.
Or better yet, roleplay it (though it could be argued that such players do not deseve the benefits of RPing with you, and I would respect that -- then /ignore). Have your character stop dancing, go "Hmph!!" and storm out of the cantina.
Also, to advance quickly we are forced to use our best dance, the code is very simple, and therefore easy to manipulate, and easy to get bored with.
You've lost me here as well. What is this obsessive need to "advance quickly."
Sure when I get a new dance I do it a good deal because it is new. But after I get used to it for a night or two, I just use whatever dance makes sense for the song being played, or perhaps the mood the PC is in.
I am not in this game to power-level the character, burn her out, get bored with her, and start something new. I plan to keep my character for a long time. I actually prefer if her progression is rather slow. I intend to savor this character, and any other I make. I enjoy RPing her and will continue to do so probably for many months to come. Why in the world would I want to fly her through all the early stages to make her the maxed out ultradancer, never enjoying the lower stages of it? How boring
I view my characters kind of like they are my children (in a sense, they are -- I create them, give birth to them, raise them, watch them grow, etc). If your character is your child, then by AFKMing, what you are doing is the equivalent of giving birth, handing the child over to the droids to take care of, and going away for a long time. You come back to see their college graduation and go, "Great! My kid is an astrophysicist, I am so proud!" I guess that's OK for some. For me, I'd rather not miss the first step, the first word, the first day of school, the first date, the first day of college, etc. I'd rather be the "involved" parent who gets to enjoy the entirety of the kids growing up... Or in this case, the involved player who gets to enjoy every stage of development with his character.
I can see if there is a PVP aspect to the character... you want Mega-Master-Gunslinging so you can out PVP the other players, and you just need to powerlevel to get it. But I am not aware of any PVP killing you can do with dancing. So why on earth do you need the formal dance ASAP? You'll get it eventually... why can't you just enjoy the basic dance or whatever till you get there?
C
I do enjoy being an entertainer, I guess that may not have come across entirely well. But I am also a powergamer, I want to be the best, at whatever I do, if that means powering my way through all the dances to get Master Dancer so I can be the big dog on the block, thats exactly what I'll do, the fun for me, comes from playing the character once its developed. I also envision my character of somewhat of a Spy, the best we can do for one anyway, I plan to master some sort of fighting art, and infiltrate opposing factions cantina's and when they are relaxed I'll reveal my weapon and strike them down while they are weak. The dancing is fun to me, but its just one aspect of my character the way I see it, and I want to get it out of the way ASAP so I can begin working on the other parts of my character. Also, a dancer can be played for pure profit, so I thought, originally I planned to save up a large sum of credits from my dancing profession to ease along the secondary professionI picked up. Bur I got wrapped up in wanting new clothes all the time and travelling around, I really haven't saved up as much as I had hoped I would. Sorry I wasn't completely clear in my first post, I know the wayI want to play my character, and the reason'sI macro make sense to me. My main point is, as a community, we don't need to get all bent out of shape and start pointing fingers saying "thats not fair, he/she shouldn't be allowed to do that!". Let everyone play the game the way they will enjoy it and we will all have a much better time. if you don't like players macroing, work out a system with your friends to punish macroers by not tipping, or not watching, or not grouping or whatever so that they know that thier actions aren't going to be generally accepted. Theres no need to waste the devs time on an issue we as players should be able to work out by ourselves, especially in a system like SWG where everyone depends on each other, there are really no NPCs of much/any importance.
And I have never /ignored anyone in any game I play, just because a person crosses you once, doesn't mean they won't have somethign of value to say later, and i see no need to hold a grudge forever because someone made a couple of mistakes somewhere along the line, so I just go afk til they chill out, then go back to what I was doing. it would be differen't If I didn't have to stay in a cantina, but I do, and please don't tell me i should move to a differnet location because I'm being harrassed, thats just the wayI play, you may think theres a better way, and you are probably right for you, but for me its not.
But anyway, I do enjoy being an entertainer, and I do macro, andI will continue to macro until I master dancer or they remove infinite macros from the game. You may or may not understand my reasons, but you are not required to. Just understand thatI play my character a different way than you, for different reasons than you, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it just as much as you do. Cheers.
MOST people tolerate AFK dancers/musican's if they move well off to the side while they do it -- and of course, don't get upset if you get booted from the group at some point (either when it reforms or just to make room for non-afker's). Just don't do it in the middle of the room.
When my NWN group hits 20th level (max) we don't say, "Ah, now we can have some fun." We say, "OK, time to retire, these characters are done, and start over." I just don't see the fun in playing a character after it is basically finished. But again, we clearly see things differently. You're certainly free to play how you want, and it sounds like you do so relatively unintrusively, so that's not a bad thing.
There are, however, AFK macroers who are quite intrusive. It's those people who have ended up taking on the auspices of the entertainer equivalent of "griefers."
C
Hawaii wrote:
MOST people tolerate AFK dancers/musican's if they move well off to the side while they do it -- and of course, don't get upset if you get booted from the group at some point (either when it reforms or just to make room for non-afker's). Just don't do it in the middle of the room.
yes, that is my main beef with some of the AFk dancers. They start dancing right in front of the door in the skimpiest outfits so that they are the first ones seen bythose come in. That;s not to get XP, that is to get tip money. They also don't put their AFK flags up. This is very annoying. This also takes tips away from people who are actually playing the game.
If you are going to dance AFK, do it off the dance floor and have your AFK flag up.
There are a number of reasons for it too, the general attitude toward AFK Entertainers is either hate or indifference, but certainly no love, and while there are many very valid points about why Ents shouldn't practice thier art while AFK, there are a few good reasons to do it as well.
First off, lets look at the negatives.
1) AFKers are gaining xp without "working" for it while other Ents cant.
You can always group with them then everyone gets more xp, if the group fills then the leader should boot an AFKer. Now for group leaders being AFK, that I cant agree with, I think if the leader is going afk for more than a minute he/she should do a /makeleader. As far as solo AFKing goes, the xp is less than half what you get in a good group, not to mention no healing usually, so unless the AFK is grouped he/she isn't getting much benefit anyway.
2) AFKers may take up the prime real estate in a Cantina, and soak up tips that probably should have gone to an attended player.
I agree with this, when I go AFK for extended time I move to an out of the way spot, I do have friends though that play my character soemtimes and may move me around, but when I am not planning to be at the computer, I stay out of the real players way. As far as tipping, its hard to control who someone is going to tip, I think they should implement a /grouptip and a /grouptip -nonAFK.
3)If AFKers dont enjoy the game enough to sit and play it, they need to find something they do enjoy and leave the cantina's to the real performers.
This is probably what they are actually doing, most people who would AFK macro for extended periods of time are powergamers who find the class uninteresting, so they want to burn through it to pick up a skill they desire as quickly as possible, then you will never see them in a cantina again. grouping these people to help them on thier way is proobably the best way to get rid of them.
4)Powergamers who AFK macro cheapen the title of "Master"
This is true, but use it to your advantage, they had to pay a decent amount of credits for thier training, you probably won't. Another thing to consider is that if these people couldn't macro, they would sit there and earn the xp anyway, and most dedicate a lot more time to gaming than any casual player, so they were going to hit "Master" first anyway.
Now, having said all that, I try to be objective, I try to understand why AFKs want to macro, I understand why real players don't want them to. I come from Asheron's Call where macroing of all sorts runs rampant. The best advice I can give everyone here is to stop worrying about what other people do, play the game the way you enjoy it, let the devs work on REAL issues right now, and at some point down the road if Ent macroing really has become a problem, it needs to be looked at. Macroing could actually be used as a measuring stick for peoples overall enjoyment of the class, when you start seeing more and more AFK macros, the devs should realize that this class needs soem fluff, but right now there are many more classes with many more problems than ents ever thought about. The main flaw right now is that the class functions perfectly, but its a fluff class, the only fun thing is the neat little tricks we do, and right now we don't have many, but at least we work.
So why did I start macroing my dances?
Firstly, I realized that trying to chat and do enough flourishes to maximize my dance xp was not going to be easy, and hitting the same 8 keys to do the same 8 moves (some of which look rediculous) every few seconds was not my idea of fun.
Secondly, just to see if I could do it, I know its not very difficult, but I still had to learn something, its not like I bought the game knowing how to make an indefinate macro for dancing. Also making short macros made the Ent class much more appealing, being about to execute a serious of moves instead of near-spastic pressing of f-keys proved to be much more fun.
Third, discovering the indefinite macro meant I could power my way through entertainer and dancer and pick up on a profession I would enjoy more day to day, TK or Pistol, or whatever.
Forth, After visiting a couple of cantina's on different planets I realized that the general populace doesn't seem to respect our class. I've seen some Ents flirt with every person that enters a cantina, immediately dropping thier previous conversation hoping if they get to the next guy first they'll get a bigger tip. To me it just looked like that particular dancer was a (you know what) and I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed.
Also after a long conversation/flirting with a single patron, many do not tip, its as if they do not think we deserve it, or they think they have paid us with thier company, not to say i don't get tips, but if someone just sees me a a magic BF/wound curing npc then why should I bother to make them feel special, I'll just be a bot, I get xp, they get healed. I just don't see a reason to go out of my way when the majority of the population either doesn't tip, or tips very poorly. (And I consider healing a tip).
Then there are rude customers who just throw endless sexual inuendos at you and call you a whore or make obscene emotes and etc. Every time this happens I don't even want to play, I simply turn on my macro and go AFK until they leave.
Many times, there will be no one in the cantinas anyway, especially the smaller ones, if theres no one there to entertain, I see no reason why I shouldn't turn the bot on.
Also, to advance quickly we are forced to use our best dance, the code is very simple, and therefore easy to manipulate, and easy to get bored with, i believe Ents would be much more interesting if we got bonus xp based on doing different combinations of flourishes, or based on our timing (not how many times we can pull off x flourish in x minutes, but actually timing the move so it looks good. Experience gains based on changing dances to correspond with the song should be in place too. It would make the band have to work together. /bandflourish should give everyone xp and take away from everyones HAM. Lastly, the wound healing line is a waste, it should be added to the BF healing line and give us some cool random abilities, lets us design our own dance steps and the level we have could determine the level of complexity we can use when designing them. Or at least grant us some new flourishes, or soemthing, the class just needs filled out and it needs to be desimplified.
So anyway, I know this was long winded, but I felt like saying it, agree or disagree, thats up to you.
Just wanted to say very nice post Dejah - pretty much expressed my views.
I personally don't have a huge problem with afk entertainers per se though I fail to understand it... I DO have a problem with them doing it in the cantina in the middle of the dance floor so that they are obstructing people are at at the keyboard. Why not be a street performer, or use a back room?
Also from Asheron's Call for three years +, but like Dejah I am a rper and enjoy the journey. 
Everyone has different play styles, it's just about trying to find likeminded people and trying not to obstruct others from their play style. Easier said than done though...
May I ask exactly how you enjoy being an entertainer if you are AFK? How can you enjoy it if you dont experience it at the keyboard? You contridicted yourself saying you dont like the profession due to lack of respect and will power your way through it but afterwards say you enjoy it. If you want respect you have to demand it from the people that visit your cantina, if they don't get the point then don't bother with them, or you have someone take care of them for you. I've had a problem with a total of 2 people, and surely will never have any problems with them again.
I have no problem with macroing..I need to learn how to do it myself so I can keep up with all the conversation that goes on where I dance. But please don't say you enjoy the profession if most of the time you are AFK just to "power" yourself so you can go do something else later on. You seem to have no idea what all goes into being an entertainer, but if all you are doing is "getting it out of the way" you probably never will. No matter if you are Master or not, the patrons of the cantina are going to interact more with the people that actually show them a good time no matter what dance they are doing instead of the Master dancer who is now there to interact because they have gotten all the exping "out of the way" and can do a cool exotic dance. Being the "big dog" isn't going to get you more attention.
Just my 2 cents worth, but play how you want Power gamers really never made all the much sense to me anyways.
Relica Tremayne
Master Dancer / Master Image Designer / Teras Kasi Novice
Eclipse
It's just different play styles. Power gamer vs casual vs RPer. Neither side really understands the other.I have no problem with AFKers, as when they're in the group, they're earning me experince. And they can always be kicked if we need the space.
-Soon Mot
Just a few points, some of which have already been mentioned..
Being Master Dancer does not make you 'big dog on the block'. Being *good* at being a dancer means that you have a solid customer base, make good tips, and are viewed well by your peers and your customers. I find it difficult to believe you could achieve that with AFK macroing constantly.
Second, as several have pointed out, you provide decent reasoning for *using macros* - there is a far cry between that and AFK macroing to 'get through levels'.
Additionally, have you considered that one of the reasons that our profession lacks respect is that people like you AFK and those in other professions resent that? I've seen far more customers complain to me about AFKers than about those who are flirtatious -being flirtatious is not necessarily a bad thing, as you've implied. There is an art to 'working a room' properly, and again that's something you're NOT going to achieve by running AFK macros.
All that being said, thanks for sharing your opinion and thoughts, but I'd have to say that I whole-heartedly disagree with you on every count, and would not group with you simply based on a complete difference of philosophy toward our profession.
DS,
I appreciate your comments. They help me understand a bit about AFK macro. I don't fully understand it, but hey.
You are definitely not the kind of person I complain about. According to your post, you are one of the most responsible players I know of in the cantina. While my play style will not mirror yours, I commend you on how you handle your AFKness.
I'm just making a nonnegative post about your confession. If all AFKers followed your example, they wouldn't be reviled as much.