Dancer Archive

For some time now I have wondered if I was wrong to chose to become a Master Dancer. I chose the entertainer profession because I wanted to be a healer. Fairly recently I have learned that we aren't really healers. Okay I was disappointed but the mechanics were still there so I still considered myself a healer. I became a Master Dancer because I wanted to provide mind buffs. I knew they would help people and that was really my main goal, to support those around me and have fun at the same time. Before bots became common on Shadowfire, I actually made quite a bit of money buffing and healing mind wounds and BF. As more and more people began to afk the profession and as more and more of those began to provide round the clock buffing, my services were no longer needed except by those who prefered to have the entertainer travel to them for various reasons. But after a while even that ability was replaced. I'm not even really certain why. Perhaps it was habit. Perhaps people felt obligated to tip because I was "live". Perhaps they didn't really believe me any more when I said "I love traveling to you, it's not an inconvenience at all." All I know is that over time, the entertainer profession that I had so carefully chosen because I thought of it as a fun, support, healerrole, became the "alt" role. The vast majority assumed entertainers were alt accounts and so put no real thought into whether they should care if the person dancing or playing music was "live" or not. I began to wonder if it was just me, just my server, or what. So I subscribed to the forums and began coming here to see what other dancers had to say. Maybe that was my real mistake. Because now I am forced to accept that I'm not the great performer that many here are. I don't have the same flair or confidence. I can't control my motions in more than the most rudimentary ways. And if by some stroke of luck I do manage to time things properly when Iam changing the dance or the flourish I am constantly in doubt as to whether the action I saw was what others around me saw. If we move to a completely passive system I will never, unless there's no one else around, be the entertainer of choice. I have only ever been watched by one person (and he's my ingame husband so is biased anyway). I have always relied upon the /watch command, and later on the /setp (or group) command. The mechanics were not complicated. They required no higher level thinking skills. They simply required me to pay attention. It was a system that allowed me, despite my flaws and inabilities, to compete. But with the completely passive system I can no longer compete. Players will instead seek out those entertainers who can really WOW! them with their ability to control their dances and songs or those entertainers who strip down or flirt. Even if I am the only player available, the completely passive system does nothing for me. I won't know if the person healed their BF because I am maxed on healing xp. I won't know if they received a performance enhancement because there's no way for me to see that.As a result,I won't know if I was able to help them in any way at all unless they tell me, thus forcing an interaction in order to validate my choice of profession. So I am left with this quandry. Am I in the wrong profession? Only time will tell I guess. I sincerely hope not because despite my lack of ability, I have enjoyed it. I loved knowing I had made a positive difference for someone. I cannow onlybeg the devs to not take that from me.