Dancer Archive
Thread: Amusing encounter from a former Master Dancer.
Just thought I would post this here because it was a funny encounter with one of those Cantina Leeches that we all know and love.
As a little history here I started this character as a Dancer because I thought it would be fun to perform in a Cantina and to help out other players. While it was my primary profession I also planned to take Smuggler to go with it since both are types to hang out in the cantina. But after spending a month in the cantina, and attaining Master Dancer, I found the experince less an less rewarding due to the constant abuse from other players and the lack of tips. Not to mention the AFK dancing bots that I would see in there for hours, and most recently all day.
Now I know that not all players use and abuse us like stimm opperated dancing bots that are only there to heal them and nothing more. But the fact that 70% of my customers thought that way was highly discouraging. I am not sure when or where I became so jaded towards dancing for other players, but it was probably after spending three hours in a cantina healing players without a single tip or a thank you. Even the group of 4 that I healed who had 99.9% black HAM bars didn't even so much as acknowledge my presence except to stare at me whileI danced.
Anyway ... on to the story ..
Last week I was out running Explorer Missions for credits when I had come back into Kor Vella to get a few more missions, sell off some Avian Meat, and smuggle through some Imperial and Rebel disks for some cash. (ie selling the disks to other players). After getting my missions I went to the cantina to sit down and send out some E-mails to clients and do some crafting when it stated to fill up with a few players. They were looking for an entertainer to heal their mind and BF but because of how crappily people have treated the performers in Kor Vella there were none around at that time. And then they all honed in on the Aprentice Dancer title over my head.
I had kept the title there, after selling off my higher level dancer skills down to just above apprentice, because that was the profession I had started out as. And because of a bug in the game I could not set it back to No Title ... the game would always set it back to Aprentice Dancer whenever I log. Also in the weeks that I had stopped dancing, except for friends or on the occasional whim, I have picked up a few other skills. Namely TKA and Pistoleer to go with my Smuggling.
I knew one of the guys in the group as one of the more partiurally rude and obnoxious players from my past experiences in dancing. He was one of the players that suggested that I tip him because he was allowing me to gain more XP and healing XP. So that he didn't think I deserved any respect and that I should bow down to him because he was helping me get to Master Dancer. He also told me that I could go out and run missions like everybody else to credits. And unfortunatly he was the one to first notice me in the corner table and came over.
The first thing that passed his lips were "Dance!". I couldn't beleive this, that he was practically ordering me to dance for them. Not being in a particurally good mood after that and my Zabrak character having a fiery temper, yes I am a RPer, I somewhat politely told him that I do not dance publically anymore. And when he asked me why I told him flat out that I don't like the abuse that I and my fellow entertainers receive and the lack of tips.
He then has the audacity to tip me 50 credits and tells me "There I tipped you .. now dance". This got a few chuckles out of his friends. At this point I stood up and tipped him back the 50 credits and told him that dancing for them was not worth my time because I could go out and make 20k in credits within the next hour running missions. I then promptly added that he was the one that told me to go run missions for my credits and now that is exactly what I was doing. And that I did not have time for his juvenile antics and to enjoy his BF. I assumed that they had alot of BF because all four of them had 75% of their HAM bars all black.
I turned away from him and was about to walk towards the back door of the cantina when a Duel Request box popped up on my screen. The big man in his bone and chitten armor and huge honking rifle wanted to duel a dancer wearing nothing more than clothsto save his ego. I told him in no uncertain terms that he really didn't want to do that.
He then proceeded to cuss up a storm and call me names, which again got a few chuckles from his friends. So I accepted his duel and immediately equipped my VibroKnucklers with a hotkey and proceeded to lay into him. After 4 or 5 hits he was down incapacitated before he could even react. I then proceeded to tear him a new orifice by listing out the many reasons why I do not dance anymore and why there are no dancers around. When I got down to "D" he was comming out of the incapacitation so I unequiped the VKs and hit him again with my lightest punch. After telling him to "sit back down" I continued the railing until he got back up again. At whcih time I hit him again and told him "Did I tell you you could get back up?". When I had finally got through all of my grievences, and my characters temper, I DBed him. This sent him to a cloning facility off world with 99% black HAM bars and completely empty pockets. I had found this out by the tells he sent me, whinning about how he had no money to get back ... god I wish they still had corpse recovery on.
The moral of the story: Master Dancer is only 1 1/2 skill trees ... that leaves 2 others to be filled. So be nice to your local entertainer. 
MidnightAngel
I think this is the best story I have heard yet. It makes me sad to see people like this make dancers wanna give up their profession. Though I am rarely seen in the cantinas these days I still love to dance and have only had a real problem with one person that later appologized.
Great story though 
and good luck to you!
Relica Tremayne
Master Dancer / Master Image Designer/ Novice Gunfighter
Eclipse
Amen sister!
That is so super great -- honestly I'm a lucky one that only gets the sexual harassment instead of the pompus scream at you to dance type. Lol, I'm not sure which is worse, but I really don't get much of the sh eithor 
Thank goodness --
Lol, maybe it's cause I"m a cute mon cal -- or because I'm always surrounded by about five people willing to fight my battles I don't know, but it's fun.
I love watching dancers woop up on jerks though -- happens all the time on late night/early morning cantina time -- and I just want to give you a hoorah before I'm off to work!
You've made my morning =P
--this lil mon cal--
boci odid
Without any control over how the benefits of our profession are applied... without any real value to the adventuring players other than an artificial way to cure Battle Fatigue and Mind Wounds ... with so many of our number botting their way to Master in a week ... is it any wonder Dancers are ridiculed and resented?
I like the fact that SOE is going to add more dance animations and outfits. But that isn't going to fix Dancer. To fix us, AFK macros need to be coded against. Fix us with entertainer missions that are actually worth doing. To really fix us, we need the ability to provide buffs to whoever we target and select. And those buffs should be significant enough to be meaningful, not just a 250 point Mind Buff.
I don't want us to have combat roles - that's for combat players. I want us to offer benefits that players want and need so we can participate in the game world beyond just being the eye candy. Otherwise, Dancers will continue to be abused as you and I and others have been.
If not, more Dancers are going to be like you and I. You see, I took up TK after gaining Master Dancer. I'm 5 boxes through Novice TK now, with an eye on Master. And last week I started taking skill boxes in CH. My dancing engagements grow fewer and farther between, and that saddens me because it's the best fun I've had in the game - maybe any game. But when the skill crunch finally arrives some day, do I want to play a broken class (you pick - TK or CH) that can fight and earn money, or do I want to play a non-broken class whose value is dubious and which requires me to share the stage with clueless twits on autopilot?
Great Story!!!!
I wish I had more combat skills so that I could knock some people down. Especially when they see me in town and beg me to come in even though I am busy with something else. I go in, dance and then they make some rude comment to me and leave. I have gotten so fed up with it!
Yeah I know what you mean Sinda, I had alot of hope for the Dancer profession when they put in the entertainer mission terminals. But when I went to check them out I was disgusted to see that the payout maxed t 120 creds. Hell, I could run delivery missions for 10X that ammount and that was after paying my way there. Do a double pull there and back and I was making 20X in less time than it took to do the Dancer missions.
At first I put up with the juvenile sexual herassment and the general BS that went on in the cantina, and I didn't mind the tips so much until it started getting expensive for training and supplies. I even had a lot of fun roleplaying through those things .. becomming the unofficial dancer and bouncerof the Kor Vella cantina (odd how that worked out .... I was a bouncer r/l at clubs and concert venus to pay my way through college). But eventually it just became less and less fun for me.
I don't know though, right now I have skills in TKA/Dancer with minors in Pistoleer/Smuggler/Scout/Medic and of course Entertainer. Eventually I plan to tighten those up into more specific professions of TKA/Pistoleer with minors in Smuggler/Scout/Medic. But that is only how I am heading at the moment. I am not a power gamer by any stretch of the immagination and am taking time going through the skill trees. I enjoy playing the game and exploring more than power leveling.
Who knows .... if they change the entertainer profession enough I may pick it up again and go back with my original plan of TKA/Dancer with minors in Smuggler/Scout/Medic. If I am not mistaken even if you sell back the skills you still retain the XP pools ... so it would be easy for me to shoot back up to at least Novice Dancer.
Midnight Angel
Talona Vidae - Naritus - Corvella
MidnightAngel wrote:
Talona Vidae - Naritus - Corvella
Ack .. now I know I am tired .... mixed the name of the planet and the city into one word ... sheesh
Gotta love working the midnight shift ... lol
Oh well, time to play a little and then go to bed...
MidnightAngel
Talona Vidae - Naritus - Corellia - Kor Vella
Got it right this time ... 
Excellent story! I've got another from a while ago, probably a month ago at least.
I've been a master dancer on Ahazi for a very long time now, and haven't given it up yet. I started as a dancer, mastered the skill tree quickly, and have toyed around with several other trees since then.
A newbie entertainer, still wearing the desert crawlers and flex-form shirt, tried to play with my hair. NOBODY touches my hair - nobody. I gave the person a very strict warning not to touch my hair. All the other entertainers in the cantina knew of the pride I had for my hairdo, and agree that it adds to my short-tempered and sarcastic personality.
Nonetheless, the entertainer wouldn't back off, and for some odd reason decided to challenge me to a duel.
By this time I was arifleman, with an excellent sliced, powered up spraystick, and the 75% PVP damage reduction hadn't been implimented yet. Bummer for her... 
-Faun Lightcrest
Nice work. You dueled him, beat his sorry butt, AND mainted character and RPed the whole time. Good for you.
DBing him back to another world is just... priceless. LOL! :-D
C
You know, there is still one thing that I, andmy sick sense of humor,have always wanted to do as a dancer before I give up the profession completely.
I want to convince an Imperial player to loan me his Storm Trooper armor for like an hour so that I can go into a cantina and do that poplock dance while weaing it ...
Can you immagine how funny that would be ... hehehe
MidnightAngel
Beery wrote:
"If I am not mistaken even if you sell back the skills you still retain the XP pools"
Not so. You lose any experience that you had in that box.
Correct, you loose the XP you spent on that skill ... but I beleive that you keep your "XP pool" that you have yet to spend.
MidnightAngel