Dancer Archive
Thread: I will never make fun of AFKers again
After the holocron told me to master dancer, and I spent a couple agonizingly boring weeks trying to 'continue on my path to absolute power' I will never make fun of or have any hard feelings towards AFK entertainers again.
I tried really hard to stay online and find something to do while dancing but it just wasn't possible. ALL you can do is talk and listen to cantina gossip. Sure, that's fun for the first few hours, but by the time I'd trained in novice dancer I already /addignore 6 people because of how annoying they were lol I HAD to either go afk and macro the crap out of it, or go hang myself IRL. The choice was obvious 
Anyways, thank all of you entertainers who actually do this for FUN, for being there to heal my BF....I'll never think of anyone any less for being afk, it's not just because you're too lazy to be there or getting cheap exp, that's just how the profession was made. /saltue 
Sigh.
If dancing is so boring, then why do I enjoy it so much?
Heh, maybe I do not really want to know the answer to that question.
Kharrissa wrote:
Sigh.
If dancing is so boring, then why do I enjoy it so much?
Heh, maybe I do not really want to know the answer to that question.
Well, of course, there are basically two types of people:
Those who find Dancing to be enjoyable.
Those who find Dancing to be boring.
Before the holocron incident, you pretty much found Dancers in the former category. No one had a reason to take up Dancing if they didn't like it.
Now, people are being lured into the profession through the holocron. Does it expose our woes and show some people what we have to put up with? Yeah, it does...to an extent.
But of course, now you have Dancers who complain about dancing to the patrons, as well as Dancers who are filthy rich (because if they can earn a Holocron or buy one then they aren't living on Dancer wages), so some people don't know if they're just giving money to a rich person or not (technically, it shouldn't matter how rich someone is if you're tipping for a dance, but you know...).
On one hand, I almost want AFKing to be easier just so we can clear the cantinas more quickly of those who don't want to dance. I hate feeling that way.
Urbannaja wrote:I tried really hard to stay online and find something to do while dancing but it just wasn't possible. ALL you can do is talk and listen to cantina gossip. Sure, that's fun for the first few hours...
I could say the same thing about Carbineer. (Note I don't really feel this way, I am just turning the argument on its head.) I tried really hard to find something to do while gaining carbine levels but it just wasn't possible. ALL you can do is shoot things. There's no other way to gain carbine experience. Sure that's fun for the first few hours but after you hit Novice Carbineer it's just a matter of which specials you choose to kill things... there is no variety.
See how it works? What matters here is not that "there are only a few things to do as profession X" but whether you like what those things are. If you're a crafter, literally ALL there is to do as a crafter is survey, samle, and craft. And most of that is crafting. And crafting is always exactly the same. Craft one chance cube, and you've seen the interface and there is nothing else to see. The only difference between a chance cube and a large naboo house is how many resources you need and how many drag-and-drops in the UI you have to do (for components like walls, etc). This is true of every profession, not just dancer.
So what you're really saying isn't, "All there is to do as a dancer is X, Y, and Z," but rather, "X, Y, and Z do not hold my interest as a player." That's fine. Dancing isn't for everyone. Neither is any other profession. That's why there are 32 professions and you can play 3 of them at a time.
Urbannaja wrote:I'll never think of anyone any less for being afk, it's not just because you're too lazy to be there or getting cheap exp, that's just how the profession was made.
No, it's not how the profession was made. The profession, along with musician, was made for people who find socializing and similar things to be fun. You're basically saying, "The socializing stuff isn't fun enough to hold my interest." That's fine. But it doesn't mean the profession was made for anti-social AFKing (because that's what AFKing is -- being anti-social). It means that you aren't the type of person the profession was made for. And that's fine, you know. Nothing wrong with that. Clearly Jedi, among other things, is NOT a profession made for someone like me, who refuses to change his characters based on someone else's order (i.e. the holocron). The higher crafting profs are also not for me either. But when I realize a profession is not for me, I don't say, "Oh that means I have to master it by AFK macroing." Rather, I say, "Oh that means I should not try to master it because it isn't for me... and there are umpteen other pofessions in the game I enjoy more."
Now, that really doesn't go the same for holotainers as for the old-school AFK Macroers who "just wanted to be master" for the sake of being master. Holotainers are just being utilitarian. So OK, AFK Macro to Master, dump it, and do whatever else the holocron tells you. I honestly bear the holocron entertainers no ill will at all. It's not their fault that how to become a Jedi is designed stupidly (it's the one truly BAD design in the game, IMO).
But ask yourself. Had you not been under "orders" to Master Dancer, what would you have done upon finding out it was not interesting enough to stay at your keyboard? Would you have given up and left the skills at Novice just for your own enjoyment on occasion? Would you have dropped all entertainment skills completely to free up points? Or would you have said, "Darn this profession is so boring I just HAVE to master it!"?
It's that last one that I will never understand. And while the holotainers are doing this the last couple of months, that last group has been doing it since day 1, long before they had any reason to based on becoming a Jedi.
C
I have to say I agree with the original poster to a certain extent. I mastered dancer a long time ago, and never used a macro or went AFK to do it. I do like socializing and I enjoyed being a dancer. However, one thing I did not care for was being chained to the same cantina (or a cantina that looked exactly the same) for the entire period. The only way to gain decent XP was to be in a large group, otherwise progression was painfully slow (similar to going for master Carbineer and only shooting kreetles). So I danced in Coronet for the most part, occasionally going to different venues, but rarely was it worth my while.
One of the pleasant things was the socializing that occurred. However, at least on my server, I have found that almost ALL of the entertainers are now AFK in the large cantinas. After giving up dancing, I chose to master Entertainer, and it was incredibly boring for the most part.
I don't blame the AFK-Macroers anymore. I do wish there was a way to stop it, or at least discourage it, because the social aspect of dancing was the best part of the profession. That aspect is now largely gone. When I choose to go back to dancing, I will probably create a macro and park my character in a cantina for a while. Yes, I realize I'm contributing to a problem that already exists. But if the system isn't going to change, I'm not going to fight it by punishing myself.
Chessack wrote:
I could say the same thing about Carbineer. (Note I don't really feel this way, I am just turning the argument on its head.) I tried really hard to find something to do while gaining carbine levels but it just wasn't possible. ALL you can do is shoot things. There's no other way to gain carbine experience. Sure that's fun for the first few hours but after you hit Novice Carbineer it's just a matter of which specials you choose to kill things... there is no variety.
See how it works? What matters here is not that "there are only a few things to do as profession X" but whether you like what those things are. If you're a crafter, literally ALL there is to do as a crafter is survey, samle, and craft. And most of that is crafting. And crafting is always exactly the same. Craft one chance cube, and you've seen the interface and there is nothing else to see. The only difference between a chance cube and a large naboo house is how many resources you need and how many drag-and-drops in the UI you have to do (for components like walls, etc). This is true of every profession, not just dancer.
So what you're really saying isn't, "All there is to do as a dancer is X, Y, and Z," but rather, "X, Y, and Z do not hold my interest as a player." That's fine. Dancing isn't for everyone. Neither is any other profession. That's why there are 32 professions and you can play 3 of them at a time.
C
Although I disagree regarding AFKers, I would like to thank you for your post. This is the first rational explanation I have seen, and it has helped me understand why you feel as you do.
Before the holocron incident, you pretty much found Dancers in the former category. No one had a reason to take up Dancing if they didn't like it.
thats funny cause on my server, week 3, theed was packed full of two groups with around 50-70% afk. so were you just making that part up, or is it selective memory or what? oh, maybe your server was different and it's populace actually loved dancing. like some sort of cosmic coincidence lured all the true entertainers to your server. i guess that's possible.
I don't think Kuildeous (sp? sorry) is on my server, but I reached master dancer quite a while ago now. While I was skilling up, in Theed no less, there was almost always a full group in the evenings, perhaps one or two of whom were AFK. I saw maybe 5 entertainers on long term AFK the entire time I skilled up, with most of my time spent in Theed; I did also spend time in Coronet and out on Talus. So, it's not just Kuild's server that didn't start as a zombie wasteland in the cantina.
Not surprisingly, since everyone or close to it was actually playing, we had a blast.
yeah but apparently it's ruining the whole profession of dancing. like dancing is literally destroyed because of them. i guess not a single command works in the entire dancing tree, and the afkers leave such a bitter taste in dancers mouths that they are unable to even put on a show at the theater. you haven't heard of the rampant dancer suicide sweeping the nation? yeah watch more foxnews.
afkers are also, despite your laid back attitude, responsible for every other non-entertainer's hate for the profession. it's not a grudge against a timesink, or social inadequacy, or lack of respect at a rediculously easy class, it's the afkers.
i heard actually, that it was the afkers that proposed the entire holocron solution, wrote all of the jedi code and killed the lindburg baby.
Unfortunately Straws, the constant flow of Holocrons now that the devs have stated they're an integral part of the game design blows a hole in your theory. I wish to god you were right, I really do. I've maxed my TK/Doc (a combo I stumbled across before it became flavour of the month) and loved it to bits, so he now owns/runs the medical centre for my Chilastra PA. I felt the time had come for something else as a sideline and decided to try my luck with an entertainer and plumped for Chimaera as one of the new European servers closer to me. As of now, Coronet is about halfway through the process described in the post about Moenia.
There's a core of AFK-ers that appear and do nothing else, but there's a core of non-AFK players who are keeping the flame going. If you're on Chimaera, check the Coronet cantina and look for Eleri, Stysra, Ladymary, Densa, Catcoota, Moragand if I might make so bold, my own Mir'iyel. At the same time you'll see who the core AFK-ers are and I will not name names because sometimes, just sometimes, these people DO add something to the group.
Dancing is fun. I like the social aspect, but the afk-ers are just spectacularly irritating, and if you think it's bad on a US server, at least you all speak English. Some of the spatial tip spammers ona Euro server are at best semi-intelligible, at worst utterly incomprehensible. I just hope that there's a finite supply of Jedi wannabes, but the realist in me keeps shaking his head. Until they've all got to Jedi or at least enough of them have done, suffered total skill loss and the word has gotten round that *gasp* you need skill to play a Jedi (or at least can't plonk yer Jedi tackle out for all to admire without getting it chopped off) and interest has dropped off to reasonable proportions, we're stuck with AFK macro'ers.
I propose something along the lines of designating cantinas to dance in. Get a core of friends together and tour various places. The healing xp may be hard to come by if all the usual combat grinders choose the well-trodden path to Coronet, Theed, Bestine, Anchorhead, but if word gets around that a group of entertainers who actually entertain are prepared to move on to another spot if the AFKers get too numerous and will exclude AFKers from their ranks, at least some of the profession's dignity could be retrieved.
Maybe too much to ask for. Sad, really.
meeuki wrote:On my server, week 3, theed was packed full of two groups with around 50-70% afk. so were you just making that part up, or is it selective memory or what?
It's not selective memory. I actually saw the transition happen on my server in real time (as it were). I started playing July 29th. In Moenia. Naritus server. At the times when I logged in (notice how I said that), there were usually entertainment groups of around a dozen. They were active. Spatial and group chat were spammy enough I had to split them into separate tabs. People were in and out of the group, training happened, lots of chatting occurred.
Then, a couple of days after I started, one of my friends seemed a little unresponsive (I shall not name her here). Several of us tried throwing a pillow at her (we used to do that a lot to tease each other). She didn't respond to that. But she emoted things every so often and danced and rested... why was she ignoring us?
Finally someone else who was more experienced said, "Oh, she is on an AFK Macro." Several people said, "What's that?" and the procedure was explained to them. Macro syntaxes (sp?) changed hands.
Within a day, maybe two or three, the entire group of people had turned into AFK Macroers, one by one falling to the power of the Dark Side. Until finally one day I logged in and could not join the group because all 10 or 15 of them were AFK. People being healed sat silently. People dancing and music'ing, were silent (except for tip-me spam). All the people I'd spent the first week or two having fun with, were gone... Oh, their toons were there, but they were not. They were out fishing, watching a movie, going to work, whatever. And I was left in a room full of zombies.
In frustration, I took up crafting and surveying with the one other friend who was not an AFKer. I started going out alone to survey and (eventually) hunt. I figured, if I am going to be alone in the game, there is no need to be in the "social" hub.
By pure and utter luck, in search of resources I could not find near Moenia, and lagged to Kingdom Come in Theed (this was before I did a RAM upgrade and Theed was murder), I landed in Keren, and dropped by the cantina, and there was Palm Sun, a friend to this day, being a musician, performing for 2 patrons, and at keyboard. I started dancing with him and found that he never went AFK. His friend Aradia the tailor/dancer came in and made me some clothes, and danced with us... and an at-keyboard group of friends formed.
I went back to Moenia, my old hangout, once a week or so. It was always the same. AFK, AFK, AFK... nobody there to talk to or even invite you into the group. And each week the group got smaller and smaller and smaller. Then one day I went there, and the cantina -- Moenia cantina, which had once been probably the 2nd or 3rd busiest on the entire server (behind only Theed and Coronet) was empty.
You can defend AFK entertainers all you want, Meeuki. But when we say, "We have seen this happen," it is not a lie and it is not selective memory. We have, in fact, seen it happen. AFK destroyed Moenia cantina as a social place. To this day, it is either empty or has 2 or 3 AFKers in it, every time I go in. It has never had a nice big band of people in it ever again.
AFK absolutely and 100% did this to Moenia on my server. I was there. I saw it happen.
C