Dancer Archive
Thread: How to keep things fun and our spirits up until our Revamp ??
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DarkY0da
Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:20 pm
#1
Ok so while not everyone agrees that SOEs Grand Experiment (Music post, Dancer Post) is a failure. We know that the Devs believe it was flawed from the start. And that it is going to take a lot of work to get things right again. But that time is a very long ways off...
So what do we all do to keep us going until then ?
A few thoughts on the subject....
We could abbandon all healing and buffing to the afkers and bots until such time as they can't do it any more...
What this does it makes us NOT tied into the afk spam filled cantinas. We no longer end up competing with Bots and AFKers for XP or money from buffs. We can then just entertain to have fun(which we have always had). But it relieves many of us from the burdens related to our healing/buffing lines.
But how do I make money then ?
Ahh see now you have free skill points. You can pick up Crafting or combat or Doc or something. You can now have Skill points invested into something that has been and continues to get more content and fixes all along.
You should ALL have a character on Bria to partake in the Cantina Crawls.
If your just sick of it all then you can take a break from the game and cancel your account. And just check up and keep up to date on how things are going to see if you want to come back.
You can take a break by just dropping all your entertainer skills(just remember have an alt on some server where they have a good active Ent. Community) and pick up some other skills to experiance some other parts of this wonderful and large game.
Anyone have any suggestions on what they have been doing ? Suggestions on what you are going to do ?
Thoughts or ideas ?
We have a time line now although very general and rough. Now we just have to keep ourselves going until it gets here.
PoetDancer
Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:27 pm
#2
I am two healing boxes shy of becoming a Master Dancer again. However, I just can't see myself going to the grind capitals anymore. It destroys the soul if you spend too much time there.
So what I have done is to gain some experience in my fencing skills, picked up medic, and go to cities and areas that are not especially well traveled (Mos Espa, Bela Vistal, Wayfar, Nym's Stronghold, Talus, Rori, and the like). I'll do missions out of the terminals, and be available to tend to players who may need help.
Message Edited by PoetDancer on 11-06-2004 12:58 AM
Dreamland
Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:53 pm
#3
I won't be going the the big cantinas anymore. Its a shame, and the thing i feel worst about is the new player who just bought the game and tries to start an entertainer. What a bleak world to walk into for them. I can't subject myself to it anymore though, the only placesI can see performing are the places like Sirii mentions. Now with JTL spreading the players to the far corners of the galaxy maybe there will be the kind of places i can meet my fellow ent chat ents and perform for the fresh and unjaded once in a whille.
What i realy wish is that people could act like adults. We know the buffbot is on the way out, and we know that the live entertainer is having a hard timebecause of them. So if you must be a buffbot in this interim why not act like an adult and not put a buffbot in every single cantina. Hell i don't know why you have to put one in a public cantina anyway. Most guilds have one, there is no need for there to be any much less two or more buffbots in a public cantina on some ocasions. Have some regard for the people that want to play and act like you are more mature than a schoolyard bullyby keepingyour buffbot out of where the new people are trying to make some go at the game.
Xyrdre
Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:56 pm
#4
This is what I have been doing for awhile now:
It was the cantina scene that was the source of my frustrations. If I went into the mountains to dance or play music with friends, I had fun. If I went to a theater to just practice alone, or with friends to chat, dance and play, I had fun. If I went to cantinas to be a healer, or available for buffs... no fun. That's where the AFK, the spam,and the buffbots are... and it was really starting to get to me.
Then one day I just decided that I could care less about healing or buffing, and I remembered why I got started in the entertainment professions to begin with - to dance, to play music, to entertain and to connect with others - to become a 'star of stage and holoscreen', I used to so frequently say. And I looked at what the environment had become, and really looked at the difference between what I was supposed to be doing as an entertainer, and what I wanted to be doing as an entertainer. And I made a choice to do what I wanted instead. 
So, I stopped going to the cantinas, instead doing my thing wherever I felt like it. I played music and danced in starports waiting for shuttles. I took friends to exotic locales to sightsee, and did little impromptu shows there. I gathered with friends in the streets, and threw buffing and healing to the winds.
And it's been good. I too very nearly left SWG a bit back there... it took my remembering my roots, and being able to free my thinking from the apparent roles of entertainers in the game (now pretty readilyacknowledged as broken)to find the fun again.
I dance, I play music, I work with one of the prominent Tailors on Ahazi in doing quarterly fashion shows, choreographing the dancer/model segments that have become the highlight of the shows. And in just being an entertainer for entertainment's sake, I've found that I gain the vocalappreciation of those who do appreciate it, without the negativity of those who don't care.
Being free of game mechanics, I don't have to compete with anything but boredom. And to the community of entertainer players, boredom stands no chance - creating fun times is perhapswhatour playstyleis best suited at accomplishing. When we are free of the frustrations that have built from following our old integrated roles, fun just follows us in our wake... and it's infectious.
If nothing else could be done for us while we await a profession revamp, the one thing I would see done is increasing our entertainer mission payouts as a means of getting by in SWG without a working role. Those of us who do enjoy a bit of combat on the side can clearly weather the wait financially through combat missions, those with crafting in their character builds may have reasonable incomes as well. Protecting the welfare of the pure entertainers in lieu of player goodwill in the form of tips for needed services can so easily be accomplished by stepping up our own mission payouts. Such a minor fix... and it may well free us up to do those things in the game that we do love, without being burdened by the ugliness that's largelybecome the cantinas of SWG.
At the end of the day, I don't play SWG to be available toany otherplayer. I don't play SWG to cater to anyone's needs. I play SWG to have fun - fun for me, not in putting in a component or two to someone else's fun at the cost of my own. When the hard choices are made, I will go back to finding my own fun above and beyond any role that I've been set to by profession... and do so on my own terms. And as long as I can find a few others who share into this vision of gameplay, entertainer or not, I don't think the proverbial They can get me down again.
Bendeguz
Sun Nov 07, 2004 8:43 pm
#5
For me, after mastering dancer & muscian.. I started to get a bit bored.
Then I hooked up with a dance troupe for a while.. but when the leader
suddenly got ill, it fell apart and never regrouped. I've since found a new
group, formed partially of members from the first, but when JTL came out,
or even about three or four weeks before that... people started not showing
up, being busy with rl stuff, etc.
I've attempted to counter all these down spots by having another char on
another server. My other char doesn't do anything ent or healing related at
all but simply is a scout and smug and goes out hunting a lot for the guild I
found. This gave me the variation I wasn't getting, but let me keep the skills
I had gained as a dancer/musician on Flurry.
Another thing I've done recently was to get my owncantina.This should
give me something new to do for a while...
so come visituson Dant at the Artemis!
We're not done fixing the decor... but it's getting there slowly but surely.
This has worked generally pretty well for me. When I get bored with both,
I take a week or two, and don't play either one.. then I'm generally good to
go for a while, with plenty of stuff to keep me busy and usually quite happy.
Looking forward to the end of the buff bot era!
- Aleeta -
Master Dancer, Master Musician
Flurry
LyteFoot
Sun Nov 07, 2004 9:42 pm
#6
Come to corbantis and help me start a big entertainer movement. I don't see many buff-bots and rarely see them in cantinas. The Theed cantina performer population is way down since JTL and most of them are ATK although I'm still trying to get some of them to let others beside the performer group know they are there. I'm amazed at the shy people who play performer. I play in a small side group and have regular requests for buffs from people who use me again and again. I don't know why I'm lucky but come take advantage of it. I made a ton this weekend and much of it was just tips for performing. I guess its been a long time since groups actually tried to perform but I'm getting definite feedback that the other players enjoy seeing it too. I'm consistently there most evenings at 6 or 7 central time although I do fly a little during the evening. Even the few that do come in going "invite please" are usually very curtious once you ask why and inform them it isn't required to group they just need to ask for a buff.
So come join me and lets turn Theed, Corbantis into the showplace of the galaxies.
So come join me and lets turn Theed, Corbantis into the showplace of the galaxies.
Bajonett
Mon Nov 08, 2004 6:23 am
#7
Just Dance for fun with Guildies... or to buff them.
Seriously considering to drop to Dancer 0040 - Dancing nearly all styles without able to buff.
DanceRulez
Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:57 pm
#8
Bendeguz wrote:
I've since found a new group, formed partially of members from the first, but when JTL came out, or even about three or four weeks before that... people started not showing up, being busy with rl stuff, etc.
- Aleeta -Master Dancer, Master MusicianFlurry
Awww, Aleeta, Celestial Storm is still alive and well.
We're still adding members, and we just had a pretty good weekend with two gigs that both went well. I've been seeing more of the group members around lately, so I'm hoping starting tonight our practices will start picking up again. I hope to see ya there tonight, so we can start talking about Cantinapalooza 3!
Ka_ren
Mon Nov 08, 2004 2:30 pm
#9
PoetDancer wrote:
I am two healing boxes shy of becoming a Master Dancer again. However, I just can't see myself going to the grind capitals anymore. It destroys the soul if you spend too much time there.
So what I have done is to gain some experience in my fencing skills, picked up medic, and go to cities and areas that are not especially well traveled (Mos Espa, Bela Vistal, Wayfar, Nym's Stronghold, Talus, Rori, and the like). I'll do missions out of the terminals, and be available to tend to players who may need help.
Message Edited by PoetDancer on 11-06-2004 12:58 AM
Doing the very same, working on fencer and medic. And when I tire of that I'll work on getting glowy.
Tammylynn
Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:59 pm
#10
LyteFoot wrote:
Come to corbantis and help me start a big entertainer movement.
Yes you always have a group of dancers lined up around you! *smile*
I have watched him while he was gaining music and the dreaded image design for Ceremonial and the Mando. Elwyn stuck it out and I believe he is one of the best live entertainers on the server. He entertaines.
The other night we went to a cantina, no one around. and started playing and having fun. Within a few minutes there was a few people tiping and actually thanking us and was very pleased we were there. Not everyone uses buff bots or AFK players, many still enjoy entertainers which can not be done AFK!
We still have our profession,skills and talents to entertain. Lets use them the best we can. I also wish to thank Elwyn, I was canceling my account. In a way he and the others at theed cheered me up and made me laugh enough to continue doing what I enjoy.
LyteFoot
Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:10 am
#11
/blush
Thank you Tammy. Its always fun performing with you. I wish I had your talent for making real songs and am always willing to be a performer for them. I'm glad you staid, it wouldn't be the same without you around.
Folks it can still be fun you just have to find it. If it is money that is a problem then get a combat friend to take you along in a group on some missions. I'll be happy to do that for any Corbantis performers who need it. We can run Dantooine for an hour or two and make a good amount of money. In fact itwould be fun to get a group of entertainers together so we get the big missions, then go and let me and Ytoavee's alt do the killin while the pure entstravelwith us and perform. As Tammy said I love having a line of dancers around me
I just have to get yto out of space for a short while.
. As Tammy said I love having a line of dancers around me I just have to get yto out of space for a short while.
Sriva
Tue Nov 09, 2004 10:59 am
#12
What to do? I dunno. It may be time to move on gamewise, or at least to put SWG on hold until they actually fix some things for the non combat professions. I've had it up to here with their constantly fobbing us off with vague promises and always putting us on hold until something else is fixed for somebody else, not to mention their treating us with utter contempt--giving us broken content in the new dance after completely ignoring our feedback, for example. The patience and forbearance of the SWG entertainer and crafter classesabsolutely amazes me, and it infuriates me to see such wonderful, long suffering people treated like dirt by a bunch of developers who don't deserve them.
There are a lot of really good games coming out in the next few weeks, and I will be playing them. I may keep my main SWG account open so I don't lose touch with my wonderful guild, but my secondary one is getting dropped as soon as I can remember to get on and drop it. And I may even pay extra maintenance on my houses, etc., in my main account and drop it too, then check the boards occasionally to see if the jackasses have actually done anything. If my houses decays while I wait, I'll probably be gone for good.
The only thing these guys understand is the bottom line. If enough accounts get cancelled, they will do something for us. If we're too small a proportion of the playerbase for them to notice, shame on them for letting such a wonderful opportunity to break the online multiplayer mold of kill/loot/rinserepeat slip through their fingers. If they're capable of such negligence, I shouldn't be giving them any more of my money, anyway.
I've resolved not to touch another Sony game as long as I play. EQ1 was run the same way as SWG--the players are the enemy; studiously ignore them as much as you can, stonewall them as much as possible, never under any circumstances listen to them or follow any suggestions or take any feedback from them. Avoid even talking to them if you can help it, andif you make a mistake, never under any circumstances admit it, never apologize. EQ2, being rushed out the door as it is, sounds as though it's a product of the same corporate mindset. Viva WoW, viva CoH.
Eaca
Tue Nov 09, 2004 2:46 pm
#13
Me, I got JTL, mastered pilot now spend my time helping others in space. I find JTL to be great fun, even post master. Yatch is good for parties, but so is a nicely decorated decimator, and in the decimator you can take out your lower level pilot friends and help them do thier missions (don't even need to master to do this, can help one person at a time in an Aggressor, or even a tier 1 Y-Wing if you go rebel, but everybody seems to love jumping in the decimator more). You can make money up there, both credit chips, duty mission payouts, and selling loot stuff to shipwrights so they can RE it for a chance at the firespray schematic. Since its zero skill point cost for pilot you don't have to change your ground game, you just get an alternate diversion and another way to help friends out, and another place to have fun.
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