Dancer Archive
Thread: Im glad holo grinding is leaving because...
Pappi wrote:
there was a preiod of time where i was afraid to step into the cantina of my OWN city because it was overrun by macrotainers
Kirah, Lei and I had the same problem. We took matters into our own hands and convinced the mayor to let us set up a second cantina in town, Bishops' Sanctuary. There are only two rules:
1: Thou shalt not AFK.
2: Thou shalt treat the entertainers with respect.
We've had pretty good success so far. We can't guarantee an entertainer at all times, but we can guarantee that anyone there is live.
Roho Traideb, beloved of Kirahfaye
Master Musician and Entertainer
Bishops' Sanctuary
Veritas, Naboo
Goldshadow wrote:
Pappi wrote:
there was a preiod of time where i was afraid to step into the cantina of my OWN city because it was overrun by macrotainers
Kirah, Lei and I had the same problem. We took matters into our own hands and convinced the mayor to let us set up a second cantina in town, Bishops' Sanctuary. There are only two rules:
1: Thou shalt not AFK.
2: Thou shalt treat the entertainers with respect.
We've had pretty good success so far. We can't guarantee an entertainer at all times, but we can guarantee that anyone there is live.
Roho Traideb, beloved of Kirahfaye
Master Musician and Entertainer
Bishops' Sanctuary
Veritas, Naboo
sadly, i *am* the mayor O.o
i have much respect for the cantina owner, and if he oks macrotainers, i'll leave it at that. all that we both ask is for afk peeps to move away from center stage.
when it gets frustrating, i hide in the city hall or raven's theater
WChase wrote:
when hologrinding goes away you'll all be complaining about how lonely it is when the cantinas got about 3 people in it.
Not a chance. I'll take three people not constantly spamming the same 4 phrases every 30 seconds any day of the week.
Besides, Coronet and Theed today generally have about 3 people in them. The rest are zombies. No different after the death of hologrinding, only more pleasant.
As it is even with the hologrind, I spend most of my performing time in more "out of the way places", the Tyrena, Dearic, Moenia kind of thing, or just out looking for other places where dancers are needed. When I arrive the place is empty. Inside of an hour, the party is happening in there. It only takes about 6 people to make the place pretty lively... and it just steps up from there.
A good entertainer knows how to make things fun.
WChase wrote:
when hologrinding goes away you'll all be complaining about how lonely it is when the cantinas got about 3 people in it.
Which, not counting AFKersis probably more then there is there right now.
WChase wrote:
I seriously don't understand how you people can so adamantly defend a profession that's incredibly boring. Unless you truly only play about an hour a day I can't imagine the trudgery of sitting there manually doing flourishes waiting for people to show up to 'watch me'. I don't mean to sound condescending but seriously how can that be fun? Are you hardcore entertainers a form of hybrids mix and matching combat professions with your entertainer professions? Do you get bored and somehow feel it would be more fun/interesting to sit in a cantina playing an instrument compared to going out and doing the geno cave or the corvette or possibly just combat grinding doing cash missions?
The answer is very simple WChase: because your opinion isn't law for everyone.
What you find boring isn't boring to someone else. It's like you liking one sport and someone else you know finds it boring and watches another. Is that other person right about the sport being boring? Maybeit is to him, but not to you.
To think that you're opinion about dancing is the correct one just because you think so is very narrow-minded. It isn't the flourishes and the healing that most entertainers enjoy about the profession, it's the interaction with other players. I love it when new people come into my cantina. It gives me a chance to meet someone new. And, it's amazing what you learn everytime that happens. I know more about the world in SWG then someone who picks only one profession, because I talk about all professions, all dungeons, all POIs.
Anyway, don't knock dancing because you don't like it. If it's not for you, fine. If you have to grind it for your holocron, then I'm sorry that SOE forced you to. But please, just do it and move along without griping too much about it.
Message Edited by Kreistor on 04-20-2004 09:23 AM
To add to what Kreistor said (quite correcly, for that matter), some of us feel the same way about combat professions that you do about dancing. Every MMO that's ever been released other than the SIMs Online has had one element to it: combat. Kill this to get experience and better weapons so you can level up and kill bigger things to get better weapons so you can level up and kill bigger things and get better weapons so you can.... It's boring, it's repetitive, and it's been done to death for years. I've been there, done that. Asheron's Call 1 was terrific fun for a few years, but it gets old. Everquest was essentially the same thing, but with game mechanics that forced you to group with someone, anyone, even if you didn't like them. Anarchy Online? Same thing. Shadowbane? Same thing. Dark Age of Camelot? Same thing. Sure, some of these MMOs take a token stab at crafting, but that's about it.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Bartle test, but it was one of the source materials the developers considered when including the entertainer professions. They cited it several times during beta. Richard Bartle was a major contributor to MUDs, both in developing the base code and studying the people who played the game. His test, a series of simple questions, factors different elements of playstyles based on your answers. The styles (off the top of my head) were: explorer, achiever, killer, socializer. There's probably one I'm forgetting, but everyone's some combination of those four things. Each style has up to 100% match potential, so you could be 100% Achiever, 100% Explorer, 21% Killer, and 5% Socializer. It basically tells you how much of each style you incorporate into your game. Typically, however, people are predominantly one style, with a lesser secondary and an even lesser tertiary style. Anyway:
>Explorers like to discover new places, see new things, make maps, etc.
>Achievers (who seem to make up the majority) want to "beat" the game mechanics, as it were; level up, get the good gear, kill the big enemy, etc.
>Killers are the PvPers. They like the challenge of engaging in conflict with other players. This doesn't always restrict itself to PvP, but that's the typical outlet in most games.
>Socializers are the chatters, roleplayers, etc. Socializers like to join communities, talk with people, etc.
The vast majority of MMOs that have been released have had specific content for explorers and achievers. Many MMOs also have PvP for the killers, but it's often an afterthought. There are exceptions to that rule, however. Socializers...well, there was the SIMs Online, which even most socializers didn't care for. Other than that, the only content added for socializers typically was a healer profession of some kind. Oh yay.
In Beta for SWG, the developers announced that there were going to be entertainer professions who would dance, sing, and play instruments. They were being designed specifically for the socializers. After glacing at the skill chart, the vast majority of posts on the board were "Why the #$%& would anyone want to play that?!" Guess what- those people weren't socializers.
I bought this game primarily to be a dancer. It was marketed to me, possibly because I'm an "untapped market." I'm a female gamer. I've done the combat stuff, but it was never what I was looking for. This was. In the beginning, it was magic too. There were only one or two people who'd come into the cantina in an hour, but there were six or seven entertainers in the cantina at all times. We'd chat together, talk about the different dances, occasionally roleplay. It was wonderful. When a customer came in, we'd all flourish like mad (we had no idea how to maximize xp, because we didn't really care that much) and talk about what the person had seen.
That's what the game was supposed to offer us. With the discovery of /ui action toolbarDieEntertainer, the customers still came in infrequently, but those of us who couldn't resist the temptation of free xp started to drop off the map into the dead zone. When holocrons were added to the mix and achievers were forced into entertainment, they quickly took up the challenge of "beating the code" and perfected afking. Ultimately, we ended up with what we have now: cantinas full of people with absolutely nobody to talk to. The profession made for and marketed to socializers has become the least social profession in the entire game. That's where we're at, and that's why those of us who have been here since the beginning despise afkers with all of our hearts. They killed our fun, and they don't really give a damn about it.
Message Edited by Nhari on 04-20-2004 10:47 AM