Dancer Archive

So I was doing space missions yesterday, concluding with trying a few times to solo a 'vette (hey, never know 'til you try, right? ), and I ended the evening with 900 BF.

Now, I could heal it myself, but of course I know how impossible heal exp is to get, and I didn't want to waste all that potential exp! Especially with Flurry's double exp this weekend. So whith grand dreams of helping some new entertainer off to a good start I was off to Mos Eisley.

I found the cantina to be bustling with many performing entertainer avatars. Now, I have three requirements for acceptable entertaining: 1) ATK 2) No underwear performances and 3) no spam macros. Personally I find these to be such low requirements that anyone should be able to fill them and I thought would have no trouble finding someone to watch. So I sat for a couple minutes to see if anyone was chatting. Nothing but a reminder to tip "youre" entertainers, they work long hours. So I asked, "Hi! Is anyone alive in here?" No answer, except another reminder about the long hours and a reminder that the "lovely ladies" rely on me for tips. Three people in the room failed the underwear test.

I figured maybe the real entertainers had just stepped out of the cantina for a few. Surely someone would come in soon, yes? There were so many newbies around, at least -one- of them had to be a real live entertainer.....right??

So I sat. And waited. And sat. And occasionally asked if anyone was actually there. Had a few conversations with the patrons who were the only ones who answered me. I sat in there for about an hour, during prime playing time on a Saturday night of double exp, and not a single entertainer ever even acknowledged that I was there, despite the fact that I kept trying to talk to them.

This wasn't my first recent trip to ME -- at least 75% of the time I've spent in NPC cantinas the past couple weeks has been in there. So far I've met one true newbie dancer who was ATK, grateful for the help we gave her in learing how dancing works and who logged off when she was done playing. The rest were spamming, AFK either the whole time or 75% of the time and didn't even have entertainer groups formed.

And I know people say "how do they know any better? Who is there to teach them that AFKing and spamming and dancing in your underpants is harmful and tacky?" But I was right there, willing to hand out a ton of exp, willing to share any knowledge and answer any questions. I've been spending time there knowing that people would be in for at least a portion of Trehla's quest, and trying to answer their questions when they were. I'm trying, but it's falling on deaf ears, or more to the point, AFK ears. How many of these "newbies" are just players who quit in '03 or '04 resubscribing and starting over? How else do they know to ask for "the" AFK macro right out of the tutorial? Why else are they starting the game already "knowing" that entertaining is just what you do to get credits while you're AFK?

If I was a true, honest newbie right now.. Wow. Just wow. I would run so far and so fast from entertaining (and cantinas as a whole) that you'd think I had Force Run 4.

So what can we do? I feel useless, like I'm to the point where I can no longer make any difference in stemming this tide of degredation. I'm really getting frustrated, and depressed. I want to help show that we can be better, that we're more than what our detractors have made us into... but.. I guess I just don't know how any more.

I'm not even sure why I'm rambling on here, just that you guys understand, and hopefully it will make me feel better.

I was a bit annoyed this morning when I logged on and the only people around were afk-tainers in the "RP cantina" of Mos Eisley. They were all clogging up the entrance and I could barely find a place to stand.

At least they were fully-clothed and not spamming. I suppose I should be at least thankful for that.

We support and encourage the new entertainers we come across. They see us as fun examples of what they might hope to become!

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Doriana wrote:
So I was doing space missions yesterday, concluding with trying a few times to solo a 'vette (in green to match my envy) I would Love if I were the least bit capable of flight. I'm so out of control up there that the only thing I'm good for is accumulating BF.

So what can we do? I feel useless, like I'm to the point where I can no longer make any difference in stemming this tide of degredation. I'm really getting frustrated, and depressed. I want to help show that we can be better, that we're more than what our detractors have made us into... but.. I guess I just don't know how any more.

I'm not even sure why I'm rambling on here, just that you guys understand, and hopefully it will make me feel better.

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I'm feeling the same frustration. I feel like we can go on and on to them forever and maybe one out of twenty will actually listen. The rest of them only want to hear about the easiest path to nothingness. Well..I'm as determined as ever to see us through to a time where Dancer can only be played ATK. All I can say is that it is going to take a while. But I'm a very stubborn woman..I'm not giving up.

Yup..I do that all the time when I'm on my crafter. There was some talk a while back about an "appear offline" mode. I don't know what happened to that.

What I'd like to see though is for the reduced functionality mode to be completely dependent upon a signal from an input device, independent of the AFK tag system.

Message Edited by Esharra on 06-12-2005 07:09 PM

What made me move more to supporting recursion removal over just an AFK timer is the new .. packs.. of combat bots for AFK camping POIs to sell items on eBay.

I guess a timer might work for that too, I don't know. i guess it depends on how it worked.

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Doriana wrote:

If I was a true, honest newbie right now.. Wow. Just wow. I would run so far and so fast from entertaining (and cantinas as a whole) that you'd think I had Force Run 4.

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1. Is there a way to NOT hear these people?


2. Do they make a lot when they are off line?


3. How do I do what he/she is doing?


4. WOW entertainers are pretty usless why do they bother?


5. I think I am going back to guildwars this game is so bad no one really plays.

That is what I hear each day. It is not only the entertainers they are complaining about, There has been a LOT of players they believe it is in the best interest of the game to set up their spamming AFKness at the starportin Mos Eisleyto recruit bodies to their town, spam their overpriced vendors, try to trade for a BARC, or just stand their 24/7 spam dance/welcome to SWG/or some other stupid message to annoy new and old players alike.

HAHA ok I will stop rambling myself.

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Esharra wrote:
I feel like we can go on and on to them forever and maybe one out of twenty will actually listen. The rest of them only want to hear about the easiest path to nothingness.

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This is why this thing has to be stopped at the game design level. "Allow AFK but reward ATK" will not work. The reason is one of Musashi's (Mu for short) fundamental rules of game design: "No matter what system you devise, you can always count on players to find the shortest route to the cheese."

In this case, AFKing is the shortest route, so they take it. Why sit at keyboard for months and months (at keyboard, never AFKing, it took me a solid year of RL time from starting to mastering), when you can AFK macro it in a week?

Of course, nobody stops to ask what the POINT is of mastering a profession you don't even like enough to play... but that's neither here nor there. The devs will never be able to "discourage" AFK play. They have to either stop it, or allow it. And nothing we can do is going to "change the world."

I have had guild mates say things to me like, "You should get out there where the AFKers are and COMPETE with them... FIGHT with them... make the game what YOU want it to be."

Well, I'm sorry, but the key word is it's a game. I do not play to "make" it anything for anyone else. My days of fighting AFK are over. I go to where the people need healing, if anywhere, and heal them if they want. If nobody watches or listens, it's nothing to me -- I have all the skill boxes I need. So, whatever.

But if SOE wants Entertainers to be a viable class, the solution begins, and ends, and is 100% caught up in, the removal of AFK game play.

I know they don't want to remove recursive macros and to be honest I don't want them to because that will probably me the end of my really efficient aliasing system for performances. They don't need to. ALL they have to do is make it so when you go AFK, there's no way to stop the flag from going up, and once it goes up, all XP is set to zero. Do that, and AFK play ends. And it doesn't have to affect any other system in the game.

But they won't listen. They never have, and they never will. So I'm tired of arguing with them. It's been 2 years. I give up.

C

you should really just give up, everyone is AFK in cantinas and i dont see it ever changing in the future, I hate to break it to you all but, Entertainer is a Extremely Low Priority, Combant is primary with crafting Secondary, your lucky if you even get a Revamp.

Ents are better off just being thankful to have a profession and join a guild and open up your own Cantina where ATK is mandatory. Whining isnt going to change anything, unless you get jedi on your side, Devs listen to the jedi.

I'm glad you are stubborn Eshi and I hope it works. My concern is the devs have stated that they aren't removing afk instead they are going to make it fun so people WANT to be ATK. I know the devs can't be that niave a set of children can they? If it can be accomplished with no effort people will AFK, it is as simple as that. They HAVE to remove the ability.

Someone will argue that people will just go to 3rd party tools, but that is a cop out arguement. In this and every other game out there the discovery of people using 3rd party tools to automate their game play is an instant ban. Right now they can't enforce that ban because you can't tell if those tools are in use since the macro system is so powerful.

So I hope you win but it sounds like the devs have decided AFK is not a bad thing just something they need to fix by making ATK more fun. That is niave and a dead end.