Dancer Archive
Thread: How Complex It Is
I was talking to Carpathia the other nite on Bria /ent chat. We talked a lot about the entertainer’s place and role within the game world, and how it differs from what a doctor does. And I’ll explain the difference just like I explained it to him.
When a doctor decides heal or buff a particular player, he or she also tacitly decides to not buff or heal anyone else for a set time. When he or she decides to heal or buff a particular player, he or she also decides to not heal or buff every other player in the game world. Yes, its true that there is an active choice on the part of the doctor player, but what is the cost associated with this choice?
The cost is twofold. For one, the doctor player has to either suffer statistical degradation or bypass this with a limited use medical pack. The other cost is that the doctor has to forego healing or buffing any other customer. Its why you see lines in front of doctors. Everyone is waiting in order to get the opportunity to get the doctor’s singular attention for a set time. And let me tell you, if the things a doctor did were not so important, then nobody in their right mind would put up with it. Its why you have such complaints about the starport lines.
But what we do just cannot be compared with that of doctors. We can service an unlimited amount of patrons at the same time. Our decision to service one person does not exclude the opportunity to service another person at the same time. And while some may see this as a weakness of our class, I see this as our greatest strength. Even with buffing, we can service up to 19 people simultaneously, along with an additional /setperformed player. And even though our buffing capability has a limited exclusivity (which I believe is part of the reason why many combat players find that mind buffs are “not available”), it still does not limit the amount of players who we can service healing BF and mind wounds. Only the combat medic, with ranged area stims and area disease, can come close to being as effective as us for as many players at one time.
Its like what I told Carpathia last nite. What is really all that different that one does to buff quickly that one wouldn’t ordinarily do to heal quickly? /Flourish a lot to reduce the time? Isn’t that what you do to reduce the BF healing time as well? There IS no difference aside from the /invite or the /setperform.
And this goes back to the definitions in our first attempts at understanding the science behind buffing. And although Ravenmist emphasized the actions of one player to buff one player as “applying the buff,” this does not fully appreciate the dynamics of all the other things that are going on in the cantina at the same time. “Applying the buff” does not take the entertainer—or the audience member for that matter—out of play for many other things that are going on in the cantina.
Up until recently, an audience member could be /watching a dancer for a buff while at the same time /listening to a musician for a buff (side note: the fact that this is not happening now is a bug that will be corrected). An audience member could be /tipping a novice who is making a real attempt to be amusing to the player while he is receiving a buffing performance.
Likewise, an buffing dancer or musician could be getting a buff from a grouped musician, or healing countless other players of their BF and mind wounds, or getting tipped from players who are getting neither healing, nor buffs from the dancer through an active /watch. I cannot tell you how many times on Intrepid and Bria where I was tipped by players who were /watching other players besides me. Also, I have had times when players were getting buffed from me while at the same time carrying on with other cantina players. I have also had instances where players I never /setperformed on tipped me more for healing their BF than the one who I was buffing did for the buff.
What I am trying to say is that the cantina is a much more dynamic place than we have been giving it credit for. It is a conglomeration of /watches, /listens, /tips, /invites, and tons of dialogue via /say, /gc, /guild, or /ent all occurring at once in real time from many different players, be it the audience members or performers. It’s a complex system where many separate motivations come together as an organic whole. And those who fail to see this complexity underlying the rather simple individual functions of their own role in this environment will not only fail to see opportunities when they arise, but will also get swallowed whole.
But its this very effectiveness that points out many of the difficulties inherent in this class. If an entertainer can buff 19 players in a group, and service an unlimited number of players with their BF and mind wounds, then two entertainers in a venue become redundant. Its what I call “The Briha Effect,” named after the famous Coronet buffbot in the Bria galaxy.
And yet, if this is the case, why is it that I was able to earn 20k in tips from that environment in a mere 30 minutes as a novice 0/0/3/3 dancer a few weeks back when Panthu told me to come on down there and put on a show? The reasons they tipped me are not important. All I know is they didn’t have to do it. And in fact, dancing in a large group of players really does not give one any true indication of who is /watching you in particular.
Were there some who /watched me and never tipped me? Perhaps. Were there some who /tipped me and not /watch me at all? Maybe. All I know is that I went into a place where I didn’t really need to be and got a salary of 667 credits per minute of my time that day.
…Not a bad 30 minutes of my time, eh?
IrinaStarsinger wrote:
The other day one fellow hung around awhile and as he was leaving he sent me a tell.. Gee a lot of friendly people in the cantina.
He saw us simply as friendly people and didnt think about the fact that we had kept him amused and entertained for over an hour doing our jobs.
I think this might be where I am not connecting with the current entertainers. I never considered amusing people as my job as an entertainer. I did it only because it was fun.
If most entertainers feel it is their job to go beyond healing BF and buffing for other players I can see why so many combatants dont understand the profession. Then again, I dont think a lot of them care about that part of your job, which is why people dont have a problem using buffbots.
PistolDance wrote:
IrinaStarsinger wrote:
The other day one fellow hung around awhile and as he was leaving he sent me a tell.. Gee a lot of friendly people in the cantina.
He saw us simply as friendly people and didnt think about the fact that we had kept him amused and entertained for over an hour doing our jobs.
I think this might be where I am not connecting with the current entertainers. I never considered amusing people as my job as an entertainer. I did it only because it was fun.
I kinda actually agree with this. I do talk to people and stuff. But, honestly, I have never been one of those entertainers that tries to amuse people, at least not in the respect that I think Sirii and Irina try to amuse people. When I amuse people it's solely through actually performing. That's what I feel the entertaining part of my profession is about.
For example, I don't know how many of you have actually been part of a performance troupe in SWG. But, the ones that I have been in, both formally and informally, are about the performance, not about interacting or being amusing. In groupchat, it's all business. We may joke around and comment on things happening in the Cantina, but generally, we're not interacting with people. We're strictly there to perform, not to interact, not to make the patrons think we're "amusing." I don't even really like the word amusing, it makes me think they should be laughing at us. I much prefer the terms entertaining or performing. Our groupchat generally consists of what song comes next, what flo's we're doing, giving instructions to each other, deciding what dance goes next, etc.
I personally didn't take up entertaining for the interaction or the social, I really didn't. I took it up because I thought it would be fun to perform and have an audience. And, as I've said in many posts before, there is definitely an audience for what we do. What goes on in most of the regular Cantinas I don't think can really be considered a performance. Sometimes it happens, yes, but usually it's just people doing their own thing. A performance consists of coordinated dances, songs, and flourishes that look and sound neat and interesting.
Like I said, I talk to people because I think some people expect me to. But, that's not why I'm entertaining. And, I never quite understood why we should be expected to. To me, entertainment is a business, just like any other in SWG. And, this goes right to the core of a lot of discussions we've been having here recently. I don't want to force social interaction on people that don't want to socially interact with me. I have no interest in preserving the sanctity of the Cantina as a social hub for *me.* I do want people to come by and be social in a Cantina. But, I want them to be social with each other. I think it would be neat to have people making covert plans, making contacts, smugglers whispering and selling spices to people, etc. I feel like it's up to the people in there to make their own interaction. And, I want to preserve the Cantina as a place to do that sort of thing. But, I think that if people don't want to be there, they shouldn't have to. It's our job as entertainers to make the Cantinas an interesting place where people want to go, but not because we talk and flirt with people, but because the song we're playing, or the coordinated dance moves we're doing makes them *compelled* to watch or listen to us just because what we're doing is so cool. And, they can watch or listen to us, all the while doing their own social thing with each other.
If any of you have been part of a troupe or gone to a Cantina crawl, then you understand what I say when for me, personally, the best part of being an entertainer is when people stop to watch or listen just because we amaze them. I mean, when we stopped at the Coronet Starport on Bria during one of our crawls, people actually took out time from what they were doing to stay and watch us for lengthy periods of time just because what we were doing was so cool and amazing. That, to me, is the highest high of being an entertainer. And, that's the kind of thing that makes people stay in Cantinas for lengthy periods of time, when we're doing something that is just too damn cool to leave.
And, for tipping? I don't wanna get tipped cuz I talk to people. I want to get tipped because I've wowed them with my performance. And, in keeping with the theme of this being a "business," I want them to tip because I've sold them a service such as healing or buffing. And, the healing and buffing mechanisms matter not to me whether the patron is there or not. If they can get that from a vid or something like that, that's still part of my "business" and the selling of a product. In fact, I'd almost rather be able to make these products for people to use whenever they want, and save my Cantina time for actually putting on an interesting show, but that's just me. And, I know a lot of people don't agree with my views on this. But, that's ok. It's what makes the world go round. But, I don't really care to be "amusing." I want to be entertaining and sell my services.
Message Edited by Drygo on 08-07-2004 09:49 PM
