Dancer Archive
Thread: How Can We Save SWG?
So as part of my whacky theory, I see Dancers and Musicians as the potential saviors of this game. We may be the most under-appreciated, put-upon, taken-for-granted profession out there but I'd also have to say that what we bring to the table puts the sugar in the coffee and the whipped cream on the sundae.
Ok, enough metaphors. How can we save SWG?
The problem as I see it, is that once we reach Master Dancer the only things left to do are these:
1. Keep going to the same public cantinas, put up with being /licked and watching the half-wit underwear spammers yell for tips.
2. Find a nice private cantina that is busy enough to give you an audience and a viable tip income. This is my preferred solution, but the reality is that even the best private cantinas on my server are usually empty. They only fill up for special parties.
3. Take up a combat skill and stop dancing. This doesn't save the game, it promotes the problem. SWG is starting to tilt away from the RP balance it once had.
4. Hire out to a Private Gentlemen's Club where you don't dance as much as you cyber-***k the customers. I'm not sure how this is dancing, but I know a few Master Dancers who have turned to this when they couldn't take public cantinas anymore. And, frankly, it's not going to solve the problem. It's more of a symptom of the problem.
The problem is that once we reach the pinnacle of our profession, after hours of flourishing, smiling, and being /licked, what's left? What further purpose can we serve in the game? I used to cruise through Kaadara or Moenia or Kor Vella and find a few needy fighters who wanted their BF healed. But not anymore - most of them added novice entertainer so they could do it themselves. The good dancers have left as well. These spots are empty these days.
Can you think of any solution - either from a Dev angle with enhancements or from our own standpoint as players - that would provide meaningful outlets for those who have mastered their craft? How can we best put the social interaction (and fun) back into the game and save it from itself?
People will be dropping Entertainer as they run out of skill points. (Just like I dropped Medic...).
I think what we're seeing is pretty natural for the game. Lots of peopel trying out Entertainer because it si something that is totally not in other games. Some are dropping, but the real entertainers will stay.
Wait for player cities to evolve, hope that will do better for private cantinas.
Some way to give player missions to dance in your cantina. Like, give me a mission terminal in the guild hall. I can give "1 hour dancing" missions paying 10k for my guild hall.Allow only 1 at a time. People would be stopping by constantly trying for this mission...waiting like pirahnas for a new mission to become available.
It might be a good idea if certain of the more "invasive" /commands in the socials were channeled in this direction. If someone /hugs, /kisses, or /licks you (among other things), instead of the emote happening instantly, you should get a popup window. "X is trying to lick you. Do you allow it?" If you say "no", then the emote looks like, "X just tried to lick Dejah Thoris but she smacked him upside the head!" or something equally appropriate.
The idea is that nobody should be able to arbitrarily pose licking or kissing you. You have to touch a person for that, which means they have to let you. Ever tried kissing someone who doesn't want you to? It's darn near impossible.
That won't help with people who don't roleplay in general, but at least you can avoid the unpleasant licking.
And here's something I have not tested, I wonder if anyone knows. If I /ignore Griefer Boy, and he then poses licking me, does everyone but me see it? And thus does everyone think I am just allowing it? Because that would be pretty annoying...
C
"It might be a good idea if certain of the more "invasive" /commands in the socials were channeled in this direction. If someone /hugs, /kisses, or /licks you (among other things), instead of the emote happening instantly, you should get a popup window. "X is trying to lick you. Do you allow it?" If you say "no", then the emote looks like, "X just tried to lick Dejah Thoris but she smacked him upside the head!" or something equally appropriate."
While this sounds good, it would get annoying. What about when you find someone you like, and who likes you, and you were pretty kissy all the time. It would get annoying to have to click 'ok' every single time.
They could have a box under options that could turn on/off the feature.
Not a bad idea. Like the ignore list, or the admin list for homes. You could 'add' names to the list of people who can use emotes on you. I got into a fight and killed a guy in a cantina one time because he kept /slap on me. I mean come on, i'm nearly a TKA master and some punk is slapping me? Please.
First off I want to say that I am slowly drifting away from my dancer character. I started her as a fun character to play when I wanted some extra social interaction and during the drive to mastery I got plenty of that but somewhere along the way the character herself never really developed. I'll never drop her skills and I will continue to play the character when I want the social interaction of the cantina, however I am back to my original interest on the crafting side of the game and enjoying it immensly.
I have thought alot about where performers end up after master. Having played a druid in EQ I no longer want to play a character that is fun but not substancial. The druid was a great character very self reliant and when given the chance very capable of adding to groups and raids, however druids were looked down upon due to their lack of specilization and inability to add anything unique. I see entertainers in SWG in a similar manner. While they do have unique abilities that are very much needed, those abilities are after thoughts, they aren't an oh we can't do this if we don't have an entertainer but more of a I hope by the time we are done with this an entertainer is available to help clean up (kinda the necro syndrome in EQ not needed for the fight but only if they fight goes bad).
Enter the bartle test for mud player profiles : http://www.andreasen.org/bartle/test.cgi
The entertainer role in SWG fits perfectly for the non combat interested socializer personality, and I applaud the developers for adding in a role for these players!You get to meet alot of people and you are providing a much needed service. But if you are a mixture of player personality types the entertainer role soon falls short as you start to look for what comes next and what classes mesh and make sense.Entertainers don't have sub sets we don't have hybrids nor do we truely function as part of a mixed group. In order to mesh with a mixed group an Entertainer needs to pick up other skills and many times to their entertainment skills will suffer in order to maximize other roles.
For the most part however I think that the entertainer classes will work themselves out.as the game progresses there will be less and less hybrid novice entertainers and more specilized entertainers, those that do choose to follow the specialist role will need to decide for themselves how to maximize their experiences. On maturing servers hybrid entertainers are highly sought to fill key rolls in PA's the next step is to make pure entertainers as much of a value as the hybrids are, the first step to doing this is to push for master elite entertainers to be able to heal BF in camps as it will give a role to the pure entertainer while on the hunt and not as an after thought clean up crew position. When looking at PA's and speaking to officers the most common question I was asked was "what do you do besides dance?". PA's want members that will contribute to the hunt not just to clean up afterwards.
Chessack wrote:
It might be a good idea if certain of the more "invasive" /commands in the socials were channeled in this direction. If someone /hugs, /kisses, or /licks you (among other things), instead of the emote happening instantly, you should get a popup window. "X is trying to lick you. Do you allow it?" If you say "no", then the emote looks like, "X just tried to lick Dejah Thoris but she smacked him upside the head!" or something equally appropriate.
I really like that idea Chessack! It doesn't answer my original question but it's still a very good idea -- probably no one but dancers would appreciate it of course
And here's something I have not tested, I wonder if anyone knows. If I /ignore Griefer Boy, and he then poses licking me, does everyone but me see it? And thus does everyone think I am just allowing it? Because that would be pretty annoying...
C
Everyone else but you will see it, yes.
hr>Yajedi said:
People will be dropping Entertainer as they run out of skill points. (Just like I dropped Medic...).
This is precisely what I'm talking about. We have to think of a way to prevent Dancers and Musicians from becoming the forgotten classes -- the only way to do that is to think of ways they can be useful beyond their RP value.
* Allow them to heal BF in camps.
* Give Master Dancers a couple of bonus points if they become Brawlers or Teras Kasi.
* Allow Entertainers to actually BUFF selected patrons - say, a 1000 point Mind buff for 60 minutes, but only if you target the patron and /buff actively.
That's the kind of stuff that I think will help us more than all the half-finished flourishes in the world.
So /ignore griefer boy allows griefer boy to keep licking you in public and you don't see it but everyone else does.
They need to change this. If someone has you on their /ignore all /command (target) commands you aim at them should default to being posed in the "no target selected" variety.
C
My solution was to become part of a PA that is solely twi'lek entertainers. We're starting to get hired out for things like weddings, PA hall openings etc. I think we're working on a regular cantina to dance in, renting out our PA hall for events, and we're also planning on 'touring' to various cities.
I've almost reached my limit for just going over to dance in the cantina though. Most of the people are Afk and my ignore list is starting to fill up with other entertainers' names as I shut out their constant tip spam. At least I also won't hear their requests for training-my standard response to someone I know spends all their time AFK dancing is to tell them to AFK their way over to the NPC trainer and try macro sometraining out of her. So I've taken to just not going to dance there as I don't want to get a reputation for being a complete crab (that night they were foolish enough to give me group leadership and I immediately booted everyone who was on perma-afk was probably an indicator that I'm a bit of a grouchbut I can pretend, can't I? 
)
I think the dabblers will be selling their entertainer points back as they need them for 'real' stuff. This is a bad point for our part of the game, but it will improve and we can set foot in cantinas once again. Or-there will simply be no entertainers around, combat types will whine about their BF totals and SOE will improve our class with mind buffs or something.
Dancers have a +Mind Enhancement skill modifier it's in the advanced tech line. I've looked over the manuals and all of the in game materials and all I can find regarding the skill mod is improved ability to heal, which doesn't make alot of sense to me. I felt that the skill should add a mind buff however only one person has ever mentioned that they thought they had recieved a mind buff and we couldn't verify that it came from the entertainers.
I haven't really test this alot I'll see if one of my non entertainers can find a high tech performer and try to test it. If the skill mod is now working correctly (?) it might give an additional role to performers.
And yes I know character can be more than one class. What I stated was roles that mesh and feel right together, this is a personal preference for me. In the minor part of me that likes to roleplay I have a hard time mixing certain classes. To me the only professions that seem to "mesh" with an entertainer are smuggler and tailor perhaps chef/bartender. I don't wish to play a pure non combatant so that removes tailor and chef, and while I like the rp value of a dancing spy type (smuggler) the after effects of spice means I wouldn't use the product that makes up 1/4 of the skill tree. All this just fits into my personality quirks and has no judgement on anyone that wishes to play a rifle slinging performer.