Dancer Archive

On Corbantis, the cantina to get entertainer xp in is in Theed on Naboo. It's always packed with at least 10+ musicians and/or dancers. It's fun and I've met lots of great people there, but I've also been staring at the walls there for the past 4 weeks. So when I got my master dancer title a few days ago I thought "Great, I'll see the galaxy, visit other cantinas, meet lots more people... it'll be great fun!"

The trouble is, almost everywhere I've gone, either the cantinas are empty of both customers and entertainers, or there's a lone marksman playing sw1 to heal himself. There are occasional exceptions where I would see 3-5 entertainers, mos eisley and coronet might actually have had about 10 when I stopped in, but compared to Theed, the cantinas of the rest of Corbantis are like a desert wasteland. I went out to places like Dathomir, Lok and Endor hoping that I'd be a welcome sight but instead sat around bored in empty cantinas with no customers for several hours.

Are other galaxies like this, just one primary cantina and lots of empty ones? Are there hotspots that I've missed? It just doesn't seem right to me.

There is a smallish but very dedicated group of entertainers in Moenia on Naboo, on the Naritus server. It's not as crowded as Theed's and frankly I think we like it that way. THere are only maybe 4 or so customers at any one time, but people are in and out all evening and there is plenty of RP to be had. I quite like it myself.

C

I see that you are in the Corbantis galaxy. I am setting up a cantina in Mos Eisley's western suburbs and I am planing a grand opening party onthe morning of Saturday, August 23 (EDT). I could certainly use someone with your skills in my shop, which I expect to have a steady and loyal customer base. (My shop caters to the niche market of Corbantis's sizable Japanese PC population) If you are interested, please send an ingame email to EmCee.

I've been with the Moenia group before, and it's great fun, good interaction. I also like the Mos Espa cantina on Naritus as well, we have a few regular dancers and musicians who'll come in and play. I try to be conversational best I can, hopefully I do a good enough job. But I'm also trying to hit flourishes and whatnot, as I have no macros set up. :/ Dunno if that's a good thing or bad, really....lol.

I actually realized this today Sinda. As everyone has hit Master, they've disappeared and moved on to other professions. There's at least 20 people I can think of that I haven't seen much since they hit master and there's probably a lot more who've dropped it altogether. Perhaps the problem is that there just aren't enough player run cantinas on Corbantis or more likely, I just don't know about them.

Does it frustrate anybody else that it is impossible to find things like this? While I was writing this post I thought about how a player cantina might be a nice addition on the long run between bestine and jabba's palace. Then I realized that not only could people run within 64m of it and not know it was there, they could be 10m from it and unless they selected the sign, they wouldn't know whether it was an empty private home or a happening cantina. Sure it would be a nice addition, except nobody would know about it, so it would be a waste of time and money... maybe that's why there's so few player cantinas.

Not until player cities are in will people go to a player cantina for healing. I co-run one.. we have some patrons that show up nightly, but people don't come for healing. And the people that do show... never tip.

To answer the original poster's question, some of it depends on the age of your server. I'm on Chilastra, and a great percentage of my fellow Dancers and musicians have either dropped entertainment or achieved Mastery. Once they Master, they are no longer interested in dancing for paltry tips and putting up with the harrassment of brainless twits. They have much more fun in private settings, at organized concerts or in PA cantinas.

Personally I'm wondering if they shouldn't just shut down public cantinas to help boost the business going to the private ones. The atmosphere is much better there, and the good dancers/musicians have all left the public venues anyway.

Just speaking for myself, I've only danced on request for the last week - twice in Doaba Guerfel for wounded adventurers, once in Kor Vella and once at a wedding party as part of the featured entertainment. Other than that, I'm normally sitting on the floor tipping the novices because I'm the one who is wounded, now

Wow...

I must say that sucks and I feel bad for your wife.

I have only been at this for 2 weeks and my PC is not even a novice dancer yet (she is close though, having worked her way up nicely this last 2 weeks). But other than a couple of fools asking for lap dances (and one fool dancer who posed giving them one, argh, which is worse than the asking IMO), I have not had these sorts of issues.

It is a shame people act this way, but to many people this is a fancy shoot-em-up arcade game rather than a roleplaying game. Those people will never learn. I guess you just have to /ignore 'em and try to pay as much attention as possible to the actual roleplayers. Those people won't act like this.

I hope...

C

the tipping issue along with rude players I think may be a big part of the problem.Why continue dancing/playing musicfor rude people who dont tip.I tried being a co-owner of a cantina in a large PA city,lack of customers got me downhearted.

My wife started working on CH after she made master dancer,she left her master dancer title up but is about to take it down.everwhere she goes rude people basicly demand she perform for them.they dont care if she is in the middle of a guild hunt or if she is running solo missions.They complained about giving tips to someone who doesnt have danger involved with lvling and then when you go do missions they complain that your not their healing them :/

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saav wrote:

Does it frustrate anybody else that it is impossible to find things like this? While I was writing this post I thought about how a player cantina might be a nice addition on the long run between bestine and jabba's palace. Then I realized that not only could people run within 64m of it and not know it was there, they could be 10m from it and unless they selected the sign, they wouldn't know whether it was an empty private home or a happening cantina. Sure it would be a nice addition, except nobody would know about it, so it would be a waste of time and money... maybe that's why there's so few player cantinas.

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It frustrates me a great deal, Saav. At one point I was very optimistic and enthusiastic, as I had four solid offers from PAs to become a featured dancer for them. I thought I was looking at the future of SWG. Of those four, two PA cities have actually expanded but their cantinas are empty. The other two are struggling.

It still may be, but it's going to take a lot more work. The problem is that these things don't run themselves. You can't just throw up a PA hall somewhere and expect players to drop by. You have to promote, hold events, advertise and hope word of mouth spreads. If you close down even for a night you're risking losing your clientele -- people demand consistency and predictability. It's a lot of very hard work and you have to expect some disappointments, but it will only succeed if you are persistent.

It may still happen, but probably not until Player Cities are in and working and more of the players get in the habit of going to private cantinas. Until then, the hope we had of pursuing our dance careers in secure settings must go on hold. For Dancers like me it just means I'm honing my combat skills while I wait for the chance to resume my first love - dancing.

I am sure that how full some cantinas are isto some extent areflection on how well the local population supports entertainersbut the biggest reason, I would bet, is something different. If you want to become a master dancer faster, you are better off dancing is extremely large groups. Experience comes substantially more quickly. Especially at a level wherea dancer does not particularly enjoy the dancethat gives the most experience, there is a pretty strong temptation to go to one of the large cities (Theed and Coronet City for example) and dance ito the next skill level as fast as you can. The big trade off dancing in huge groups is thata particular dancer on averageis less likely to receive tips in an 18 person group however big the audiences are. For dancers in a town where thereis nota supportive audience, going to level up in a big town group probably looks more attractive, or even like a no-brainer. I think PAs and private cantinas will also attracta good number of the master dancers. Once player cities are running, I am guessing that cantinas will be more deserted still. Player cantinas can as I understand it, do at least two things that the starting cities cannot: Exclude unwelcome players and chargeaccess fees.

Cantinas are so gloomy. It just got too dull, no matter how lively the crowd was. Camp dancing is way more fun, after getting a little peashooter and finding groups. I am still at novice dancer...gonna be a long way to master dancer (((( but hey c'mon it's fun to dance on the corpse of a fambaa.

I think the general trend is: 1 majorly hopping cantina per planet (that exludes the "high end" planets like Endor which tend to have none). A large number of people in this profession want to hit master as quickly as possible so they go to the biggest city with the largest crowds and the smaller cities don't have entertainers in their cantinas. After a while the players in that city stop going to the cantina as no one is ever there. I found in Wayfar (Tatooine) that going into the empty cantina and periodically shouting that "an entertainer is in the cantina, come on in and wipe that BF away" will draw in the players running by and they are very very grateful. After 20 minutes or so you have a regular stream all to yourself as word gets around that an entertainer is in town. The interaction is great and the players are very generous. I've made my best tips in "deserted" cantinas.

Also, the powergamers have all hit master and moved on to something else.

For the person that suggested shutting down the publica cantinas: please remember that new people start this game every day and they need a place to dance as well. I personally really enjoy dancing in the public cantinas. Player cantinas will become a contender when player cities are started and they look are labeled on the map.

Min'Tora Ehi; Lowca