Dancer Archive

Yes, if the rest of ya'll did.
I <3 ya'll!

Message Edited by Maisland on 12-11-2004 10:18 AM

Yeah, I think it's all about making an impact in a way you enjoy.

It's not that I don't enjoy combat or whatever, it's just that I enjoy helping people through entertaining more.

Part of the core reason why we're all so upset over AFK relates to this, doens't it? The devaluation and cheapening of our contribution to the game world.

Would I still dance? Yeah, sometimes, just because even in EQ2 I still /dance.

Would I hang around in cantinas dancing for the majority of my play time just for the sake of skill animating with no benefit to either myself or anyone around me? Heck no. The only reason I hang out in cantinas now is so no one can accuse me of being a recluse, since the current environment gives me no benefit and no impact on the world at large.

Does it have to be buffing or healing? No. But I think without a purpose and without something that every player needs, we WILL be a dead profession. For me, at least, that's a big part of what I'm fighting for...

Back in August of last year the entertainer comunity was rapidly dying. The skill was being dropped at an insane rate. Cantinas went from being packed everyday by active entertainers to deserted waste lands with maybe one or two player entertainers not AFK.

The reason? One entertainer who is skill animating can heal the entire server's combat population. Combat players can't be forced to pay for the service and there is no other content for an entertainer.

The quick answer the devs came up with was to increase the "buff" that master dancers and musicians passively give to make it attractive to combat players. Suddenly combat players were actively looking for entertainers. At this point the main way buffs were granted was by using the /setperformance coomand. The group buff was not widely known or used. I myself found players asking to pay up front for a dance service for the first time since I had played the game going all the way back to beta 3. This seemed like a great addition to the game for us.

Jump to the holocron maddness. Now suddenly we have players feeling that they "need" buffs. It is just not possible to power through every profession in a month without maxxing all areas of combat. Buffs, armour and weapon quality are expected to be max. Tie this together with a small bug fix that eliminates the 15-30 second buff and players becoming adept at creating macros and we we get our first real buff bots appearing in remote locations and inside guildhalls.

Then we get to the end of the holocraze. At this point many have achieved jedi and are left with extra accounts with a MM/MD or MM/Doc which they change into public buff bots for an easy money maker. What few active entertainers that are left seem to be playing completely different games. Some play strictly as enhancer/healers, some play strictly as socializers that really care little for anything other than being around other entertainers and maybe one or two per server still play as healer/enhancer/socializers.

If buffs are removed at this point you will erase all need for the healer/enhancer player, the healer/enhancer/socializer and cause the strictly social entertainer to see even less entertainers come to their entertainer parties which will help push them out the door as well. Do you really want to leave the entertainer profession to the one or two alt accounts that have already shown a willingness to be online 24/7?

The way to fix us is to create more need not less.

Create more need but more need that requires being ACTIVE. If you create more need but don't purge the professions of AFK it will just get worse as more people use the need to justify their abuse to themselves and the world at large...

When profession revamp is a reality I for one will be begging for ye olde "'Tess' buffing interface" again, as a way to require interaction with the game without undermining the basic simplicity of the professions or changing us into some sort of crafters -- regardless of the status of macroing.

I think the question should read "would there still be an audience if entertainers could not heal or buff mind?" I will continue to dance (and play music) as long as I can find an audience. Of course, player events are nice, but without a "simpler" everyday playstyle they get old quite fast.

I still believe that the [NPC] cantinas can be the place where people in SWG meet, and I really like to show people that there's more to SWG than just grinding. But to achieve that, there must be a reason to actually go there. It doesn't have to be healing or buffing mind (which supposedly will get a different meaning with the CU anyway) - and I came to the conclusion that buffing doesn't provide a good audience because it happens prior to combat, when the players would prefer to be already in combat - the time it takes is therefore always too long. It doesn't help that entertainer buffs have a shorter duration than the [costly] doc buffs, because now everybody gets the doc buffs first, meaning that the timer is already runnig before the customer even starts looking for a buff.

Healing mind wounds and BF is completely different: Because it typically happens after combat, with no buff timer running, the customers are way more relaxed. And if a group comes to the cantina after having seen some action, they often like to brag about their accomplishments, thereby generating stories in the SWG world. On the other hand, because entertainer healing does not require additional effort from the dancer compared to "just dancing," it is usually considered of less value.


To summarize, I think dancers and musicians need something that draws people to the cantina. It doesn't have to be healing mind wounds, but should share some characteristics with healing, namely being post-combat.

without a reason for someone to watch a dancer, people won't watch a dancer most of the time. I don't think it would be as good without an audience. Yeah its great to chat with the group and make friends, but making non dancer friends can be Just as fun. Without buffs i can handle, although its another source of income for dancers. I started this game cause it seemed every profession was valuable to the other ones, if they start removing dependencies, i might as well not play the game.