Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept 3: Entertainer, Dancer and Musician Missions & Quests
Ittith
Thu Apr 29, 2004 10:11 pm
#170
I think a great group quest that would require an entertainer would be where an entertainer can lure rare spawn creatures out. So say a master musican in the middle of naboo can play a song that would lure a peko peko albatross. You could take it one step further and make it a unique song that a musican gets by doing some kind of quest, maybe entertains an old man in a hut in the middle of nowhere, in return the old man teaches him the beautiful call of the peko peko albatross. etc.
You could do the same thing for dancers, giant dune kimos are attracted to light patterns refracted off a special quest outfit dancers wear and in the open dessert of lok light can be seen for miles. They get the outfit as a reward for enteraining a nym henchman. If the reflective light isn't plausible then they get some kind of bangle that when worn by a master dancer who does the "dance of the giant kimo" makes an odd sound that seams to travel for miles.
I have seen some dancers and musicians put a lot of work into their routines, with skits, timed macros, original songs, etc. I think for these professions, SOE should just bite the bullet and have a regular contest or secret viewers(SOE employees posing as patrons) to judge the works of the musicians. Maybe a way to do this is to implement some kind of poster system for entertainers to advertise their performances. Get a SOE judge to watch it and pretend to be a recruiter for Jabba.
jangojames
Tue May 04, 2004 6:00 pm
#171
YAY i just got a great idea! Make dungeons that are extremely hard without say master dancer and master musician , who are assigned to a certain warlord type npc who must be distracted while the rest of the group sneeks down into the corridors of the dungeon picking off the guards. I say this because they still have no spot in dungeons, and i know deathwatch bunker will show the crafters some love! So please give it a try!
SinnAsyr
Wed May 12, 2004 5:08 pm
#172
Not only having cool missions, but awesome rewards. Like Microphones/Speakers(which are hard to find now) that WORK somehow(more xp, faster healing, better buffing). Also, maybe special colored instruments(couldn't be too hard, could it?). Entertainer only clothing, possibly?
About Jabba's Palace, it should really have sort of Entertainer side-line. I, luckily, had some fighting on the side, and got help from others.Maybe get a contract for x days/hours for y amount of cash/reward. You then play with Max Rebo's band, and the better you dance/play, the more Jabba is please. Mess it up, down the choute into the rancor's belly.
I also agree with the idea of a cantina spawning with some NPCs inside, and you preform for them(maybe if you do good in there, you get some NPC tips.) This could bring a creative effect to different cantinas(and maybe a few new types for PC cantinas, if they are cool 
).
At the time, all entertainer missions, basically, suck(sorry for putting it that way). All you do is go to some REALLY random spot, play for no one for a long time, and only get like 100 credits. We need more intriguing types(big crowded theater?), with cool interactive NPCs(maybe some as vendors for goodies?), and a good reward system.
That good for now, sir?
CraytKamakura
Sat May 15, 2004 8:22 am
#173
Howdy All,
Hope you are all well. I agree with Zizz Nitch.
The Devs should add entertainment points for the Masters who have Maxed out their XP in all areas. These would be like Rebel or Empire faction points, tracked in the Control C page.
The Musician trainers would list available items such as songs, flourishes, clothes, and special instruments, like the recruiters list for faction perks.
These entertainment points could be gained in various ways, visiting Cantina's in NPC cities, visiting planets, doing entertainment missions, or just playing with an audience watching you.
These points would not be gained by just playing by yourself, so you could not AFK in a corner in your home to get the points. Plus these points should not accumulate if the person has an AFK flag up.
I agree also with the notion that these reward items should not be transferable, only the person that worked for it should be able to use it.
Sincerely,
Crayt Kamakura
Master Musician/Master Artisan
City of New Solah
Planet Naboo
Bria Server
Hope you are all well. I agree with Zizz Nitch.
The Devs should add entertainment points for the Masters who have Maxed out their XP in all areas. These would be like Rebel or Empire faction points, tracked in the Control C page.
The Musician trainers would list available items such as songs, flourishes, clothes, and special instruments, like the recruiters list for faction perks.
These entertainment points could be gained in various ways, visiting Cantina's in NPC cities, visiting planets, doing entertainment missions, or just playing with an audience watching you.
These points would not be gained by just playing by yourself, so you could not AFK in a corner in your home to get the points. Plus these points should not accumulate if the person has an AFK flag up.
I agree also with the notion that these reward items should not be transferable, only the person that worked for it should be able to use it.
Sincerely,
Crayt Kamakura
Master Musician/Master Artisan
City of New Solah
Planet Naboo
Bria Server
Ker
Sun May 16, 2004 8:07 am
#174
Some general considerations about entertaining:
(Where I use the term entertainer I refer equally to all the performing professions)
1) In the movies, entertainment is strictly background. The limit of its 'Star Warsy-ness' is in just being there. There is nothing further that entertainers can do to increase the Star Wars feel. (This is of course because the films are heroic adventures whereas the game is about the 'real' life of the characters.) Therefore the game needs to provide the entertainers with the same motivations that Sy Snootles would have been seen to have if the film had followed her life for a month. IRL entertainers do it for personal pleasure, to make a living and most of all for FAME. Over the years, many posts in these forums have suggested this and it seems an ideal way to invigorate the whole entertainment profession. Now that the idea of a limit to the number of top Jedi has been promulgated, why not a small number of famous entertainers in each town, planet and a couple to galaxy-wide superstars.
One difficulty with entertainment is that, unlike combat, the computer cannot work out whether your performance was just a random string of flourishes or a fun or artistic endeavour. And, unlike healing and crafting, it is not just a success/failure proposition. There is no failure, nor should there be, but many degrees of success. Like the politician and now the good Jedi, only other players can make those judgements and the best way to get them to do that is to have players vote with their feet. Thus Fame is a product of the number of players who listen to to the entertainer, and for the most famous that will mean repeat business, getting a name for themselves amongst the players which is quickly reinforced by the game mechanics (i.e. NPCs gossiping about the celebrities, in game billboards,adverts with celebrity-endorsements - "You too can be the talk of the town like Bob_The_Master_Dancer - in a 'Bobby T' fluorescent catsuit.", important NPCs showing up at their performances, rumours around the cantinas about steamy affairs with Han Solo/ Darth Vader/ R2-D2.)
2) There are broadly two modes of audience participation. There is the typical way of most entertainers at a cantina where they act as Meeter-&-Greeter and Master of Ceremonies and I have seen one or two particularly talented players who manage to do a continuous, impromtu stand-up comic style audience interaction. These are the activities of a journeyman entertainer like a street-entertainer or a childrens-party-magician (or a lap-dancer) It is hard to acquire fame as the audience is so small but at present there isn't much scope for moving up to the higher level of performance to a mass audience. (This is not to say that the entertainer wouldn't continue to do one-to-one entertainment; the 'personal appearance' is a staple of IRL performers)
3) In a performance the audience are passive; they are there primarily to receive entertainment, not to socialise. Since the SWG music and dance routine now grate on my nerves so much that I have to cut the sound when in a cantina, I dare to say that players won't waste their time just to listen to it: they come for healing and for buffs. Of these, healing is awkward as the player can't control when they want healing to fit a performance schedule and buffs are limited to the top professionals. This may be alright since these will be the entertainers who have enough fame to induce other players to plan on being at the performance.
The real problems are two fold. The first is advertising - as mentioned previously. My suggested solution is to insert a skill for the limited number of famous entertainers to email the entire playerbase of their town,planet or galaxy with a flyer about an upcoming event (limited to, say, twice per RL week).
The other problem is audience numbers: If a server has only 1000 players live at any one time, the actual audience that a performance at one time and location could get is too small to make it financially viable as an ongoing event and anyway, it won't be fun for the performer. What the entertainer will get out of all the work of setting the gig up will be the sight of a big crowd, the fame, the adulation. One stopgap would be to reprogram some of the NPCs to come into a theatre when a gig starts and sit down. As they are supposed to be a passive audience then their attention (and cheers) are all that an entertainer wants. Most particularly, in the theatres and hotels (not the cantina), if an entertainer strikes up a tune the NPCs loitering about should shut up and listen or leave! If the music could be heard faintly outside the building as well it would draw in a little passing trade.
4) Theatres in the big cities are completely unused and the cantinas in those cities have no stage. The cantina is the place for the wandering minstrel, the taxi-dancer, the tableside entertainment. Not bands and dance troupes. Why not disallow banding in cantinas and make the top dancers and musicians use the theatres for their big sessions. They may prefer to stick to player city venues but, for a major gig the theatre in a starport city would attract the largest crowd. One caveat is that the entertainers will still need to be able to charge a fee if there are big buffs on offer. A simple /tip attached to the /listen should suffice, with a popup dialog warning the listening player of the fee.
Quests and Events.
For the professional performer, creating and performing scheduled, advertised shows and increasing their fame and finding ways to entice an audience to log on to SWG specifically to see their show would be a feat to overshadow anything the GCW has to offer. A nice addition would be a mobile theatre (placable only in player city outposts) - a Big Top with Teras Kasei clowns doing tumbling and pratfalls, durni fights and rancor-baiting, a squad of stromtroopers doing precision emote drills, a gurr-cat trainer - that could tour the planet. The key to motivating players to try this is a scoring system, a recogintion of the effort...FAME
For the more common entertainer with little hope of superstardom, their ticket to success should be in their amiability and apparent harmlessness(i.e. lower rate of accrual of negative faction and many opportunities to gain faction by performing for all the various gangs and associations). Firstly, an entertainer should never be attacked on sight by an NPC (In fact no-one should be attacked irrespectively but I can suspend disbelief and assume that the NPCs are experts in body language and can guess affiliations and intent) That is to say, anyone who looks like an entertainer should at least be able to get into conversation range before getting shot at. No weapon/armour/TEF should be visible and 'appropriate' clothing worn. When in conversation range the entertainer has a brief chance to convince the aggressor that he isn't an enemy (i.e. /conv; "I'm just a poor entertainer come to see if I can cheer you up with a song")
Now you have a hook upon which to hang an entire new class of mission; The entertainer has entry to the upper levels of an enemy stronghold and may map the layout, sneak around looking for clues or begin a performance. This will attract some of the guards away from sentry duty (just like NPCs outside a theatre) allowing for an accomplices more productive sneaking to the lower levels without being caught or a surprise attack by the entertainers allies.
One-to-one entertainment of an NPC could also raise and raise the faction as long as the performance goes on, making him more voluble about whatever plan/mission is in the works (getting a waypoint and time for one of those Lambda shuttle stormtrooper drops would be great information for a rebel PA with ambush on its mind)
How about reviving the EQ style 'keywords' conversational interface for specific missions where the player needs a particular piece of sensitive information from an NPC. To find the keywords that unlock the secret, the entertainer must talk with another NPC, a superior, secretary, his mother..(using normal /conv choice interface) and perhaps putting several snippets together(e.g. Superior mentions that NPC has been unreliable since some breakin at his home; Secretary illuminates that his pet nuna has been stolen and he'll give anything to get it back; Mother says the nuna had a star pattern on its back and answered to the name'Vader' OR Superior says not to trust NPC as we suspect he has a lover with Imperial entanglements and the Lover says (after a LOT of entertaining) I am an imperial spy and he suspects it - if you bump into him just as he's leaving here at midnight he'll tell you anything if he thinks you know and he can trust you not to report me to the rebels.) This relies on the entertainer being able to talk with both sides, which relies on them appearing friendly and harmless. Even owning a weapon would limit affectiveness and martial training would reveal itself in body language. For the cautious, further NPCs could provide clues about what keywords to avoid at all costs. This could all be done without the 'keywords' interface but it then becomes much more of a limited guessing game unless the conversation strings were very complex.
(Where I use the term entertainer I refer equally to all the performing professions)
1) In the movies, entertainment is strictly background. The limit of its 'Star Warsy-ness' is in just being there. There is nothing further that entertainers can do to increase the Star Wars feel. (This is of course because the films are heroic adventures whereas the game is about the 'real' life of the characters.) Therefore the game needs to provide the entertainers with the same motivations that Sy Snootles would have been seen to have if the film had followed her life for a month. IRL entertainers do it for personal pleasure, to make a living and most of all for FAME. Over the years, many posts in these forums have suggested this and it seems an ideal way to invigorate the whole entertainment profession. Now that the idea of a limit to the number of top Jedi has been promulgated, why not a small number of famous entertainers in each town, planet and a couple to galaxy-wide superstars.
One difficulty with entertainment is that, unlike combat, the computer cannot work out whether your performance was just a random string of flourishes or a fun or artistic endeavour. And, unlike healing and crafting, it is not just a success/failure proposition. There is no failure, nor should there be, but many degrees of success. Like the politician and now the good Jedi, only other players can make those judgements and the best way to get them to do that is to have players vote with their feet. Thus Fame is a product of the number of players who listen to to the entertainer, and for the most famous that will mean repeat business, getting a name for themselves amongst the players which is quickly reinforced by the game mechanics (i.e. NPCs gossiping about the celebrities, in game billboards,adverts with celebrity-endorsements - "You too can be the talk of the town like Bob_The_Master_Dancer - in a 'Bobby T' fluorescent catsuit.", important NPCs showing up at their performances, rumours around the cantinas about steamy affairs with Han Solo/ Darth Vader/ R2-D2.)
2) There are broadly two modes of audience participation. There is the typical way of most entertainers at a cantina where they act as Meeter-&-Greeter and Master of Ceremonies and I have seen one or two particularly talented players who manage to do a continuous, impromtu stand-up comic style audience interaction. These are the activities of a journeyman entertainer like a street-entertainer or a childrens-party-magician (or a lap-dancer) It is hard to acquire fame as the audience is so small but at present there isn't much scope for moving up to the higher level of performance to a mass audience. (This is not to say that the entertainer wouldn't continue to do one-to-one entertainment; the 'personal appearance' is a staple of IRL performers)
3) In a performance the audience are passive; they are there primarily to receive entertainment, not to socialise. Since the SWG music and dance routine now grate on my nerves so much that I have to cut the sound when in a cantina, I dare to say that players won't waste their time just to listen to it: they come for healing and for buffs. Of these, healing is awkward as the player can't control when they want healing to fit a performance schedule and buffs are limited to the top professionals. This may be alright since these will be the entertainers who have enough fame to induce other players to plan on being at the performance.
The real problems are two fold. The first is advertising - as mentioned previously. My suggested solution is to insert a skill for the limited number of famous entertainers to email the entire playerbase of their town,planet or galaxy with a flyer about an upcoming event (limited to, say, twice per RL week).
The other problem is audience numbers: If a server has only 1000 players live at any one time, the actual audience that a performance at one time and location could get is too small to make it financially viable as an ongoing event and anyway, it won't be fun for the performer. What the entertainer will get out of all the work of setting the gig up will be the sight of a big crowd, the fame, the adulation. One stopgap would be to reprogram some of the NPCs to come into a theatre when a gig starts and sit down. As they are supposed to be a passive audience then their attention (and cheers) are all that an entertainer wants. Most particularly, in the theatres and hotels (not the cantina), if an entertainer strikes up a tune the NPCs loitering about should shut up and listen or leave! If the music could be heard faintly outside the building as well it would draw in a little passing trade.
4) Theatres in the big cities are completely unused and the cantinas in those cities have no stage. The cantina is the place for the wandering minstrel, the taxi-dancer, the tableside entertainment. Not bands and dance troupes. Why not disallow banding in cantinas and make the top dancers and musicians use the theatres for their big sessions. They may prefer to stick to player city venues but, for a major gig the theatre in a starport city would attract the largest crowd. One caveat is that the entertainers will still need to be able to charge a fee if there are big buffs on offer. A simple /tip attached to the /listen should suffice, with a popup dialog warning the listening player of the fee.
Quests and Events.
For the professional performer, creating and performing scheduled, advertised shows and increasing their fame and finding ways to entice an audience to log on to SWG specifically to see their show would be a feat to overshadow anything the GCW has to offer. A nice addition would be a mobile theatre (placable only in player city outposts) - a Big Top with Teras Kasei clowns doing tumbling and pratfalls, durni fights and rancor-baiting, a squad of stromtroopers doing precision emote drills, a gurr-cat trainer - that could tour the planet. The key to motivating players to try this is a scoring system, a recogintion of the effort...FAME
For the more common entertainer with little hope of superstardom, their ticket to success should be in their amiability and apparent harmlessness(i.e. lower rate of accrual of negative faction and many opportunities to gain faction by performing for all the various gangs and associations). Firstly, an entertainer should never be attacked on sight by an NPC (In fact no-one should be attacked irrespectively but I can suspend disbelief and assume that the NPCs are experts in body language and can guess affiliations and intent) That is to say, anyone who looks like an entertainer should at least be able to get into conversation range before getting shot at. No weapon/armour/TEF should be visible and 'appropriate' clothing worn. When in conversation range the entertainer has a brief chance to convince the aggressor that he isn't an enemy (i.e. /conv; "I'm just a poor entertainer come to see if I can cheer you up with a song")
Now you have a hook upon which to hang an entire new class of mission; The entertainer has entry to the upper levels of an enemy stronghold and may map the layout, sneak around looking for clues or begin a performance. This will attract some of the guards away from sentry duty (just like NPCs outside a theatre) allowing for an accomplices more productive sneaking to the lower levels without being caught or a surprise attack by the entertainers allies.
One-to-one entertainment of an NPC could also raise and raise the faction as long as the performance goes on, making him more voluble about whatever plan/mission is in the works (getting a waypoint and time for one of those Lambda shuttle stormtrooper drops would be great information for a rebel PA with ambush on its mind)
How about reviving the EQ style 'keywords' conversational interface for specific missions where the player needs a particular piece of sensitive information from an NPC. To find the keywords that unlock the secret, the entertainer must talk with another NPC, a superior, secretary, his mother..(using normal /conv choice interface) and perhaps putting several snippets together(e.g. Superior mentions that NPC has been unreliable since some breakin at his home; Secretary illuminates that his pet nuna has been stolen and he'll give anything to get it back; Mother says the nuna had a star pattern on its back and answered to the name'Vader' OR Superior says not to trust NPC as we suspect he has a lover with Imperial entanglements and the Lover says (after a LOT of entertaining) I am an imperial spy and he suspects it - if you bump into him just as he's leaving here at midnight he'll tell you anything if he thinks you know and he can trust you not to report me to the rebels.) This relies on the entertainer being able to talk with both sides, which relies on them appearing friendly and harmless. Even owning a weapon would limit affectiveness and martial training would reveal itself in body language. For the cautious, further NPCs could provide clues about what keywords to avoid at all costs. This could all be done without the 'keywords' interface but it then becomes much more of a limited guessing game unless the conversation strings were very complex.
LeBob
Sun May 16, 2004 10:12 am
#175
CraytKamakura wrote:
Howdy All,
Hope you are all well. I agree with Zizz Nitch.
The Devs should add entertainment points for the Masters who have Maxed out their XP in all areas. These would be like Rebel or Empire faction points, tracked in the Control C page.
The Musician trainers would list available items such as songs, flourishes, clothes, and special instruments, like the recruiters list for faction perks.
These entertainment points could be gained in various ways, visiting Cantina's in NPC cities, visiting planets, doing entertainment missions, or just playing with an audience watching you.
These points would not be gained by just playing by yourself, so you could not AFK in a corner in your home to get the points. Plus these points should not accumulate if the person has an AFK flag up.
I agree also with the notion that these reward items should not be transferable, only the person that worked for it should be able to use it.
Sincerely,
Crayt Kamakura
Master Musician/Master Artisan
City of New Solah
Planet Naboo
Bria Server
I'd really love for some high-end Musician/Dancer feature like this to be added.... I am CAPPED on Musician XP and Ent Healing XP, and I seriously doubtI will every drop m.M ......... so it'd be nice to have something to spend all these points on 
same goes for other profs... but I think this should be applied to the social classes first as it may present issues with balancing in combat classes and tradeskills classes
meski
Mon May 17, 2004 6:37 am
#176
one idea is to have group missions similar to the warren and lab but to have one section of it where an entertainer (or group pf entertainers)has to perform for a npc in order to get him to open a door or provide them with an access key. That way we could make it so entertainers are more conected to the fighting proffessions, and are able to get more cash and loot.
_Neko
Sun May 30, 2004 3:46 am
#177
i have an idea, everytime someone watched you, you get rank xp. when you get enough xp you can rank up! then you can compete to be the best entertainer in the galaxy!
Dannylau
Sun May 30, 2004 4:10 am
#179
How about a new ability for musicians "CHARM"
This will put creatures into a hypnotic trance and stop them attacking
The success rate would depend on their skill and the level of the creature, also the duration would vary accordingly.
This would allow musicians to be usefull in dungeons and give them a chance to share loot with combat orientated players.
Taking this one more step perhaps thre should be a chance to "turn" the creature so it fights for your group for a specified amount of time, this would make musicians a truly usefull addition to groups taking missions
Dannylau
Sun May 30, 2004 7:19 am
#180
Expanding on this concept you could give dancers the same ability except it works on NCP's
Renzo_Zahadid
Mon May 31, 2004 5:42 am
#181
posted this in the in concept thread, but ill add it here ..
in the large battle scene between the gungans and hte battle droids in episode 1 , the gungans play a large curved horn of some type prior to and during battle (if i recall correctly) ..seems to function like a war drum ..
id like to see a gungan theme park revamp where this horn becomes available to master musicians .. instead of having it play songs .. perhaps its a single sound item like it is in the movie .. it could heal mind, add group combat bonus, provide mind buff etc .. but more importantly it could give master musicians increased pusrpose in combat .. give the musician a tef for playing it if necessary, but if done properly, the benefits could far outweigh the risk for large scale group combat or raids
TuskKiller
Tue Jun 01, 2004 4:14 pm
#182
Dancer is currenly the most boring profession there is, their role almost entirely confined to the inside of a cantina and with no reason to leave it or even stay at your keyboard to master it. Here is what I would add to game:
/CHARM skill or /PACIFY ENEMYskill that could be used to make an agro enemy not attack or stop attacking you or your group. Dancers would naturally be able to sweat talk NPCs out of attacking them and Musicians would be able to sooth the savage beasts. This would make entertainers better able to protect themselves in the wild, like doctors who can heal themselfs or buff themselves when in danger Entertainers should similairly have a way to keep themselves from being slain.
RESTORE NPC FACTION Entertainers should be able convert NPC faction status for other players in a way that does not infringe on the Smuggler Underword abitity.Say a BH has -5000 Jabba Faction but wants to work for the big slug now, what better way to get him/herself back into his good graces than by sending an entertainer to perform for his enjoyment. This might however result in the loss of faction from Lady Valarian or Borvo the Hutt. This could be accomplished in the same manner as the Image Designer ability to do Stat Migration; Player would have to accompany Entertainer to Jabba's Palace, Nightsister Stronghold, Lucky Despot, or whatever local and wait 10-12 minutes until performer completes their "set". If a low level entertainer doesnt perform so well... maybe both players get attacked. This is my idea of what an entertainer mission should be: and element of danger, interacting with other players, and forcing them to out of the cantina
LEGENDARY INSTRUMENTS and JEWELRY entertainer need something more interesting to aspire to than skill tapes and the exquisite dancers leotard. Make somehard to find or make Jewelry or musical instruments with nice stat mods. These could be quest rewards or they could be looted.
"BARD" SONGS give entertainers something that can help sway the tide of battle in favor of their group as in fantasy games, but wont infringe on SL