Development Cycle Archive

Whatever type of missions or quests are chosen, what about as rewards: schematic modifiers that could be added to camps so that entertainers, dancers, and musicians could provide more healing to all those in the camp, while at the same time minimizing damage to themselves. Maybe even making a certain type of camps modfiable by the character so that it enhances their efforts and protects the entertainer from outside attacks, so that combat skills are not made a requirement for the more advanced planets. This could possibly increase interaction and the willingness to partner up with hunting groups for experience and credits.

For #1... Perhaps instead of sending people to a random cantina, have it weighted towards cantinas that see a lot of visitors and little to no entertainers. Or even better, take into account the overall rate of healing of that cantina and/or how many wounds/battle fatigue enter the cantina vs how many are healed (Not how many leave). By doing it this way, the missions will tend to direct people to where the healing is most needed. It will also almost completely eliminate grind capitols from destinations, since typically more wounds are healed in there than enter, due to use of CM assisted grinding. On top of all that, while players have a marginally effective way to find where entertainers are (/register) this would give entertainers a very effective way of finding where they are needed. This type of mission could even be extended to doctors/medics and med centers.

I guess that is sort of beyond the scope of #1.

For the rest, I'm going to bring up an idea that a few people have come up with. While the general goal of combattants is victory and glory, the general goal of entertainers is fame. (I'm talking in general terms, not game terms.) What if some sort of game mechanic could be invented that encompasses the entire play style of the entertainer, and turns it into a completely new goal for a MMORPG? This could incorperate quests, missions, "battle of the bands", advertising performances, giving entertainers each a uniqueness instead of all being interchangable parts they are now, and encouraging socializing. Maybe some quests require a certain level of fame, or being more famous makes them easier, or quests help boost fame somehow. To encourage socializing, fame could also be related to other players. I can see possibilities here for a gameplay style that has never truly existed in a MMORPG to date, and few other games.

Just some partial thoughts on the subject.

I have thoughts. I'll share them.

#1: Player missions: Entertainment missionare a great place for this to start, as there's really no way this can be 'hurtful' (outside of wasted time). To prevent wasted time: prevent players on your "Ignore List" from even seeing your mission. You get paid for playing X time (I like 20 minutes) in Location Y (Cantina/Tavern/Hotel/Theater in the given city). The credits are paid by the customer(s) in advance to the system, paid out on successful completion, returned if aborted.

#2: Unique rewards. If nothing else but a bright blue Nargalon. These will require unique quests. Entertaining Jabba (by healing 10k mind wounds in 2 minutes or less?), and the right to perhaps, to join Jabba's band.

Subthought #2.5 In fact, how's this for a cool idea: Master Musician/Dancer receives an E-Mail mission from Bib Fortuna, inviting him to perform for the well paying (but very grumpy) Jabba Himself. Missions based on E-Mail, that come to you, would add a *lot* to this game. Here's a great place to try it.

#3: Involvement in the GCW outside of Stormtroppers requesting the buisness end of a Mandoviol. What better cover in the game is there than a Musician/Smuggler. How many mob people really played the Violin? The idea of spying as an entertainer is simply brilliant, and interaction with NPCs (perhaps they start the conversation as playing) could provide set ups for missions (Get your combat buddies), information dumps (rather than Heralds) , or who knows what?

This is a place to really make people Live the Saga. Make use of it.

-T

Entertainers, Musicians and Dancers: what improvements would you make to the existing missions to make them more fun and interesting?

Someone (NPC) there at the locationto actually entertain, even if it's only clapping..
Maybe add a way to get healing experience by healing them.
The missions need to pay more, maybe have group missions so that the pay increase if you can get a group of people with you to said area and dance/play music.

What type of “gig” challenges would make an (entertainer, musician, dancer) quest and/or mission fun and exciting? (and more "Star Warsy")

I think it would be good if lets say there is a big quest, that will lead me to go to diffrent (safe) locations over the galaxy, talk to NPC X and take this information to NPC Y and at the end maybe the Master Dancer learns a new flo to a dance, the master musician leanrs a new flo to a song or maybe a new instrument? The Image designer learns a new hairstyle..

What kind of “gig” activities can players do with other players that would make missions interesting?
An NPC musician bandcould play some diffrent tunes and the musicians could try and copy the flos
Jabba could have a rating system for how good a dancer is or a group of dancersare, after a show he could give your grade

What are the basic character types of NPC’s do you think should be involved with Entertainers, Musicians and Dancers?
It would be fun if a pure entertainer could choose to be an agent for other entertainers and promote them, and also have some kind of fame system for the entertainers in the agents group.
Maybe we could have an NPC manager in the cantinas, he will see to it that all that are afk will be carried off the dancefloor and shut out for ever more!? Perfect!

Ops, my sorry about the compact writing on that message, something strange happened! I hope you can read it

How about missions where players have to form bands or dance troupes, or a musician-dance mix? A single player would take the mission, then they have to find other players to form a group which meets the mission parameters, then they all have to play at a certain location. Once, accomplished, all players in the group would get the xp and credits.

The group parameters could be anything, including: number of players, skills of players, race, allegiance, instruments, residence, badges, any player attribute. The more complex the parameters the greater the payout.

Such missions would encourage role-playing and necessitate player interaction, which after all, is the hallmark of these professions.

The best way I can think to have entertainer missions get better is to have NPCs with 1 mind appear @ the location for the gig and then have them heal them. I picture them having to talk to the individual first so that he is watching/listening to themthem.

Faction missions could be run the same way, except have it be a camp outside of a city. Basically a USO type concert.

As far as quests: How about after a series of gigs either entertaining gangsters or sick children the character recieves a gift of a schematic for a new instrument/outfit (1,2 or 10 copies allowed) that only lasts for a certain amount of time. Have it tick a use off after say 10 minutes of playing/dancing.

This is a repost of several of my ideas on the entertainer boards, with modifications- and they apply to entertainer, dancer, and musician.

General points:

• I would like to see more travel and more grouping. Anything to encourage events and actual troupes would be welcome.
  
• Entertainment should be spontaneous and fun, and visible. Take it out of the cantina. Perform on the street. Advertise events so people know where you are.
  
• Make it more immersive - what if you could hear the music without /listening? Follow the notes to where the action is!
  
• An entertainer network, that extends beyond guilds. Make us the social "matchmakers" again.
  
• An active role in entertaining/healing, instead of a passive.
  
• Keep the current sense of necessity of entertainment, but make the necessity secondary to the social aspect. People should want to go to entertainers when they don't need to.

Specific suggestions

1. Entertainer missions that encourage grouping.
   
   
   
   • dispense a time-limited non-tradable travel ticket to an entertainer
     
   • entertainer goes to cantina
     
   • entertainer must group with one other entertainer to complete mission
     
   • ideally, at a certain time missions would all lead to the same cities (i.e. today missions will lead to Kor Vella, Mos Entha, and Kadaara only)
     
   • you would never be able to take a mission in the city where you already are
     
   • considerable payout
     
   • possibly specific instructions (i.e. dance basic 2 or use the fanfar)
     
   • missions would be slightly longer (i.e. dance/play music for 20 mins) because of travel time
     
   • make some sort of announcement so players know where the entertainer hot-spots are (maybe posted on all cantina doors every day, as a "sign" that can be read)
   
   
2. An effective bandflourish system - which ties in to missions
   
   
   
   • Lately nobody wants to bandflourish because of the lack of xp. Strangely, bandflourish xp was taken out of beta to discourage afk-ing, but has been ineffectual because of the macros. Why not put it back in, can't make the afk situation worse.
     
   • Bandflourishing would increase mission payouts, so that would cause people doing missions together to group and bandflourish
     
   • Bandflourishing would cost the "flourisher" extra action points, while costing the passive members fewer action points, making it such that bandleaders would switch around (making sure that people were not afk, and causing coordination within the group)
     
   • dancer experience scaled to level of dancer, instead of level of dance, so that dancing with a group doing bandflourishes would be preferable to dancing exotic in the corner.
     
   • synchronized lighting effects
   
   
3. Advertising & making entertainment more visible




• Hearing the music without listening to it - possibly from a good distance away
  
• seeing lights coming out of the cantina, indicating that there's something going on in there


4. Dancer and musician quests which give dancer and musician-specific loot with bonuses

Just want to say I really like this idea... very good... very well put

Tholena

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KingBanjo wrote:

Entertaining the Galaxy

Mysuggestionare intended for all three professions.

Rather than making the playertake a gig for some wacky location and entertain some random npcs instead send the player toentertain in an existing cantina for whoever may be there. The less frequented the cantina the greater the pay. So when an entertainer goes to an entertainment terminalformissions theygetonetelling them to report to the cantinainCorrnet/ Bela Vista/ Mos Taike/Dathomir science outpost and perform for 30 min. Money they make as tip during this time is a little "extra gravey"

It would be even nicer if player cities could getmissions listed for thier cantina(s). Perhaps the mayor or cantina owner could pay a premium(not the full mission cost but perhaps a weekly fee) to get thier location listed.

A few random thoughts about this:

• Make sure the pay is reasonable the cost to travel to AND FROM say, Dathomir should be included in the mission payout. Make sure at the very least the mission payout compares against survey missions.


• The mission payout should also take into account boredom factor of a location. Entertaining in Corrnet is alot of fun because there are lots of poeplethere. Being sentona gig to Yavin's mining outpost should pay more because for 30min the entertainer could very well be alone bored out of their gourd (or more likely AFK).


• The length of time it takes the mission to be compeleted should be carefully balanced. Long enough for the entertainer's presence to have an impact, but take into account that they can't do two missions at the same time like most other missions, also factor inthe average time other types of missions take to complete.


• I really think this would be helpful for the combat types who seldom want to leave an advanced world but often get froced to do so.


• It would also help out players in low population towns(dorbel guerfela)you need some healing but don't want to travel to a town that will have entertainers(corrnet)


• FurthermoreI think this exact scheme could be applied to medics for missions send them instead to spend some time at some far flung med center.

KB's RL Gf

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1. Entertainers, Musicians and Dancers: what improvements would you make to the existing missions to make them more fun and interesting?

The current missions require no input from the performer beyond /startdance or /startmusic. We need to be rewarded in some fashoion for actively using flourishes, light effects and changing songs/dances. Mission payouts must be scaled according to skill in the entertainer skill. A master should never be forced to work for novice pay.

2. What type of “gig” challenges would make an (entertainer, musician, dancer) quest and/or mission fun and exciting? (and more "Star Warsy")

I think the key to making it star warsy and at the same time fun would be to add the element of danger for failure. Perhaps a dancer or musician who fails an imporved mission would cause some aggro thugs to spawn and attack the entertainer.

3. What kind of “gig” activities can players do with other players that would make missions interesting?



The wost part of being an entertainer is the serious lack of single player content. Missions should be centered around the single player experience.



4. What are the basic character types of NPC’s do you think should be involved with Entertainers, Musicians and Dancers? (Agent, Manager, etc)



I think to make it more star warsy we should have to deal with cheating cantina owners, hutt gangsters and the occaisonl request from nobility to perform in nicer places. Mostly though on lower level missions we should have to deal more with less than reputable employers.

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Thunderheart wrote:

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KombatCamKombat wrote:
I like the idea of Entertainers (Dancers and Musicians) to be able to play @ Jabba's Palace. But before they can they must complete a couple of missions for Jabba. I know most Entertainers don't have combat skills but this allows for great group interaction, (ie, The entertainers must group with combat professions to complete these tasks).
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This is a great aspect to keep in mind - - thanks for bringing it up
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I like team interaction too, but non-combat ents already have a lot of reasons to want to team with combat players (money, loot, body guards, uh content ), it would be really nice if combat players had a reward for teaming with Ents. If my commando and BH teammates are going to have to go fight on little missions with me in team just so I can go dance for Jabba, they had better be getting something pretty cool for having an Ent teamed with them or it won't really be any kind of change. I went all the way through Jabba's as a BE/Dancer and so basically my friends just had to do my mishes for me... I already couldn't have done it with out them, they were just being nice.

For the current gig mishes, we need a lot more money, they need to be based on level (I love the idea of Masters getting death world gigs for high payouts and lowbies getting starting city gigs for less that someone mentioned). The main rewards should be money, loot, and faction (mob included, not just imp or reb... all of those meatlumps you killed before you had to give up novice marksman become a real pain. >< This would be a really great solution!) New dances and songs as rewards just make the most sense, but if we can't get those, Ent only schematics are the next best thing. Making them feel more Star Warsy can be done with any kind of spying/under cover delivery type gig (this keeps being mentioned for a reason). Good rewards for non-masters could come in the form of XP or XP bonuses while on a gig. Masters should see a great jump in payout since they don't need xp.

The big things to keep in mind should be how to make the Ent classes more rewarding for everyone, making at-the-keys play more fun and rewarding financially and have better xp bonuses. While you are getting and getting to a gig, you are losing valuable time in the cantina (where the tips and xp happen), gigs have to more than compensate for that time lost in both xp and cash or it still won't be worth it before a Master title. If you make these more attractive than afk cantina leveling, you can use them to route the correct ents to the places where the non-ents of their levels are. So masters dancers and musicians will be on death worlds to buff the people who really need master level buffs, but starter ents will be in starter cities to help out lower level non-ents. Raising in levels should grant access to higher content and pay.

As far as teaming with other ents for gigs, I don't really think this needs to be much different than it is currently for combat mishes. Higher ents should allow you to roll mishes with greater rewards, two master dancer should be able to get more for each then either could solo. Something that included non-ent teaming rewards would be really cool, like bodyguard rewards for combat teammates... or crafting rewards for crafting teammates, but we don't really have anything in game right now to compare that to.

Character types of NPC's should be Agents, Managers, Talent Scouts, Cantina and Theater owners, Band Leaders, and I guess Slavers (ick) could be worked in some how since they seem to come with the dancer scene anyway.