Entertainer Archive

So, it's no surprise that the entertainer forums have been visited of late by people blaming us for the removal of the looping macro, and complaining about us being selfish jerks and whiners.
And as the AFK debate goes on, more and more I see the challenge thrown at us "tell me you were never AFK you're whole time dancing/playing music, none of you can truly say that."
Well, I'm here to confess (though a search on the forums will reveal the information anyway).
I did a significant amount of levelling while AFK. I did this before I spent a lot of time reading the forums, or discussing the issue with my fellow entertainers. (In fact, since I was very social and friendly when I was ATK, which I was qutie often, I made many friends during the time, and I'm guessing this is why they didn't complain to me about my AFKness).
I did it because I wanted to have all the instruments and songs available to play with, as I'm somewhat of a musician in real life and wanted to have the ability to create all the different kinds of music.
When I finally started reading the forums more, I learned much about the damage this kind of action does to us as a profession. I also learned about buffbots (the cantina I play in has been lucky enough to have avoided much of an invasion.. there was one short-lived attempt, but we defeated it), and did not want to be associated with them, or any kind of AFK play.
In short, I was/am reformed. You can look at my posts of recent times and see that I'm a supporter of live entertainment. I no longer entertain AFK. It's just wrong.
And here, I offer this in penance, if any of the fellow entertainers I know feel that it would be necessary.
I am willing to give up everything down to Novice Musician (I started doing some AFK levelling shortly after getting Novice if I recall correctly), and level up my character again completely ATK.
I can make the argument that since shortly before I reached Master, I've been completely ATK, that I should be able to keep the xp I've gained since then and apply that to the dropped skills. However, I can see how that would go against the purpose of this penance, and am willing to get rid of the xp as best I can.

I do this publicly, so that people will stop trying to use the argument that if we've ever played AFK, we are just as bad as those who always play AFK. There is such a thing as learning from your mistakes, and if I argue that AFK play is bad, I do so fully aware of my guilt of doing so in the past. I do this now to remove all chances of someone calling me a hypocrite. I fully respect and admire those who have the understanding to realize from the very beginning that they should never play AFK. But I also fully respect those who were led astray, but have learned to change their ways.

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Aleyo wrote:
So, it's no surprise that the entertainer forums have been visited of late by people blaming us for the removal of the looping macro, and complaining about us being selfish jerks and whiners.
And as the AFK debate goes on, more and more I see the challenge thrown at us "tell me you were never AFK you're whole time dancing/playing music, none of you can truly say that."
Well, I'm here to confess (though a search on the forums will reveal the information anyway).
I did a significant amount of levelling while AFK. I did this before I spent a lot of time reading the forums, or discussing the issue with my fellow entertainers. (In fact, since I was very social and friendly when I was ATK, which I was qutie often, I made many friends during the time, and I'm guessing this is why they didn't complain to me about my AFKness).
I did it because I wanted to have all the instruments and songs available to play with, as I'm somewhat of a musician in real life and wanted to have the ability to create all the different kinds of music.
When I finally started reading the forums more, I learned much about the damage this kind of action does to us as a profession. I also learned about buffbots (the cantina I play in has been lucky enough to have avoided much of an invasion.. there was one short-lived attempt, but we defeated it), and did not want to be associated with them, or any kind of AFK play.
In short, I was/am reformed. You can look at my posts of recent times and see that I'm a supporter of live entertainment. I no longer entertain AFK. It's just wrong.
And here, I offer this in penance, if any of the fellow entertainers I know feel that it would be necessary.
I am willing to give up everything down to Novice Musician (I started doing some AFK levelling shortly after getting Novice if I recall correctly), and level up my character again completely ATK.
I can make the argument that since shortly before I reached Master, I've been completely ATK, that I should be able to keep the xp I've gained since then and apply that to the dropped skills. However, I can see how that would go against the purpose of this penance, and am willing to get rid of the xp as best I can.

I do this publicly, so that people will stop trying to use the argument that if we've ever played AFK, we are just as bad as those who always play AFK. There is such a thing as learning from your mistakes, and if I argue that AFK play is bad, I do so fully aware of my guilt of doing so in the past. I do this now to remove all chances of someone calling me a hypocrite. I fully respect and admire those who have the understanding to realize from the very beginning that they should never play AFK. But I also fully respect those who were led astray, but have learned to change their ways.

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You are forgiven.

As penance, you must only drop your Master Musician tag along with the top four boxes of the Musician tree and do them again, ATK

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Xyrdre wrote:

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SmedleyLlama wrote:

You are forgiven.

As penance, you must only drop your Master Musician tag along with the top four boxes of the Musician tree and do them again, ATK

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... while wearing hawtpants...

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You're acting as if hawtpants is a punishment?
(Incidentally, your choice of font color matches the color of my hawtpants perfectly).
I won't mind the hawtpants, which is more than I can say for a few of my compatriots who'll have to watch.

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Aleyo wrote:
So, it's no surprise that the entertainer forums have been visited of late by people blaming us for the removal of the looping macro, and complaining about us being selfish jerks and whiners.
And as the AFK debate goes on, more and more I see the challenge thrown at us "tell me you were never AFK you're whole time dancing/playing music, none of you can truly say that."
Well, I'm here to confess (though a search on the forums will reveal the information anyway).
I did a significant amount of levelling while AFK. I did this before I spent a lot of time reading the forums, or discussing the issue with my fellow entertainers. (In fact, since I was very social and friendly when I was ATK, which I was qutie often, I made many friends during the time, and I'm guessing this is why they didn't complain to me about my AFKness).
I did it because I wanted to have all the instruments and songs available to play with, as I'm somewhat of a musician in real life and wanted to have the ability to create all the different kinds of music.
When I finally started reading the forums more, I learned much about the damage this kind of action does to us as a profession. I also learned about buffbots (the cantina I play in has been lucky enough to have avoided much of an invasion.. there was one short-lived attempt, but we defeated it), and did not want to be associated with them, or any kind of AFK play.
In short, I was/am reformed. You can look at my posts of recent times and see that I'm a supporter of live entertainment. I no longer entertain AFK. It's just wrong.
And here, I offer this in penance, if any of the fellow entertainers I know feel that it would be necessary.
I am willing to give up everything down to Novice Musician (I started doing some AFK levelling shortly after getting Novice if I recall correctly), and level up my character again completely ATK.
I can make the argument that since shortly before I reached Master, I've been completely ATK, that I should be able to keep the xp I've gained since then and apply that to the dropped skills. However, I can see how that would go against the purpose of this penance, and am willing to get rid of the xp as best I can.

I do this publicly, so that people will stop trying to use the argument that if we've ever played AFK, we are just as bad as those who always play AFK. There is such a thing as learning from your mistakes, and if I argue that AFK play is bad, I do so fully aware of my guilt of doing so in the past. I do this now to remove all chances of someone calling me a hypocrite. I fully respect and admire those who have the understanding to realize from the very beginning that they should never play AFK. But I also fully respect those who were led astray, but have learned to change their ways.

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I levelled up completely at the keyboard the first. The second time I did a lot of afk. There's nothing to be ashamed of here. I personally don't know why people care if people do it afk so much. The part about afk that sucks is when afk'ers spam,go afk while group leader,or they take away the livelihood of the live performer (aka buffbots). If you did none of those, then there's no harm done. AFK, in and of itself, I do not consider it a problem. It's the abuse of afk that is a problem. And, unfortunately, people often do everything in their power to abuse afk and the macro system that we were given. If people didn't feel the need to abuse, the devs would never feel the need to nerf.

Message Edited by Drygo on 08-10-2004 02:15 PM

Drygo, I do agree that the things you listed are how AFK can cause the greatest amount of harm.
However, over my time spent reading the forums and playing the game, I've also come to realize what harm it can do just to have a character entertaining AFK in public view. At a time when a lot of the playerbase doesn't see us in very good light, it doesn't create a good impression when someone walks into the cantina and sees 10 AFK characters and 2 non-AFK characters (if they can even pick out the 2 among the 10). I think it just perpetuates the idea that entertaining is not a fun profession, and is only done by AFKers.
It's not nearly as much damage as what is caused by what you described, but I think it'd damage nonetheless, and will hold myself to that standard (but I hold others to a much lower standard, not because I expect less of them, but because I'd rather focus on having fun with them than criticizing them ).
So that's how I feel about that.

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Tralmek wrote:

Certainly I forgive you for it. You have rethought and revised your ways, and I certainly don't think you need to drop any skills for this, although you might want to consider starting another Entertainer and doing completely ATK leveling. I'm sure there are a few people on Bria who would be happy to welcome you... (hint hint). If you did this, you could claim with complete honesty that you Mastered the profession without AFK'ing the second time, and the folks who say that no one can get through the professions without AFK macroing will have yet another case study of someone who DID do the profession without going AFK.

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Thanks for the kind words.
I'm very touched with your invitation to Bria, I didn't know I was well known enough to be welcomed with a "(hint, hint)" .
I'll probably have to decline though, at least in terms of a character I play with any significant amount of time. I do very much like the people I know on Tempest (and especially the lack of lag compared to some other servers). I don't feel I play enough hours to be able to keep up with two servers well enough. I will, however, be a frequent visitor, as my character there is already preparing for this Saturday's Cantina Crawl. After this Saturday, I'll probably reroll as a Scipionus clone though, so that I'll be more recognizable.
That character will of course be done completely ATK from the beginning, though who knows how long it might be till I get any mastery on Bria lol. And if I do drop down to Novice on Tempest, I will feel I can claim I will have mastered without AFK'ing (the AFK levels gained will just disappear into the night when I drop them). Heck, I might even drop to Novice Entertainer to go through the whole experience again.

Ok, just as an update, when I log in in a few minutes, I'm going to drop down to Novice Musician. This way I'll be able to say I've levelled every box ATK, as well as serve my penance.
And yes, I will be, throughout my levelling, wearing my purple HAWTPANTS.
Feel free to report me on this thread if I'm wearing anything else.
(I decided against going all the way down to novice entertainer because I don't want my ears to bleed )

Now that's a dedicated entertainer! Hat's off to you...

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SmedleyLlama wrote:

You are forgiven.

As penance, you must only drop your Master Musician tag along with the top four boxes of the Musician tree and do them again, ATK

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