Entertainer Archive
Thread: What should the end game be like for entertainers?
"End Game" is terminology that describes the game you play when you've maxed out your character and you have nowhere else to go, advancement-wise. In Everquest, for instance, you have two distinct games. The advancement game is what happens when you're working your way through the ranks, earning your levels, acquiring your equipment, joining a guild, etc.... The end game, on the other hand, consists of joining with like-ranked people to mount raids against dragons, gods, and dungeons with practically impossible odds that require huge amounts of firepower and coordination to accomplish. It's all about getting prestige and ultra-rare loot (which again goes back to prestige).
One of the trends I've noticed lately is that of player's maxing out their levels, running for a long or short time, then dropping their skills or dropping the game when they run out of new things to do with their skills. This mainly involves the entertaining and crafting professions. The combat professions have the GCW, Krayt Dragons, adventure planets and what not to keep them busy.
Now, one end-game avenue for entertainers is the formation of troupes and bands for the purpose of putting on advanced shows. This sort of thing mainly appeals to the dedicated players and role-players. For the more casual player, the game once you reach Master is pretty much the same game you played at novice entertainer. You just have more tools to play withbut you DON'T get the sense of achievement that comes with seeing the XP ticker ticking away.
So, the question - How could the game be changed to offer an end game to entertainers? What features or activities could be added to the game that would give entertainers a new way to play once they've reached master and have exhausted their old play opportunities? Ideas involving our skills and abilities (or the addition of new skills and abilities) are more interesting than ideas about using disco balls to distract the enemy during combat. Entertainers are a healing/social profession. An end game should involve the enhancement of that part of our profession and maybe some new ways to expand the activities that come from that focus.
Here's an idea to get things rolling - Note that by end-game, I'm referring to anything after master,whether it be special quests, special benefits, special abilities, new game mechanics, whatever, as long as it's entertainment oriented.
The Uber Technique - Once her XP is maxed out, a master continues to earn XP at the normal rate. However, this "overspill" is put into a "fame" pool instead of an XP pool. The fame pool is used to "buy" a one-shot special effect. Something like a two-minute fireworks show going off behind the band, or a ten minute duration when all special effects for the entire band cost 0 action or the band levitates 10 feet off the floor 
. Once activated, the XP cost of the one-shot is subtracted from the "fame" pool and it can't be re-used until the master has once again filled up her fame pool to the proper level.
A "fame" ability like that would give the masters something truly special and the rarity would make it extremely valuable, to the master if to no-one else. If it was spectacular enough, the master's would find the motivation to continue their craft and work to get the prestige that such a presentation would give them.
Oh that could be so very fun.
Maybe a specail quest to go see a special dancer NPC somewhere to learn a special move 
I am somewhat new, so I don't have a firm grasp on all the gameplay mechanics andall of the subtle nuances,but I do know that I love the social and rp aspects of the entertainer professions. I completely agree that combat skills arenot needed and really wouldn't be a reward for someone that spent all their time out of combat. What would be a suitable reward? Hmm...
The fame pool sounds like an awesome idea. You could use it to implement all sorts of skills that would be unbalanced or boring if you could just fire em off at random. How about using it to allow a master to give cantina like healing at camps or maybe even anywhere. If it required drawing from a fame pool I don't think it would be overpowered. I think something related to managing entertainment on some level would be interesting, like managing a cantina or a band or something such. Not sure how the politics system is gonna work, but it would be interesting if you could use fame to lend support to a particular cause or something...will have to wait and see how that all plays out.
If an idiot newb like me has ideas, certainly the rest of you must. C'mon. 
>me
the ability to create an outdooor stage 'camp' that allows full cantina style healing out in the field. put the same type of limits on it as camps (only lasts x min, cannot be picked back up, that sort of thing)
Significant reduction in Action (or mind for ID) costs for masters of a entertaining profession. It would allow us to put on more interesting shows with out always worrying about action costs. After mastering music it never gets easier to play the virt on the nala for instance. However, there is nowhere to advance to beyond that either. The increased action costs towards the end of beta to try and reduce the ability to AFK turned out to be a big failure.
make virt sound better
quests for new songs/dances/flourishes/instruments
make instrument experimentation mean something
Do not create some sort of elite-elite profession like they were talking about doing (and seemed to back away from) for architects. The last thing any of the entertinment professions need is a bigger skill point sink. It's hard enough to do anything else outside of the ent professions if some one gets Master entertainer and one of the Elite entertainer professions.
Increase the power of the registration feature. You should be able to register more places, theatres and tavern style cantinas, for instance. Also by the time someone masters an entertaining profession they ought to be able to get thier name on the global map when registered like merchant vendors. Kind of a name in lights Marquee - flyers posted all over town effect.
remove the requirement to target the nala and ommni to keep playing them.
make a master dancer never fall down and a master ent never fall down on the entertainer dances.
the continous addition of more content. I like the music system in general but there definitely needs to be more songs, dances & instruments added into the game. What we can play is pretty limited longterm.
more special effects. one place to start would be to allow the ability to use the lesser forms of the effects that get lost when working up the tech tree of music and dance.
jsut some ideas.
After reaching master, there's a small chance you get an email from the Emporer (if you've joined the Imps), Princess Leia (Rebels) or some other well known, high-ranking (but non-factioned) person. These could also be searched out. They need an entertainment group to play at a party. This would either be at some current location (also a great way to get those static Points of Interest known), or at a randomly spawned camp. This would be a big deal: the email specifies a minimum band/dance troupe size, along with a playlist: 5 minutes of Ceremonial (maybe also specifying instruments required), 10 of virtuoso with dancers doing exotic 3, etc. After about an hour, you could get faction points, cash, and maybe a special quest item, a certificate signifying you a "Royal Musician", perhaps.
Oh, and I want ME to be able to make balloon sculptures. I think Palpatine would lovea red balloon light saber, wouldn't you? Or a little green Yoda?
sleepdepzombie wrote:
more special effects. one place to start would be to allow the ability to use the lesser forms of the effects that get lost when working up the tech tree of music and dance.
Psst: try "/dazzle 1".
There are three levels to each effect, not specifying a number automatically does the highest one.
Are interested in knowing what my ideal content would be or what I am currently doing with my entertainer skills? My character is a master dancer/musician/entertainer. I generally spend around an hour or two a day playing. Always in the cantina.. Somedays I get a bunch of extra time and spend upwards of ten hours in the cantina. I don't greet people that come in door (the cantina is not wal-mart and I am not wearing a blue smock).. I don't put on shows (unless another musician or dancer is willing to play along)... I dance or play music constantly but mainly I joke around and flirt with the other people active at their characters.
My ideal content would be NPC missions that were worth playing. I'd love to get quest items, badges or even faction points for doing entertainment missions.
MMORPGs never end... They are persistant worlds. People looking for the "end" are never going to find it.
We need a way to make a more permanent band that the game recognizes. Right now I guess the only way to do that is to make a PA, but that's rather expensive. The band wouldn't be a PA, but members could have something by their name to show they belong to it. Maybe just have a person in the Theatre who charges for registering a band. It would be another money sink to justify raising entertainer mission payouts. Bands would need to receive benefits, such as faster healing if the group belongs to the same band, and maybe the ability to /register in player houses if there is more than one member of the same band performing there.
I think a big part of the 'end game' problem is that players are using the same set of values from previous MMORPGs against SWG.
To me SWG has not 'advancement game' as you describe it - my characters progression is achieved as I play the game, I dont advance so that I can play the game (this is an important distinction)
Most people dont appreciate that the 'point' of SWG is to live and breath in the SW universe, it really is that straightforward. The skill system is an attempt to capture the way that people either have numerous basic level skills or are very specialised in one area and limited in others - yet you can always choose to learn new skills at the cost of losing your proficiency in the old ones.
People who race to Master whatever will be disapointed because the gameplay is no more structured for 'capped' players than it is for starting players - the sooner people realise this and just play the game (rather than grind through the skills) the sooner we will see more widespread RP (just in the sence that people will RP citizens of the universe and the population of a town/planet) and the richness of the game will increase.
Games like Neocron and Anarchy Online have proved that as long as the playerbase is single mindedly set on levelling/advancement the storyline is a moot point beyond dictating who like whom and who gets shot on sight.
If/when people finally take a step back from advancement and just play the game then the storywill become more than a set of hostility rules
I guess the point of this is that SWG doesnt need an 'End game' (well in the eyes of the advancement-players it does) not is giving it one a step in the same direction as the rest of the game structure (and not in the right direction IMO)
Right now I consider myself an apprentice performer, this is also the title I put on if I put on a title at all, usually I don't. At the moment I'm employed by the Mos Eisley cantina where I'm learning my trade, musician and dancer, when I'm done learning my trade I want to make a life for myself in the starwars universe. Like I got invited to attend a wedding last weekend and I'm invited to attend the opening of a new player cantina on my server, I have no intention to audition or perform there yet cause I'm still learning my trade and I didn't perform at the wedding because that wasn't why I was invited, I danced but that was because I was having a good time.
When I'm done learning my trade I want to go and see what is out there, maybe perform at player events or I might decide to join the Birdcage, if they want me, LOL. I'd like to perform for Amidala or Leia or any other respectable Star Wars character and make something of a name for myself. But ultimately I see myself living in a medium or large house and just have a social life in this game. I might perform in local cantinas on weekdays when I can only play a few hours and I might join a band to play gigs in weekends when I can play for hours on end, I might even get married myself if the right guy comes along, you never know.
But that is a long way off, for now I'm happy working at the cantina in Mos Eisley but just like reallife, there comes a time that you have to move forward, then again, I might find that I like Mos Eisley enough to just stick around there and grow old there. I just don't see myself as a performer working for the Empire, a Rebel performer maybe but choosing sides in the faction struggle might hinder my social life in the cantinas. How would a grumpy stormtrooper respond to a Royal performer singing about how evil the empire is when he walks into a cantina on Tatooine ?
That's basically what I want to do further on, just live my character, don't know if you can do anything with it though
ASHRID wrote:
To me SWG has not 'advancement game' as you describe it - my characters progression is achieved as I play the game, I dont advance so that I can play the game (this is an important distinction)
I agree with this in principle. People who bring the EQ "the game starts at level 50" mindset to SWG are almost uniformly disapponted when they race to the top and find out that they missed out on the actual game.
Most people dont appreciate that the 'point' of SWG is to live and breath in the SW universe, it really is that straightforward.
That was the original point. In fact, most of the current crop of MMPORG's has this goal as a core design idea. It stems from the dissatisfaction of EQ players with playing in a static world. By the "new design", game designers are supposed to provide a setting and players are supposed to provide the content themselves.
The thing is, that players are here to play, not to be content. EVE is the best example of this sort of game. It's a beautiful, vast setting that is almost completely devoid of content. If you're not into guild wars, then you lose interest in it very quickly. They haven't folded, as far as I know, but you'll never see them in the top five MMPORG's.
Back in beta, Holocron responded to criticism about lack of content in SWG by saying what you said - the point is to live out Star Wars. Here's the thing - Living out daily life in any universe is boring. If that's all you're doing then you might as well be playing a game that has some excitement that makes you feel like your liesure time was well spent. The Galaxies devs discovered during Beta that people WANT content, not to BE content. The "new ideal" of 100% player-driven content is as much a bad ideal as the 100% game-driven content was.
People who race to Master whatever will be disapointed because the gameplay is no more structured for 'capped' players than it is for starting players
I agree completely. That's part of what is being adressed in this thread. I don't really care about what happens to the "one-week-masters". They're a flash in the pan any way you look at it. What concerns me is the number of masters in many, many professions who are falling by the wayside once they run out of challenges. This, again, is the achilles heel of the "just live and RP in the Star Wars universe" ideal. Most players are not roleplayers. They just want to kill a few hours having some fun in a virtual environment. If there is no end game, if reaching master means that you have no more challenges and no more reason to continue other than roleplay then the game is "done" once you reach master. You might as well go do something else.
- the sooner people realise this and just play the game (rather than grind through the skills) the sooner we will see more widespread RP (just in the sence that people will RP citizens of the universe and the population of a town/planet) and the richness of the game will increase.
This is where we may have to agree to disagree. You're assuming that a majority of players want to roleplay and I would question that assumption.
I guess the point of this is that SWG doesnt need an 'End game' (well in the eyes of the advancement-players it does) not is giving it one a step in the same direction as the rest of the game structure (and not in the right direction IMO)
This is where you're simply wrong. A game that stops providing challenges to its players is one that dies. Look around. SWG is only three months old, yet master artisans and master entertainers are vanishing left and right. It's not because they don't have plenty of roleplay opportunities. It's because they have nothing left to strive for. What do you do after you've learned all the songs, played at all the chic venues, maybe formed a band? What do you do after you've made the best possible scatter pistol a smith can make with the available materials? What do you do after you've created a protocol droid with all of the possible modules it can hold?
"Living in Star Wars" will only carry you so far when doing so means that you end up doing the same thing every day for the rest of your virtual life.
You're also wrong about SWG not having an end game. The GCW and the adventure planets are the end game, for all intents and purposes. The problem is that both of those things are primarily combat oriented. Your architects, your dancers, and your chefs contribute to them peripherally or not at all.
Galaxies DOES need an "end game". It doesn't have to be an epic-style, shake the foundations of the universe end game like in EQ. That's what the GCW is for. What is needed, though, is a reason for the masters to keep on trying. There have to be new challenges and new conflicts for the the master to confront, even if they don't result in the gaining of new "levels". There needs to be a reason to keep on playing. If you run any kind of poll of the general player-base you'll find that "living in the Star Wars universe" is not even on the list of most player's reasons for playing the game. It's the hook that gets them started, not the meat that keeps them here. If that's all there is, if that's the "point" of the game, then for the vast majority of the players there's no reason to keep on playing.
Ask yourself this - What does a master musician or dancer have to look forward to that's not some sort of role-play opportunity that depends on the master herself to provide the "content"? If a master must provide her own content, what special tools does mastery provide that help her to do that? The answer I see to both of these questions is "nothing".
We need something in the game that inspires our masters to keep on striving and keep on growing. That's our "end game". It's not about killing emporer palpatine and gloating about how 3l33t we are. It's about having something that only a master can achieve and that requires us to continue to play and dance in order to achieve it. It could be as simple as an "entertainment aura" that allows anyone within a certain radius of a master to dance and play like an entertainer. It could be a fame rating where a master registers a certain cantina as his "home base" and the popularity of his cantina versus other cantinas has an effect on him and the other entertainers who perform there. It can be anything at all, as long as the measure of its success is that you have to be a master and you have to keep on "earning XP" in order to achieve it.
The challenge is WHY most of us play the game. It doesn't matter what form the challenge takes, we still miss it when it's gone. The end game just means that we have a challenge of some kind even after we've maxed out on our advancement potential. Without that, there's eventually no game to play.
i've got a couple suggestions, and i'm going to break them up into a couple different posts... otherwise i'm sure my rambling would become too incoherent
Special Dances/Songs/Instruments/Flourishes/ID Customizations
it looks like this patch has introduced schematics for something called RIS armor. its not granted in any skill tree, the armorsmith has to actually seek out a certain NPC armorsmith, and perform several quests to be taught the secrets of this new armor. personally, i think it would be INCREDIBLY cool if we had something like that, too. multi-part quests to seek out legendary entertainers, and apprentice from them, to learn new dances, songs, get a schematic for making a new type of instrument, new flourishes for existing dances, etc. in fact, i might even suggest that any new dance or song that's added to the game is learned this way, as opposed to just being granted by a skill tree (kind of boring, eh?).
Band/Cantina Management
one of the things i looked forward too most when i finally achieved master rank was moving out of the public cantinas, and opening up my own place. i eventually achieved my dream, but i find the tools (what tools? ) for managing a cantina to be sorely lacking. i can't even set up a bartender to sell drinks unless spent 29 points in Artisan (business 4 for droid bartender, right?). thats a hefty skill point investment for someone who's already used 1.5 professions worth of skill points.
i'm also unable to keep the cantina staffed.... at all. i'm not able to dance there 24/7 (and i'm NOT going to start AFK dancing), and i know i can't pay enough to other players for it to be worth it to them to make the 5k hike into dangerous territory to be on hand just in case someone shows up. i'd like to be able to offer my patrons uninterrupted entertainment, without having to be online 24/7. how about giving us NPC vendor/pet like entertainers, which we can set up, that will perform around the clock? ideally, these 'pet entertainers' would do the following things:
- know many of the general commands that creature/NPC pets know now: grouping, follow, etc.
- be 'dressable' like NPC vendors
- stay in game while the player is not in the game, like vendors
- perform whichever song/dance the player wants (optionally, would be able to execute macroed flourishes also)
- will take requests from the crowd, if their owner allows it. the owner will be able to charge an optional fee, sort of like a jukebox type deal.
- would be 'created' by master musicians/dancers/entertainers, and possibly sold to other players (whats the feeling on this, yay or nay?)
basically, i want to have a group of 3 or 4 NPC pets that i can have follow me around, and play music/dance with me wherever i want, but also set them up like vendors (maybe this requires two DIFFERENT types of NPC?) to play at my cantina, and serve drinks/food when i'm not there.
i think this would give us something REALLY cool and fun to play with, and it might even help squish the AFK problem.