Entertainer Archive

A New Model for Entertainment

With all of the changes coming down the entertainment pike, I've been giving some thought to the role of entertainers in Galaxies. After rolling around in the back of my head for a couple of weeks, some of those thoughts have gelled into concepts that I'd like to offer up for discussion in regards to the form that entertainment might take in the future.

The Basic Flaw

It's my belief that if one were to try to pinpoint the most basic flaw in the entertainment system, it would be the one-to-one nature of the entertainer game mechanic. Real world entertainment seldom operates on a level of one entertainer supplying entertainment for one patron. Rather, the norm is for a group of entertainers to supply entertainment to a group of arbitrary size. It might be that the customers are there specifically to be entertained by the troupe or it might be that the troupe is merely background noise. Either way, the transaction is either one-to-many or many-to-many but seldom ever one-to-one. This sets entertainment apart from pretty much every other profession in the game. The problems with defining the role of the entertainer stem from the attempt to shoehorn entertainment into the same model used by the rest of the game.

A New Mechanic

The basic question of entertainment is "what does an entertainer offer that other professions do not?" The basic answer is that same as that of any class. "Enhancement". Viewed a certain way, all professions are basically about enhancing your ability to do something in the game, even if that "something" is just decorate your house. Entertainment is more ephemeral than the other professions because it doesn't offer any concrete enhancements like an artisan might or any combat efficiency like a master gunner/meleer might.

What entertainers DO offer is "enjoyment". Now, the problem is that "enjoyment" is a difficult thing to quantify into a game mechanic. The devs have tried tied to do so by creating the inspiration buff. It's a reasonable start, as far as it goes. I'm going to use it as a jumping off point for a new kind of buff-state that I'm going to call "refreshment".

Refreshment, as I'm proposing it, is something along the lines of WoW's "rested" state or EQ2's "vitality". For simplicity, let's say that Refreshment has four distinct levels. At 25% refreshed, you get Inspiration-1. At 50% refreshed you get Inspiration-2, and so on. Refreshment decays logarithmically, so that the upper 25% decays faster than the lowest 25%. As a game designer, you could assume that most everyone would be running around with Inspiration-1 active whenever they wanted, and probably Inspiration-2 as well. People would have to go out of their way to get Inspiration-3 and Inspiration-4 and they would have those inspirations active for a relatively short amount of time compared to the others.

Redefining the Source

Like the battle fatigue concept, refreshment is a representation of a mental state, albeit a positive one. If we remove the undesirable one-to-one transaction, we can then move the generation of refreshment into the environment itself. Refreshment is generated by simply resting in any appropriate building. Likewise, outdoor locations can become "refreshment zones" where anyone can gain refreshment simply by visiting that spot. Parks, plazas, outdoor stages, and spots in the wilderness that are simply scenic could be designated as "refreshment zones".

The "refreshment value" of a zone is determined by its "ambience". The ambience of an area has two effects. Firstly, it determines how quickly one becomes refreshed. A high ambience gives a faster inspiration. Secondly, ambience determines the maximum amount of refreshment that is possible in that zone. Every zone would have an inherent ambience that represents it's base value as well as a maximum ambience that represents its maximum augmented value.

In this model, every cantina, theater and house would have its own ambience rating. A player who was satisfied with only a minimal Inspiration-1 buff could "camp out" in his house and walk out later with a low level inspiration. The "need" for an entertainer to get a basic buff is removed. (Hold your boos 'til the end. ) A public cantina would have a low level of ambience, while a player-owned cantina could have a higher inherent ambience. Even POI's could have ambience. On Talus, for instance, there's a geyser flowing out of a natural stone column that creates a kind of natural shower. A feature like this could be given a high ambience rating and the hardy explorer who takes the time to find it would be rewarded with a higher-than-normal refreshment.

Whither the Entertainer?

Where does the entertainer fit, then? In this model, the entertainer becomes an enabler instead of a supplier. The entertainer doesn't hand out buffs or healing. Instead, the entertainer manipulates the ambience of whatever setting she's performing in. An empty public cantina has an ambience too low to move refreshment past the 25% mark. An empty private cantina would have a higher ambience, but not enough to buff up to Inspiration-2 on its own. The presence of the entertainer is what drives up the ambience to the point that the more significant Inspiration-3 and Inspiration-4 buffs become available.

The "ambience bonus" given by an entertainer is determined by the entertainer's rank. This could be overall or it could be put into an appropriate knowledge tree. Advanced professions would have greater bonuses and masters would, of course, have the largest bonuses. Additionally, masters would have the ability to "break" the max augmentation of a location and turn a normally low-ambience zone into a high-ambience zone.

This has some effects that many (though probably not all) would consider beneficial:

Ambience is boosted by more entertainers. A lively cantina will give greater refreshment than a quiet one. Cantinas that regularly retain a sizable group of entertainers will gain a reputation as the "place to go" for refreshment. Currently, there's little to differentiate one cantina from another.

Advanced/Master entertainers have a clear differentiation of abilities, but a group of lesser-skilled entertainers can "make up the difference" to a certain extent, though it would still require a master in order to do something like "break the glass ceiling" and boost a venue up to a normally unreachable ambience. All entertainers have value and contribute to the overall ambience in proportion to their ability.

Some of the ambience generation can bleed over into other professions. Furniture items would have an inherent ambience rating that could boost the general ambience of the room (within certain limits). High quality furniture would actually make a difference in comparison to low quality furniture. Ditto for other artisan-produced items. A npc-style drink vendor would have more ambience than a basic vending-machine-style vendor. Instrument quality might even be used to augment a performer's own ambience bonus. (Good reason to restore instrument experimentation...) Collecting certain high-ambience items might let a home designer push his ambience from the normal minimal ambience up to cantina-level ambience. In a really weird shift, a building aligned with a faction might have its ambience raised or lowered base upon the presence of players there with like or opposed factions. Scout camps would have an inherent ambience and a max ambience determined by the rank of the scout. A master scout camp (the "party tent", *heh*) could be a mobile cantina. Similarly, food and drink could have refreshment bonuses added to their other effects, provided that the bonuses didn't replace entertainment as the primary source of refreshment. (At least recipes with such high values would need to be rare and impossible to mass produce. Factory food never tastes as good as the touch of a master chef.)

The system gives entertainers some inherent value while simultaneously enhancing many of the artisan professions whose products otherwise ignore their own quality rating. It likewise gives cantina owners the incentive to hire and hold onto the most highly skilled entertainment talent around. Best of all (in my opinion) we can dispense entirely with the whole "outside/inside" dichotomy and just have "ambience zones", with entertainers performing whenever and wherever they want to, as the environment allows.

Earning a Living

I expect that many readers at this point have asked "If I'm not selling a buff, how do I earn a living?" The answer is two-fold.

Firstly, from a non-entertainer's standpoint, they are still effectively buying a buff. That is, one or more entertainers are required to be present and active in order to drive the ambience up to levels that will allow refreshment higher than 50%. The difference is that you're more likely to see a group of entertainers paid by the gig instead of tipped one-to-one as happens nowadays. Anyone who wants the higher level inspirations will arrange for the required entertainers to be compensated accordingly. (Now, if a group starts playing spontaneously and advertises "Tips welcome" then they're making the choice to accept whatever the local populace feels the buff is worth.)

Secondly, the responsibility for paying entertainers is shifted to a great extent to the cantina owners who want to have patrons visiting their venue. Admittedly, this is making a rather large assumption that cities and individual bar-owners are interested enough in status to make the effort to retain entertainers for their venue. Presumably, status, vendor sales and cover charges will give a cantina owner the incentive to keep their staff of entertainers happily employed. Tips from patrons to entertainers will then be based upon the appreciation of the patrons for the higher level inspiration as well as for the ability of the entertainers to actually entertain the other players on a real-life enjoyment level.

In order to facilitate the retention of entertainers, it would be helpful for buildings to have a "salary" function added. There might be a friends/enemies list that would allow him to block certain players or limit the list to certain players. The owner would specify which professions to hire, how many, and at what hourly rate. Members of that profession would register with the building management console and be paid at regular (or irregular, see below) intervals. The salary would be withdrawn from the maintenance pool of the building.

Payment would be made with a popup window with a timer. Failure to acknowledge the popup (click an okay button) would result in forfeiture of that period's pay. The popup could be made at regular intervals or at irregular intervales within a certain time period. The intent here is to reward the ATK player in the least obrusive manner possible while still penalizing the AFK player.

Note that this sort of payment system is not limited to entertainers. A player-city hospital could use this system to keep a doctor on staff. A guild hall could encourage crafters to do their building inside the guild hall. The possibilities are limited only by the need or desire of a city to have certain skillsets available to visitors to the city.

In Conclusion

None of this would be easy to code, of course. Some of it might be impossible. Regardless, I think the core concept of moving the entertainment from a one-to-one transaction model to a venue-based one-to-many, many-to-many model has the best chance I can think of for moving entertainment into the social profession it has always aspired to be while still allowing it contribute something of value to the rest of the game.

I'll be interested to see what you all think.

Slickriptide, Bria Galaxy