Entertainer Archive
Thread: my opinion on tipping
OK here is my two cents esp. with being a master entertainer / master musician
It is true that going up in levels that we get xp as we play and you get healed and listen to us. Keep in mind that the "masters" the ones that can heal you the quickest have gotten very little incentive to hang around the cantina. Most of us just hang around our own home cantinas is they are going to play (Tyrena Has about 6 masters) Tyrena is theplace I am most likely to be caught in a public cantina. My regulars tip me well so I'll play a little each night. But for the first month of the game 95% percent of my time was spent playing music in the cantina, now it is 20% or less. I'm not complaining about tips, as tips are a gratuity and not a requirement. More tips would entice more masters to stop wokring on their secondary skills and spend more time healing. The arguement that we're getting xp is a null arguement. Following that logic a master doctor should not heal you either, as he/she already has all the xp thye need. I still play music cause I enjoy it. I get paid to do gigs for PA hall openings and such (perfomed at 3 of these so far), also for private parties and such. If you would like to book a group of masters you can contact Xie in game, she has a much better time for dates and arrangements than I. If I am on the battlefield grouped with medics I do not tip and do not expect to be tipped for performing at the camp, this goes along with the territory. I am sharing in the combat xp so that is my reward on these missions. I would assume the same with medics.
My other tipping habits usually include tipping when I go to the med center, though half the time they tell me no tip is needed and give me my money back (I know alot of medics and have personally leveled some of them up in the cantina). An example being is that there was one doctor in the med center healing on fri. or sat. I don't remeber which and I had some bad wounds. He was busy and I thought hell I'll just go afk and let the game idle out so it will give me some wound healing and hand hte rest of it in the morning. I come back and the same medic is still there 10 hours later. I am fully healed and asked him if he healed me. He said he did, I then tipped him 1500 as I didn't want to slight the guy just because I went afk and all signs pointed to him be truthful and had healed me.
When I am at a gig usuaully we will take a healer along and they get paid, if not I tip them a portion of my earnings. I don't know if the rest of the band does or not but they helped me perform so I feel they deserve a cut of my cash.
Now onto the evil side of the equation. The server of late has been plagued by the "tip me" spammer. I have always believed you should never ask for tips. More and more the places that I enjoyed playing the entertainers take things for granted. They are not thanking you for giving them training ( I have enough app. points if they weren't capped to make master over a 100 times). They complain about the cost I charge for instruments even though they are a fraction of what I paid while going up. These atomospheres make me uncomfortable. I much prefer the not so well traveled cantinas that have musicians that go WOW a master musician is here, please play with us. These groups are usually really grateful and friendly. They also seem to have a strong client following as they usualyl don't "tip me" spam. The only way the "tip me" spammers are going to learn is to not tip them. Example of this, a week or so ago I showed up in my home cantina in Tyrena, these "tip mes" thought they owned the house the master before them had built. They are then berating the customers, even after I tried to teach them proper ettiquette. They then said "I've been here 3 hours and have only made 150 credits" My response? (and yes it is truthful) "I've been here 20 minutes and made 6000 credits, and I never asked for a single one." Sadly he didn't learn from the lesson and I was playing sw1 along with him. *sigh* the future generations are never going to learn. (1 customer tipped me 1000 when I was just starting to try and teach him ettiquitte, and made the comment of "So the master is still training the students")
I owuld like to also add to the above entertainer - you don' necassarily DESERVE anything. Not knowing your performance and such I can not make a full judgement call whether you do or don't deserve it. For entertainers they need to aske themselves these questions first.
1. Do you use macros and go afk at all whether flagged or noet without warning the patrons? If you do no tip deserved.
2. Are you constantly telling customers that they should or need to tip the entertainers? If so no tip for you.
3. Are you engaging the customers having conversations with them, caring about them, and remembering them? If not no tip for you.
4. For dancers do you offer to do private lap dances in front of everyone or are willing to strip for tips? In my cantina - no tip for you. Each cantina has it's own norms for this so this is not a galactic rule. You can always tell the newbie dacer by the ons dancing in her underwear. If this is going to be done it should be handled in private tells.
5. Are you going to complain because someone does bandflourishes to make the music sound better and make the routine more entertaining? If you complain in front of the customers - no tip for you - also run /bandflourish off or play by yourself if this is agreed upon by everyone else. Another option is everyone take turns doing bandflourishes and stop worrying about grinding.
6. Do you refuse to drop down to a lesser song is a customer requests it, but will give you less xp? If so no tip for you.
There are more and I could make an in depth guide on being an Intrepid Entertainer and what your predecessors who are now masters expect of the ones following in their footsteps. If that is what is needed. Whine about not being tipped all you want, but if you are not at least following the above rules YOU DO NOT DESERVE ONE. This is the role of the ENTERTAINER if you are not entertaining but annoying customers you definetly DO NOT DESERVER A TIP.
I do tip Master Entertainers. I do not tip novice Entertainers, instead I heal them while I am getting my BF taken care of by them.
When I am at the Med Center healing people's wounds, i do not expect a tip. They can give one if they want.
I don't have to tip other Doc's because I can heal myself.
I ignore the people in the Med Center that do not wait their turn. If you come barging in and yell "I Need Healing - Will Tip", well too bad. There were people there ahead of you.
Thats my 2 credits, for what it's worth.
on his grave
Now that I am strong enough to easily complete most destroy missions, I try to /tip very well when being healed.
HAVE COMBAT SKILLS? THEN YOU CAN AFFORD TO TIP
I would expect that anyone with at least a specialist skill level in any combat skill column should tip well (around 1 credit per would or BF).
All I have to do is take a gorg lair destory mission, /overchargeshot2 the lair a few times and I earn 1k credits... all in maybe 4 mins, round trip.
Any medic with combat skills knows this too... so if we want to keep them healing us, we need it to be more profitable for them to heal us then to go do the same mission themself.
MINERS AND CRAFTERS USUALLY HAVE RESOURCES
For the crafters out there, perhaps you can offer some resources. A doctoronce thanked me repeatedly for paying him a mere 200 copper and 200 beans to heal several hundred wounds... wasn't a big sacrifice to me with my stockpiles of resources, but he was able to make maybe 8 wound packs with the resources. He profited off of healing me, which is what I intend to do each time I get healed.
Bottom Line is: You need to make it worth their while to heal us, or else the healers won't come back to the medical center once they have earned sufficient XP.
... and "NEED SOME HEALS PLZ!" gets under any medics skin... waiting patiently has keep
Now that I am strong enough to easily complete most destroy missions, I try to /tip very well when being healed.
HAVE COMBAT SKILLS? THEN YOU CAN AFFORD TO TIP
I would expect that anyone with at least a specialist skill level in any combat skill column should tip well (around 1 credit per would or BF).
All I have to do is take a gorg lair destory mission, /overchargeshot2 the lair a few times and I earn 1k credits... all in maybe 4 mins, round trip.
Any medic with combat skills knows this too... so if we want to keep them healing us, we need it to be more profitable for them to heal us then to go do the same mission themself.
MINERS AND CRAFTERS USUALLY HAVE RESOURCES
For the crafters out there, perhaps you can offer some resources. A doctoronce thanked me repeatedly for paying him a mere 200 copper and 200 beans to heal several hundred wounds... wasn't a big sacrifice to me with my stockpiles of resources, but he was able to make maybe 8 wound packs with the resources. He profited off of healing me, which is what I intend to do each time I get healed.
Bottom Line is: You need to make it worth their while to heal us, or else the healers won't come back to the medical center once they have earned sufficient XP.
... and "NEED SOME HEALS PLZ!" gets under any medics skin... waiting patiently has always gotten me healed relatively quickly.
I stoped going to Med centers, becauseI would go in with wounds, and get healed by some Novice lvl 0 Medic, it takes like and hour, and then they start spaming this "tip me per heal" trash. If it takes them that long, I could have gotten the skills myself, healed everyone and lvl up to where can heal most of my wounds in under 10 mins. So I did. I rarely go to med centers, and go to the few honest docters I know for real healing. Then I tip them a fair amount(like 3-5K) for doing a good job.
As for Entertainers, I always tip well. I try to give them something that corrolates with my BF and Mind wounds. If I have 100bf and 100mind wounds, then I generally tip about 2k (1k for every 100 wounds, etc). I also give more to people who are "entertaining" and can hold a conversation.
Khrim...
I'm gonna be honest here (I know, big suprise)... I have played in Bestine on my server a few times, but refuse to play there ever again because their musicians were so **edit** about enforcing "their rules" in the cantina, as if they owned the place. In fact, I am pretty sure they thought they did own it. Don't you find it a little snobbish to say something like this: "...what your predecessors who are now masters expect of the ones following in their footsteps." No offense, but this isn't like following in the footsteps of a great leader or anything, this is a class which involves no skill other than mashing buttons so you can become a master musician/dancer.
Did it ever occur to you that some people don't care about the people that are in the cantina watching them? I used to try to act interested in them to get tips, but you know what... most of them would rather I just play some really good music, with a well-balanced band, and they will tip well for that. They don't want me to talk about Life, the Universe, and Everything (C) with them. I sure wouldn't want some newbie musician asking me about my business... just heal me, shut up, and get your tip. 
Maybe that's harsh, but it's more or less the truth.
I sure as hell know that there are plenty of people out there buying lap dances... if a dancer wants to advertise that, who are you to say they shouldn't be tipped for it. Who are you, the Moral Police?
I definitely am going to complain if someone is bandflourishing me. In case you didn't notice, their bandflourish won't take effect until the flourishes I have lined up are done, so it won't even perform a true bandflourish, it will just waste my action points and make me sit down/stop playingsooner.
If a customer requests SW1 there is no way I would drop down with a large group, due to the fact that the song doesn't sync properly and it sounds like crap. Just because someone asks us to switch songs doesn't mean we should, else we would be changing songs every 10 seconds... no thanks.
LOL now look what you did to me, you got me all worked up again thinking about those Bestine snobs... 
(sorry if any of you are bestine snobs out there! tee hee) Actually, that whole planet is ... well, let's not go there. I just don't recommend anyone play on Tatooine on Tarq, lets leave it at that! 
Yes in my home cantina I do play the part of the moral police...I know ninety percent of the regulars and they appluad my handling of the cantina and hate the "tip me's". They appluad when I try to give the new players a little direction. If a bar fight breaks out in the cantina we do our best to get all entertainers to stop performing and sit until the fighting is taken outside. If you like chaos more power to you. We don't have hard set rules but it seems that all the serious entertainers (none of the entertainer for 3 days then disappear characters) have followed the same lead and pushing the same thing forth on the novices that show up.
Ignorance is such bliss! Wheee!
"...but you stated that you would not participate in band flourish because it messes up your flourishes..."
No, actually what I said is that if I have 2 flourishes lined up, then my toon won't perform the bandflourish until those 2 flourishes are out of the queue, hence it won't be lined up with the rest of the band. Furthurmore, if one person has 1 flourish in his queue, another 2 flourishes, another 3, then those people will all perform the bandflourish at different times... there is simply no point in using the command unless your entire band is not flourishing on their own. Further-furthermore, if you have a good band composition, i.e., spread your band out so that there is only 1 person per instrument, perhaps 2, then you don't have to worry about random flourishes not sounding good together... because they will, and do, sound great together. There is no need to flourish everyone at the same time on the same flourish, in fact, it detracts from the soloability and flexibility of a particular instrument if everyone else is flourishing the same time he is. Bandflourish works well for dancers (since they don't have a queue like musicians do... but you wouldn't know about that) if they are all in agreement on it and not flourishing on their own, but pointless if you are randomly trying to perform them. In that case, as I said, it is a waste of action points for everyone involved.
"next up if you aren't willing to play what a customer requests or drop down...move onto another location"
That isn't to say that I only play my highest song all the time (because contrary to your first post, it doesn't affect xp whatsoever, your instrument does... once again, it is different than being a dancer, maybe you weren't aware), but I don't change tunes everytime someone opens their mouth and asks for a different song. We would be changing songs every 10 seconds on a busy night- no thanks!
"We don't have hard set rules but it seems..."
You don't? You just listed them all for us and subsequentlytold us that you push them on the novices... /chuckle
"If a bar fight breaks out in the cantina we do our best to get all entertainers to stop performing and sit until the fighting is taken outside."
How elitist of you. But who are you actually harming here? Seems to me that you are only hurting the players who AREN'T fighting and are trying to watch you/give you healing xp/tip you. Did it ever occur to you that many players actually like bar fights? I mean, Lord forbid there is fighting in a PvP game!
"If you like chaos more power to you."
On the continuum of cantina etiquette, chaos and elitist are (agreeably, I assume) opposite ends of the spectrum. The fact that someone doesn't take it upon themself to issue moral orders to every entertainer in a cantina (and thinks those that do need to get a life) doesn't mean they "like chaos". It means they respect others' play styles, and don't feel the need to control it in a PUBLIC cantina. If someone doesn't want to tip a certain entertainer they won't, and vice versa... no one needs you to give them guidelines on when they should feel like tipping people. Personally, I would be likely to tip the winner of a bar fight... especially if it was a TKA. 
"...it seems that all the serious entertainers have followed the same lead and pushing the same thing forth on the novices that show up."
I'm sure "pushing" is exactly the right word too. Pushing them away is probably even closer to the truth.
Heyyyy, who wants to start a band on Intrepid? I hear there's a cantina in Tyrena looking for down-to-earth musicians!
Yes being a master entertainer I do know about dancing and I did manage to queu dances....but this was weeks ago and only one flourish out of the four I queued would work at a tremendous action point hit until it was taught to me how to dance proper. Once again it's been about 3-4 weeks since I danced.
Yes I reached master musician and entertainer within 1 month of playing without my macros before I hear otherwise. Each of my f keys is mapped to a single flourish.
Everyone complains about tipping and the "tip me's" are wondering why they aren't getting tipped. These are the question that somone has gone through and when playing full time averaged 10k a day in tips. Now every server is differnet but on the Game guides board and the interpid board the players agreed with my criteria of what they look at when they tip. So while you and I are arguing from the perspective of the performer. The arguement is moot because it is what the tippers are willing to pay for. Maybe on different servers in different cantinas it's different, but what it all comes down to is the fact of what the general populace is willing to see and tip for if you want tips. Once again you are an entertainer there to entertain. If the general populace is not tipping, you then need to ask why instead of complain about it. These are my answers on why they are not tipping.
You don't like it don't follow it. Something else works for you and you live completely on tips like some of the entertainers are trying to do I'm sure they would love to know your strategy and how it can help them. The goal is to change the entertainers to attract the people willing to tip as it is easier than trying to teach people to give away their money.