Entertainer Archive
Thread: Transform the Profession? Into What?
PoetDancer
Sun Aug 01, 2004 9:09 am
#14
Insulting, Delia? Its not insulting to me. In fact, I embrace the design of the profession. I enjoy the notion that our skills are passive. I wish they were more passive in many ways. It frees up my concern to be amusing to my patrons. The skill boxes for healing have been and always will be for me the least important of theskills we acquire. That is not to say they are not important. They are. But my economic viability really has very little to do with those functions. Players do not tip me because they have to. Players tip me because they want to.
Want proof? Why is it that I can have about 50 players /watch me and heal their BF off of me and receive about 1000 total in tips for 2 hours work, while I can go to Coronet, have nobody /watch me, and come away with 15k for a half an hour's work?In fact, some player tipped me a rather sizeable amount at a Talus Starport last nite for doing NO healing function. It came as a shock to me, because I never even asked to be tipped. Why? Did he feel sorry for me? If that's the case, what makes me different than an average starport beggar? Obviously I did SOMETHING. Try as you might, you cannot say that the healing functions have anything to do with why we are tipped or appreciated. It simply does not correspond to any experience I have had in practice.
And that is why I do not think authorizations and protocols to get our mechanical functions will do me any good. It does not cater to my strengths, nor the strengths of any entertainer who makes the attempt to be amusing. It only caters to those entertainers who refuse to give the patron anything other than BF healing, mind wound healing, and buffs. Like bots, or players who simply type /setperform and ignore the patron.
Entertainers like thisneed the active protocols to make it so a patron will be forced to tip for a performance they might not otherwise tip. They need to hold the things a player may receive in the cantina for randsom because they are unable to get a tip any other way. They need to make it about the healing functions because, quite frankly, these things take absolutely no skill to administer.
You say it takes dedication to get these healing boxes. I say that these healing boxes requite absolutely no dedication whatsoever to receive. Anybody with a decent macro can get them quickly while they sleep. You want to create an authorized and gated system on these things?!? Who will it hurt?
Not the boring alt who spams "If u want 25%/25% musician dancer buffs, bank tip 1337 dood 10k and I'll log on." Not the entertainer who talks in groupchat all day. Not the macrodancer who is a "virtual AFK" who simply sets a macro and carries away in groupchat or guildchat. Not the "uber1337PvPownzjoo" guild who gets all these things for free from the alt who only logs on when needed. Those groups will prosper under the new system, because they can just collect their master title, sit back, and force tips for mechanics only.
It will hurt the novice entertainer who enthusiastically brings herself to the cantina with optimism and faith in herself. It will hurt those entertainers who are really good at what they do with the tools available to them. It will hurt the patrons who will have yet another worry to contend with when they go to the cantina, because it will turn the cantinas into a bazaar where playerswill haggle over what a "/" command is worth. And it will hurt players like me who can still make a decent living at this thing by concentrating on what the bots--and indifferent live players--refuse to do: give attentive service.
If you want to play that game, Delia, fine. But its not the game I thought I have been playing for the last year. And I hope you understand why I must argue against protocols and gated healing systems. Players like me won't be able to survive them. The hologrind was hard, no doubt, but I could still make a good income--especially in Coronet--by focusing on the things the hologrinders refused to do: engage the patrons. But if the "thing we sell" is the healing and buffs, then I'm afraid players will be too busy paying for good healers and buffers to pay for good entertainers. And that is a SERIOUS nerf to me. Tell me why I as a live performer should embrace the notion of gated and authorized healing and buffing functions when I never needed these things before to earn a decent living from my patrons?
/Setperform, I am convinced, is responsible for the buffbots. The concept simply never entered our SWG language until we started to discuss active protocols for buffs in that thread last year. If you create a market for authorized "/" commands, you'll simply create a niche for alts where the entire purpose is to bypass the "/" command to give someone else an advantage. And I am saying you'll still have the same old problems, if not new and different ones.
Message Edited by PoetDancer on 08-01-2004 11:14 AM
Beery
Sun Aug 01, 2004 10:28 am
#15
"Insulting, Delia? Its not insulting to me. In fact, I embrace the design of the profession. I enjoy the notion that our skills are passive."
Butmy point is, they're not passive. Our skills are quite definitely active, unless you're saying that dancing (or playing an instrument)is a passive action - which it clearly isn't.
PoetDancer
Sun Aug 01, 2004 10:58 am
#16
Who is the active party in a buffbot's cantina? Moreover, what is active about a live player who uses an automated macro? The activity is not in the mechanics. The activity is what we do that surrounds these skill animations. You should appreciate this Beery. /Flourish 1 has the same healing potential as /Flourish 5. And you can heal just as well by simply doing nothing else but /Flourish 1. But is simply spamming /Flourish 1 pleasing to the ear? Of course not!
That is why you pride yourself, Beery, on creating interesting orchestrations with the tools you have. One can gather enough from your numerous posts on the subject that it is still importantto use the tools that are available to us to create works of beauty. And believe me when I tell you this effort does not go unnoticed. It may by some players, but certainly not by all players. Not to the lone ranger I met at Nashal Cantina yesterday afternoon. Not to the swordsman I met at the Imperial Outpost Starport. I think most players who do this thing we do inevitably come to the conclusion that the performance itself makes a difference in how we are received. If it was simply about the healing and buffs, then how can you make the argument that you should get tipped more than the tone-deaf slitherhorn player that spams /flo 1? You can't.
So why then are we trying to find ways to give the tone-deaf master musician who spams /flo 1 (who may in fact have +25% buffing tapes) a viable source of income that he can control? It certainly doesn't play to our strengths. It only bases the effort/reward structure on silly things that do not promote creative and amusing live play. And I agree, its difficult to do. But I know one thing for certain. The true activity of this class was never rooted in the bare mechanics of healing or buffing. Those require no real effort at all. They are rooted in the things we do while we skill animate.
Beery
Sun Aug 01, 2004 11:17 am
#17
"Who is the active party in a buffbot's cantina? Moreover, what is active about a live player who uses an automated macro? The activity is not in the mechanics. The activity is what we do that surrounds these skill animations. You should appreciate this Beery."
I disagree. The activity is in the mechanics. You must start dancing/playing for a customer to have any chance of getting a heal or buff. That is activity. Sure, a buffbot-owner can set his bot up to do these mechanics automatically, but that's beside the point. He still has to start his character dancing and perform various functions. If our job was passively-conferred, then we wouldn't have to do ANYTHINGAT ALLin order to do it.
What you seem to betalking aboutis the art of the dance/musicianship. But the art has nothing to do with the buffing/healingjob we do. You don't need artistry to confer a buff, and there's no way that such a requirement could be put into the game. Our job is to provide a mechanical service. Our art is separate from that. Both are important. But to the leet dude who walks in wanting the fastest buff, the artistry of the dance is irrelevant - many people evenhave the sound turned down when they enter a cantina. The mechanics are all that are important to him, and my point is that when it comes to this, we do not confer those mechanics passively.
PoetDancer
Sun Aug 01, 2004 1:04 pm
#18
I argue that we cannot do one without also making a statement about the other. By doing my art, I cannot help but give out mechanics. By giving out mechanics, I cannot help but be judged on the quality of my performance. The two are actually one.
And I think its why we are so passionate about the issues we argue about on these boards. Because what are unattended characters but bad artists? Yes, they give out the mechanics, but they make no bones about the fact that they could care less about giving the patrons something amusing. And we are trying to figure out exactly why these boring characters are getting the kind of attention and appreciation they are getting for simply making the cantina boring.
And I would argue that the reason these boring artists are getting praise and beneficence is simply because they automatically give out /setperforms and /invites with no strings attached. We can't say that is the casewith us. The only reason I see that bad artists have a place in the game is because the current game rules have seperated the functions of artist and healer in a way that is artificial, contrived, and does not work to encourage anything but the distribution of /invites and /setperforms.
Look, I have been through this thing the same way you have, Beery. Never botted my character. And its good that we are having this kind of discussion amongst live players as to the nature of these professions. But I have the suspicion that the kind of changes we have been bouncing around lately may not have the kind of effects we would have hoped. Please. SOMEBODY out there give me a reason to not be afraid that the proposed changes will place the emphasis on things I am not good at giving out. Somebody give me a reason tobelieve that putting the emphasis on mechanical protocols to gate healing will make the things I do to entertain the patrons the reason I am tipped, like I am now. Somebody give me a reason to believe that you will not nerf my playstyle and my income in order to achieve your goals.
Drygo
Sun Aug 01, 2004 1:19 pm
#19
PoetDancer wrote:
Look, I have been through this thing the same way you have, Beery. Never botted my character. And its good that we are having this kind of discussion amongst live players as to the nature of these professions. But I have the suspicion that the kind of changes we have been bouncing around lately may not have the kind of effects we would have hoped. Please. SOMEBODY out there give me a reason to not be afraid that the proposed changes will place the emphasis on things I am not good at giving out. Somebody give me a reason tobelieve that putting the emphasis on mechanical protocols to gate healing will make the things I do to entertain the patrons the reason I am tipped, like I am now. Somebody give me a reason to believe that you will not nerf my playstyle and my income in order to achieve your goals.
I certainly understand your fears, Sirii. Many people were upset when the ID revamp came out because of the timer and the large window. Granted, I think the timer kind of stinks. But, I think overall the profession was made better. And, I can say that since one of my avatars is an ID.
I would certainly prefer that we don't have a huge window and a timer. Gosh, that would suck even more as a dancer if you can't see yourself dancing. But, I realize that the "window" option is not your main concern, I just use it as an example. But, the point is, the devs *can* do it right if they choose to. There are a lot of options, not least of which is making our buffs more powerful and stronger, and making it against policy, a bannable offense, and an enforced offense if a buffbot is caught using a third party program that allows them to make their buffs as strong as the live entertainers buffs. A simple popup that requires the input of a random sequence of five numbers at the beginning of the buff is just one example of many in order to make this possible. Now, I also understand that this one popup would cause you extra stress in your performance. But, I think it's a very minor thing to deal with and the positives greatly outweigh the negatives without causing undue hindrance on the performance.
I just don't think that making everything completely passive is going to help us. I have not been given any convincing proof to the contrary. Until I do, I feel more controls are necessary. And, those controls need not hinder our performance by more than 5 seconds if done correctly.
Xyrdre
Sun Aug 01, 2004 3:17 pm
#20
Well, I'm actually pretty surprised that you'd take that kind of tone with me Sirii. Or maybe I shouldn't be.
For all of your high-horsed rhetoric, you stillhave failed to show how /watch is all the work involved and the entertainerskills arenot responsible. A /watch command directed at you, no matter how "amusing" you're being, without the entertainer skills and active skill animations going will produce no healing orbuffing whatsoever.
Want proof? Drop all your entertainer skills, go out being as amusing as you like, have someone invoke the all-powerful /watch command on you, and see if they get a buff, reduce any BF or heal any Mind wounds. Now that wouldbe a sillyassertion to make, wouldn't it? But it's just the assertion you make when you say that it's "certainly not us" really doing thework here.It's simple... if it were not for our skills and actively using them, no /watch command wouldbeof anybenefit to anyone. Saying otherwise is patently untrue.
I'll say it again, perhaps you missed it the first time around. No, we cannot force healing on an unwilling patron, nor instill a buff against their will. They have to do something to receive the benefit, they just have to actively look at it. One command to become receptive to our active 'gifts'. This is hardly the same thing as doing all the work.
Oh, and a quick clarification here:
PoetDancer wrote:
You say it takes dedication to get these healing boxes. I say that these healing boxes requite absolutely no dedication whatsoever to receive. Anybody with a decent macro can get them quickly while they sleep. You want to create an authorized and gated system on these things?!? Who will it hurt?
Nope, that's not what I said. I said that I put a lot of dedication into it. Look back. AFKing is likely the common ancestor to just all about all of the major ills to the profession, and the lack of any effort whatsoever to gain the skill boxes is just a part of the devaluing of the profession. Use of the "authorization", as you put it, at least helps to remove the benefits granted to those who would cheat theprofessionsuch.
Now, regarding the rest of your proposal:
Your proposal to remove all controls of entertainer servicesdoes nothing to reduce AFKing in my estimation.Itmay in fact encourageit evenmore, as then even the ones who can't figure out the buffbot macros will become effective buffbots by simply skill animating. You think that /setperform is responsible for buffbots? I've never heard of a buffbot using /setperform... that's why they group up.I think that passive buffing and a macro system that allows for total unattended functions is the combination that results in buffbots. The only way that buffbots as we know them todaywould disappear with the removal of the "authorizations" is if all cantinas anywhere near a locationthat a combat player might want to playhad entertainers in them 23/7. Because under your proposal,every entertainer of sufficient skill boxeswould be a buffbot, so it really would just come down to round-the-clock availability. If you weren't there 23/7, someone would park an AFK thing there, and *bang!* Buffbot! It just makes buffbots even easier to create, since there's no additional coding beyond the simple loops. No grouping requirements, no defenses against Buffbot Killahs... just good old-fashioned looping macros. How's that for some apocalyptic predictions?
No, I think that the only ways to get rid of buffbots would be to find some method for buff delivery that is entirely outside of a macroable arena, or, to get rid of buffs entirely. That would do it too. Yes, combat players that were used to having their freebuff dispensers would cry nerf, as anyone who hadbeen spoiled with permanent free benefits would. I do hope that the devs opt for healthy playing environment over pandering to the spoiled. If they're willing to cut back on comp armor and doc buff effectiveness, they might consider being bold enough to withstand a bit of heat from the players missing their buff dispensers.
Proposals that encourage targeted-only healing and buffingmayhelp to furtherreduce AFKing and eliminate buffbots. I am therefore interested in hearing more about these proposals.If I am correct thatAFKing is at the root of the greatest amount ofdamages doneto the profession, andif the macros (third-party or in-game) can not or will notbe prevented, then thegreater the number ofbenefits to using those macros for unattended "play"thatcan be removed, the better.
You may not care muchabout the other two facets (healingand buffing)to the entertainer professions, but other live players do. I do notsee myself as primarilya healer or buffer either, but I will defend another live entertainer's right to choose to focus on these aspects, and to try to earn a living while taking these roles. When it comes to tipping, those focusing on healing or buffing should be tipped for those professionalservices being rendered - just as a doc buffing has the right to charge his clients for boosting their stats. Those focusing on being "amusing" can still be tipped for being so - I do not see the two as being mutually exclusive.
You've said yourself that healing mechanics have little to do with your economic viability. Therefore, any change made to the healing aspects of the profession have little bearing on your involvement. If your tips have very little to do with the game mechanics, why then do you say that players like you wouldn't be able to survive an environment where entertainers make money off of selling buffs or tips from healing? Hmmm...I have to ask you this, Sirii... what game have you been playing for the last year? Why do you think so many people are worked up about buffbots affecting their ability to make money? Or the almost total lack of tipping for services, both to entertainers and medics (and even medics have an active healing process)?Are you so out of touch with what's been happening that you're unaware that some of the services we provide are healing and buffing, not later, not after changes, but have been all along? Or at least were, by the best history I canreconstruct,before AFKing crept up and invalidated all that?
Has it notoccured to you, as I have longconsidered the possibility of,that tips for being anengaging entertainer, sans healing/buffing mechanics, just might be because the environment is so terribly broken that we're a novelty now?
PoetDancer
Sun Aug 01, 2004 3:38 pm
#21
Drygo:
Thank you for being so kind. But I am afraid that you are perhaps the only one out there who sees any point in what I am saying. You want more controls. I do not. But it seems that both of us understand that this social playstyle is fragile. We just feel differently how best to encourage it.
I am afraid others on these boards might not feel the same way we do. I have reason to suspect that some entertainers on these boards, mainly career ATK masters, want to give themselves some economic viability at the expense of the social playstyle altogether. They encourage things such asa pop up window to set feesupfront in order to receive game mechanics, or the creation of system generated "busy work" between /startwatch and /stopwatch, like mini-games or other things, in order to give enhanced buffs.
But filling the time between /startwatch and /stopwatch with these things only promotes interaction with the system, and NOT interaction with the patrons. I think you understand this Drygo, and I am grateful. And customers will be basing my performance not on my personal contributions through the use of my tools, but through my ability to follow instructions by rote. More windows, protocols, barriers, and safeguards in order to give everything I am capable of to a patron...at the expense of those things I love to do fora patron. And that is a NERF to those of us who truly made the most out of the social interaction between /startwatch and /stopwatch as the very basis of our careers.
I am not only concernedwhether buffbots will survive the entertainer mini-publish, I am concerned whether Sirii and others like herwill survive the entertainer mini-publish.
Xyrdre
Sun Aug 01, 2004 3:41 pm
#22
PoetDancer
Sun Aug 01, 2004 4:19 pm
#23
What game have I been playing? The same game you have been playing, Delia. And I earned a total of 105k last nite for performing on Talus.....and I never did a single buff.
Now why is that Delia? Because my patrons feel "sorry for me," or "long for the old days" like you said in another post? Some of the players who tip me and cheer me weren't even around in the old days. Or perhaps there is some truth to what I am saying. The performance is not something that makes no difference. The performance makes all the difference. I know it does. I have proof in my bank account. If things are as bad as you say, why are my tips so good?
But there is nothing I do that is all that special. Its something everybody here can do. But you have to work at it. Jeebus knows I wasn't very good at this thing when I first started. But I learned. I grew. I started to understand that there are interpersonal techniques that one can use to do these things better. And they work.
But you have to start with the belief first and foremost that what you do behind the keys makes a difference. And I don't hear a lot of that from you. Which is a shame, Delia, because entertainers need to believe it now more than ever so they can make it through to the entertainer fixes. Right now they don't.
Because if players don't start to believe in themselves and their ability to make a difference, they'll learn rather quickly that the mechanics in and of themselves are so simple and effortless that this alone cannot be the basis of this profession. But did I make the rules? No. I'm simply playing this profession the way it is now.
Are buffbots bad? Buffbots are exploitive, yes. Buffbots make things harder, no doubt. Buffbots need to be eliminated, certainly. But we don't have to be afraid of them. You can still make a decent living doing these things by concentrating on the things buffbots cannot do.
No doubt its hard, Delia. Believe me, I know. I have been there ATK with you through all of this. I quit the game too. I have days go by when I make next to nothing. But that doesn't stop me from going out there and performing in the cantinas. If I don't, who will? The Buffbots?!? They don't give players the things they should expect from the cantina. I do. You do. And I'll sell my soul to the Sith lords before I abandon the customers who say to me, "You are doing great, Sirii."
But these are things you don't want to hear. You don't want to hear about entertainers who are successful at playing this game live. You don't because you are afraid that it will sway public opinion to see that there is nothing wrong. I am not saying that at all. There are plenty of things that can be done. We need attention, no doubt. But we have to be careful. These professions are extremely fragile, and changes have to be implemented with great care in order to maintain the social playstyle.
Message Edited by PoetDancer on 08-01-2004 06:20 PM
Beery
Sun Aug 01, 2004 7:53 pm
#24
"I do not. But it seems that both of us understand that this social playstyle is fragile. We just feel differently how best to encourage it."
You seem to think that a social playstyle should be mandatory for an entertainer. Why? A realmusician doesn't chat while he's playing. A social playstyle is effective at getting players interested in your performance, but in my opinionit should not be mandatory for getting ahead as a musician or dancer.
PoetDancer
Sun Aug 01, 2004 8:30 pm
#25
I'm in a much better mood now, Beery, since we heard the devs. announcement. But to me, the social playstyle can encompass many things. Yes, chatting is one tool that is available to us. It is certainly not the only one. Group performances and band performances can be another. Creative use of the tools available, such as an orchestration can be yet another manifestation.
Because what is "social play" other than interaction between people? And I emphasize people. Not the avatar. Not the system. But the players behind the avatars in the system. Its subjective, yes. Taste is not a thing that can be quantified.
But that makes it all the more challenging to find something within our array of tools that peopleenjoy and are willing to tip. And trust me when I tell you that you can still find players out there who want to be amused and experience something unique and well polished. It is challenging in a way that no other aspect of the simulation comes close to duplicating. Its why I like the essence of these professions. But it takes work. It takes dedication. It takes the courage to try new things. But I think you already know that, Beery. You wouldn't have been in the profession as a live player for this long unless you found it challenging and worthwhile too.
Beery
Sun Aug 01, 2004 11:07 pm
#26
"you can still find players out there who want to be amused and experience something unique and well polished."
I never said we couldn't. My point was merely that human interaction isn't the be-all and end-all of our profession. Some of us simply aren't that social - and we have a stake in the entertainer business too. My art is in creating an entertaining show using flourish combos and rarely-heard instruments. I rarely talk to my audience when I'm putting on such a show.