Entertainer Archive

I honestly don't want to see dancers and musicians become crafters. We're performers. Perhaps, if there is a need for this, add another crafting profession called "Entertainment Agent" or perhaps call them "Sleazeballs" (just kidding), who can take a recording of an entertainer and then sell it. But it should not be as powerful a healing or buffing tool as seeing an entertainer in person or live entertainment will become a thing of the past, and that is not what I'd want to see. You don't get as much entertainment out of a CD as you get going to a rock concert, do you?

- J

Content is good, but it has to be content that doesn't change what we are.

Should they allow us to create holos that heal and buff, I see a dramatic shift to entertainers. Most of the combat people would MUCH prefer to buy mind healing and buffing holos off the bazaar or a vendor and never see the inside of a cantina again. Many entertainers would turn to this new money-making concept, do nothing but make holos and sell them for a ton of profit. You'd get a whole new group of inappropriate people into the profession, those looking to turn a quick buck. The cantinas would become even more barren and novice entertainers will see healing experience dry up an order of magnitude past what they're seeing now, and it's already pretty bad.

In the end, the concept of live entertainment is completely dead, replaced by the online version of the RIAA, and there are no customers in cantinas anymore.

Ok, that is worst case. But tell me what in your idea prevents that worst case from happening? Is there something I'm not seeing that would prevent the death of live entertainment and a dramatic shift of a social profession over to a crafting one? Or is that the point, that you'd rather see us ditch the concept as is and turn this into a crafter profession?

- J

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picklesSW wrote:
My brain is tired today, so I'm keeping this pretty short. I just want to comment a bit on fame. In my opinion, fame should not be tied to missions or skill trees or anything like that. Fame should be tied to other players. Fame will mean absolutely nothing if it does not represent your actual fame on the server, that is...the number of people who know your name.

- J

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Does faction represent how other players feel about you?

I'm not to convinced yet on the idea of making fame purely based on players. I'd like to see people work for their fame, rather than just be in a large PA.

I'm really beginning to like this fame thing. It gives entertainers an endgame.. Like how the ultimate goal of PvPers is to become a jedi, the ultimate goal of entertainers is to become a star. Perhaps we could even have our own myserious system that nobody is meant to understand. Okay, maybe that's a little over the top.

But I think it could be a huge leap in the right direction to give some sort of progression to entertainers. Something to achieve. Crafters already have it. Fighters already have it. Now it's our turn.

Keep the ideas coming. I'll be making a list of some of the better/more popular ideas to be explored a little bit, both positive and negative consequences.

Yeah, but if you tie fame to missions or something like that, how does it make sense that someone could "be famous" and still have no-one know who they are?

We're a social profession. Fame should come as a byproduct of being social and excelling at entertaining, not just a matter of run x many missions or something like that.

- J

Perhaps a mix of the two. Make fame be gained by missions, but be capped by how many fans you have.

picklesSW wrote:

We're a social profession. Fame should come as a byproduct of being social and excelling at entertaining, not just a matter of run x many missions or something like that.

Exactly. Which is why we need it to be more than a mere popularity contest. If we do it that way, we are going to find that fame has actually very little to do with the entertainer's ability, and much to do with the size of his or her guild. It shouldn't be a matter of your tags, faction, or exclusive choice. Fame for time spent in the cantinas can be one solution. Fame for the ammount of aggragate time being /watched or /listened to could be another. If you make it so that the fame is tied to the number of people performing in a venue, then we'll get the distribution problem solved. Another could be what crafters and such have to do periodically when surveying, a pop up menu that demands a click.

Famous means to be well or widely known. While skill level and time spent do factor into fame, it doesn't always correspond. I can spend a month in Coronet cantina in a group of 20, be watched constantly, master my profession and spend huge number of hours...and at the end still be a complete unknown to 99.9% of my server. Should I be considered famous regardless? You cannot tie fame to a game mechanic. It has to be tied to the other players or it simply does not make sense. You'll have 'famous' entertainers that in truth noone has heard of. At that point, fame means nothing, it's just another game mechanic, just another arbitrary goal which every entertainer will ultimately achieve. Only a few entertainers or bands should reach the highest level of fame.

Let me put it this way. No matter how hard you try, no matter how many hours you put in, you should not be guaranteed fame.

- J

I think there are a lot of ways we could go in discussing the fame idea.

However, I would like to see some other ideas, as well.

Remember, I'm not looking to address specific problems with entertainer just yet. I'm looking for ideas of what you would think would be fun if entertainers could do it. Something that entertainers are not now/can not do now/could be done better with game mechanics behind it.

Let me put it this way. No matter how hard you try, no matter how many hours you put in, you should not be guaranteed fame.

Then what you are saying is that no matter how hard I try, and no matter how many hours I put in, no matter how much I ingratiate myself to my customers, no matter how witty or in-character I am, I shouldn't have access to priveledges that are supposed to PROMOTE social content? I mean, come on! I thought in SWG you are rewarded for your hard work, and I thought it was the purpose of this debate to give us something to WORK FOR, not be "bestowed" upon us by people whomay bemotivated by informal agreements and PA tags. Do I like fame? Perhaps. I would like it if I could earn it through some method. I want it to symbolize to people that "Sirii works hard," rather than "Sirii had more people push the fan button on her radial menu." But I like to TAKE CHARGE of my own career, not have others take charge of it for me. Its bad enough that we as entertainers feel as if we are helpless in the face of the AFK syndrome. There is a class for winning popularity contests, and it is a politician.

I'm sorry for making such an issueout of this, but if what you are proposing goes live, I honestly don't know how I can stay an entertainer. And frankly, it might actually reward AFK dancers or buffbots more than those who actually see their entertainer status as an intergal part of their game experience. Its not that people don't like me or my services on my server, they do. Its not like I don't like the thought of being a dancer, I love it. But what this fame does in its current conception is that it tells me, "it doesn't matter how sociable you are, and it doesn't matter how you carry yourself inside a cantina, the AFK grinder with less than a week of experience who has talked to nobody is better than you, because more people have clicked on her radial menu."

Now a better (albeit potentially ugly) option, in my opinion, is this: Make fame a total of the aggragate amout of time somebody /watches or /listens to you. That way, fame is linked to something that is popularity based, Master A has more fame than Master B because Master A can grab the attention of more people. This rewards those who stay with the profession, rewards at the keyboard play, brings live dancers to the cantinas as often as they can, as well as encourages lively attention getting dialouge. I say its ugly because it may have the effect of pitting entertainers against eachother, and creating ill-will.

PoetDancer, I can understand your objections to this. This is still a very rough idea though. There arequite a few hurdles to get past before I'll even think of passing any idea to the developers. And I still don't have a garuntee that I will even get an ear for whatever we come up with. I am trying to at least get a nod that they would like to hear what we come up with without me having to shove it in their faces, but even if I do get that, there is no garuntee this is even what I would be suggesting.

There is an evolution of ideas here. Right now we are still in the primordial ooze stage. Save your energy in objecting for something that the developers are alreadyconsidering or that will be presented to them soonthat you don't like, for ideas that are about ready to walk on land and use simple tools.

I'm not saying don't voice your opinion. Please do. However right now unless an idea is so horrendously bad that even the person that originally posted it comes back and admits it's a bad idea, I am not discounting anything. That doesn't mean every idea will get attention. Most won't.

After there are a few ideas are hatched, then we can start exploring them some. I'll post a summary of each idea in it's own thread, and as people point out problems and suggest alternatives I'll update the summary.

It is very likely that no ideas will survive this process. Many have tried to tackle this problem before, and none have succeeded. That is why I am turning to the community, and the group mind of the entertainers to try and come up with something.

Know this. I represent the entertainer community. I will not be doing this without the community support. There will come a time to object that strongly to an idea, if you still feel that way. That time will be when I say "Okay, here is what I feel the community is strongest in support of. This is what I will be suggesting. Does anyone have any problems with this, be it the concept, or the presentation." Or some words to those effect. If anyone objects as strongly as you are now to that idea when the time comes, it will not go anywhere.

I will keep your objection in mind, as I do agree with you on your points, but that is just an oppertunity for this idea to evolve.

here's some ideas that i think would be cool, but may or may not be do-able-

things for us-
reduced/free travel (how do you stop us from getting 1 billion free travel passes, and eliminating the travel moneysink, though? maybe one no-drop unlimited use travel ticket?)

no wait times at shuttles or starports/private transportation (all the big stars have their own helicopters and gulfstreams)

ability to put bounties on the heads of people we don't like (be honest... if that really *CUTE* dancer told you she'd do ANYTHING if you punted that bothan... you'd punt him, you know you would )

have access to special 'entertainer only' buildings- private clubs just for us

entertainer only clothing/furniture

a way to get dancing/music skill enhancement tapes that DOESN'T involve combat (or relying on others to do combat for you, like treasure maps)

special hairstyles, hair colors


things for others-
increasing the amount of food or drink someone can ingest

decreasing the downtime of spices

npc entertainer pets

calling in a 'favor' for them with an enemy faction, so they can travel around unharassed by enemy NPCs (if they are covert) for a certain period of time, and perhaps allow them to take missions or do themeparks from that faction.



i also wanted to chime in a bit on the fame discussion. you can't very well give us any tangible reward for having high fame, or else its going to get exploited and farmed. if you combine having a reward with making fame points dependant on other people, then you would just have people spamming for people to rate them high, etc, or even worse, you'd have entertainers PAYING THE PEOPLE THAT WATCH THEM to make sure they get a high fame rating, so they can more effectively farm whatever reward is offered. we see this already with apprentice points. even if you just make fame an arbitrary number that is kept track of, you would STILL have people farming it, just cause its there, so that they can have the highest number (like post counts on message boards).

i'm all in favor of recognizing the contributions of those that are dedicated to the profession, but we wanna make sure we come up with something that won't tempt people to the Dark Side...

Alright this is what I have from this thread so far. There are a few ommissions that are intentional. There may also be a few ommissions that are not intentional. Keep in mind this is merely a list. Some of these I think are good ideas, some I don't think as good ideas. But I am not judging them, I am just listing them.

Most notable on the ommissions are any ideas that are specifically related to master entertainer. I am not ignoring that something needs to be done with master entertainer, I just think it makes sense to do things in order here. Anything that I couldn't invision what a possible implementation would be like in game I left out. This does not mean it's a bad idea, just that I didn't have enough information. Notably in this category is a more active participation in the healing process.

• Fame
  

  This seems to be a popular idea, so it will have a disporportionately large entry. Some possible sources of fame that have been suggested include the concept of "fans" where players can select a performer they are a fan of, accumulation for doing missions and possibly having your performance judged somehow, accumulation of time watched or listened to, accumulation of time spent performing, or something similar to the jedi visibility system.
  

  
  

  Uses for fame are just as varied, with suggestions including better paying missions, fame perks such as new music or new dances, factioned fame perks, better healing rate and better buffing speeds.

  
  

  A few other twists that could be thrown in would be various ranks you have to go through, or caps on how much fame you can have based on how many fans you have.



• Advertising
  

  A better way to advertise presense. Perhaps some sort of indication that a cantina has activity in it, such as lights or soungs for passerbys.



• Crafting
  

  Some sort of crafted item, such as a holo-disc. Ideas for use of these items include mind stims, "canned buffs" or makeup kits.



• Quests, POIs, etc
  

  Entertainer access to some POIs, possibly entertainer specific POIs. Dances that you have to learn from certain places, such as an ewok dance from the ewok village or a ballroom dance from the Theed palace. Also, quests for entertainer content, similar to the R.I.S. armor quest for armorsmiths.



• Props
  

  Ribbons, items designed as props instead of using weapons, etc. More a dancer item as presented, but I'm sure something could be included for musicians.



• Perks
  

  Clothes granted at various entertainer skill levels, possibly other petks. Free or reduced travel, no wait travel. A way to get entertainer skill tapes that doesn't require combat. Entertainer only buildings.



• Cantina Groove
  

  A cantina has a certain groove to it. Once you've used up the groove, you have to replenish it. This is done either by moving on, or by some action.



• Cantina level
  

  Cantinas would have a dynamic difficulty level based on who was performing there (Possibly where the cantina is?) and if someone was below that level in skill, they would suffer a penalty, such as higher action cost.



• Encourage bandflourish
  

  Return the xp to bandflourish. Missions give bonus pay for bandflourishes. Person flourishing has higher action cost, others have lower action cost. Scale experience granted by bandflourishing based on the skill level of the entertainer, not what dance they are doing.



• Encourage grouping
  

  Have missions that give the entertainer a travel ticket to a certain cantina. Have this cantina the same for all entertainers who take the mission at the time. Make mission payout only on grouping, possibly following specific instructions as to what dance to do or what instrument to play.



• Pets
  

  NPCs you can "hire" to fill out a band.

That's what I have so far. Before I move things along, does anyone want to throw any more ideas in? Perhaps make a case why I should include one of the ommitted ideas (Or point out one I just overlooked... I'm not perfect, you know...) or give more details on one of these ideas?

Message Edited by Tiaga on 01-15-2004 06:00 PM

Cantina Groove - could you clarify? Is this a case of diminishing returns by how long you spend in the cantina, or a case of diminishing returns by how long you spend doing the same thing (i.e. playing the same song or doing the same dance)? And if so, is this a case where the diminishing returns are caused by the fact that you are in this particular cantina too long, or that the cantina is too popular in general? This sort of reminds me of the system in DAOC where if a mob hadn't been killed by anyone in a long time, that mob would give more xp. Also, if you went to a dungeon for your first time, you would also get more xp, as opposed to the second and third times you visited that dungeon.

• Example 1: you go to Coronet. You dance in a group of 20 and get 30 xp per flourish. However, you then go to Tyrena, which is largely unpopulated. You dance in a group of 4 and get 60 xp per flourish.


• Example 2: you go to Coronet. You dance in a group of 20 and get 30 xp per flourish. An hour later, you are getting 20 xp per flourish. You move on to Tyrena and get the same 30 xp per flourish again (in a group of 20).


• Example 3: you go to Coronet. You dance in a group of 20 and you get 30 xp per flourish doing formal 2. An hour later you're getting 20 xp per flourish. You switch to footloose 2 and you get 30 xp per flourish again.

These aren't necessarily my ideas of what should happen, I'm just trying to clarify what you mean by groove.