Entertainer Archive
Thread: Entertainer: 10 answers.
Yeah, plugging mp3s into coding is so hard.(sarcasm off) You have to have a sound file and then have the coding search for that sound file, something I learned in beginning programming. I think the hard part you are talking about is the time it would take to look through all the game coding to find where to place the sound coding because if you were talking about how hard it is to code sound then there is no hope for this game....
Jebwa wrote:
Actually integrating the music into the game requires substantial effort on the part of the Development team, so no current ETA on when the new music will appear.I'll double-check the current priorityand see where it falls.
Yeah, plugging mp3s into coding is so hard.(sarcasm off) You have to have a sound file and then have the coding search for that sound file, something I learned in beginning programming. I think the hard part you are talking about is the time it would take to look through all the game coding to find where to place the sound coding because if you were talking about how hard it is to code sound then there is no hope for this game....
PlasticBabyOracle wrote:
Jebwa wrote:
Actually integrating the music into the game requires substantial effort on the part of the Development team, so no current ETA on when the new music will appear.I'll double-check the current priorityand see where it falls.
Yeah, plugging mp3s into coding is so hard.(sarcasm off) You have to have a sound file and then have the coding search for that sound file, something I learned in beginning programming. I think the hard part you are talking about is the time it would take to look through all the game coding to find where to place the sound coding because if you were talking about how hard it is to code sound then there is no hope for this game....
andcoming up withnew flourish animations that correspond to the music, etc... might take longer than you think
Actually, from what we hear, the Art Team is always ahead of schedule...I don't think that would be much of a problem. 
Audio
TH-
I heard a lot of vauge answers there and mostly "no nothing in the works but were open to suggestions" so my biggest rebuttle questions is:
We are happy to suggest and have many of them but when will we get some REAL dev time and attention to work on those? that is why we asked about a revamp its not so much that we feel we need to change the proffession as much as work on it a lot to add to it. Now im sure you anticipated both those playing and those not wanting new songs and dances back in the game concept. But we are looking aparently at those not going in for a good year after Gold/ retail. And maybe longer? That essentially say's that we have no schedualed dev time so what good will suggestions do? Can we get a deffinative answer on when we will recive such time and either a timeframe for implementation or a quantitative answer on when we get it how much we can expect to see changed/ added?
I understand that we are a small population of the total playerbase. But from everything i've learned, that number is shrinking exponentially. Aparently in beta it was quite popular to be an entertainer, in Live the first few months it still had quite a group and now we have just a few hoping to see it be what it could be. It apears that by the time you get around to us there will be no point as the only remaining entertainers will be those who are afk and they could care less what you do with the proffesion.
How about this idea to solve the AFK holotainer problem. Make it so the fastest, most pain free path to master entertainer/musician/dancer isn't sitting AFK all day long in a cantina, but rather to run about the galaxy and play in new and different cantinas?
This could easily be implemented into the entertainer mission terminal. An example would be be to fly off world to and play in the cantina of the mining colony in Yavin. The time it takes to complete the mission would be between 10-15 minutes, giving 1k of dancer/musician/ent healing XP per minute the player plays, for a total of 10k-15k of dancer/musician and ent healing XP. Plus enough money to pay for the player to get to where ever. 10-15 minutes sounds seems like a good number, because it's long enough for a player to actually *be* in the cantina, but not so long that it actively encourages AFK entertaining like the current system to grind out the xp. (And lets be frank, it probably takes almost a week of 24 hour AFK holotaining to master the class. And currently the only way to get it it in a reasonable amount of time seems to be AFK holotaining)
This has the benifits for getting the legion of bored AFK holotainers out from Coronet cantina returning it to the real entertainers, letting holotainers get through the class faster and on their way, it gets entertainers out to the more remote cantinas to heal wounded and fatigued players, and it gives the entertainers someone new to play/dance and talk with for 10-15 minutes.
SSquirrel76 wrote:
Actually if they wanted to include new animations for the flourishes it WOULD be more intensive than all that, which is probably part of what TH referred to previously
Fiado (Scylla)
But like I said above, the art team is always ahead of schedule - that's why they posted that, "What emotes do you want to see?" post a few months back, and TH mentioned it again in the DE threads (the combat droids have been done for months).
The art team seems to be the smoothest running, ahead of schedule part of the production.
I think that Jebwa is right, it's more actually intergrating it into the game then making the pieces (as Hayden said, the music is essentially done). It's likely that the code is spread throughout a half-dozen patched together game systems, and that is where the nightmare would be.
Like most MMO's, SWG is essentially a bunch of programs strung together with a wish and a prayer, which is why when on one server someone *coughs* on Dantooine and the Cantina in Moeina crashes because of it...
Audio
If the problem is afk holotrainers then the problem is about to go away soon. So lets lay of the afk problem, because pretty soon there will be noone dancing at 4am in the morning without AFK macro's.
Shug_Ninx wrote:
I'd like to quickly elaborate on a few answers:
1. When the entertainer class was created, what was the vision for role that entertainers would play in the grand scheme of things? Do you see entertainers now as filling that role?
Along with everything that TH cited, the Entertainer was, at its heart, meant to appeal to the socializers in the game. Our goal was to provide a profession that allowed them to enjoy their preferredgameplay style while still providing a valuable role to the other players. Basically, we wanted to make them feel like they were contributing to the online community even while just hanging out and chatting. To that end, we made them part of the healing cycle. I do think we achieved our goal here; most of the EntertainersI know were drawn to the profession because of its verysocial nature and they enjoymeeting all the other players who must come to them forBF healing.
We also hoped that, by driving other players to the Entertainers in cantinas, cantinas would become social hubs where players enjoy some downtime, swapping stories and meeting one another. Although we do realize that the Holocron-grinding has led to quite a few AFK Entertainers (something we're hoping to remedy with the revision to the Jedi system), Ialso believe that the cantinas have become the social hubs that we had hoped for.
I would agree that they were... however they really aren't now since no one wants to be there... entertainer and clients alike because we all know its full of afk spaming bots. And even if reported there is nothing done about the reported ones. If entertainer missions rewarded with useful Info vs loot or money that would help to restore that atmosphere as people would go to the cantinas to talk with entertainers for things such as where a certain resource was rumored to spawn or which starport is the best to smuggle through that day with the least chance of getting caught ect ect... this would also ad new content for us the gcw and many proffessions.
4. We have heard that there is new music and dances in the works. Is it possible to get an ETA on when we will expect this? Are there any other non-specific details you can give us, such as how many new music and dances are coming, or whether they will go to the entertainer or the elite skill trees?
The Good News: Creating new music isn't very difficult. We use a contractor who did fantastic pieces for the original suite of songs, and she is already working on additional music (and has completed a few songs) for us. The Bad News: Actually integrating the music into the game requires substantial effort on the part of the Development team, so no current ETA on when the new music will appear.I'll double-check the current priorityand see where it falls.
Since you have paid this contractor i assume in the contract was you get X amount of money and produce Y amount of songs... could you please fill in the Y part?
Haden Blackman
LucasArts Producer
Shug_Ninx wrote:I'd like to quickly elaborate on a few answers:1. When the entertainer class was created, what was the vision for role that entertainers would play in the grand scheme of things? Do you see entertainers now as filling that role?Along with everything that TH cited, the Entertainer was, at its heart, meant to appeal to the socializers in the game. Our goal was to provide a profession that allowed them to enjoy their preferred gameplay style while still providing a valuable role to the other players. Basically, we wanted to make them feel like they were contributing to the online community even while just hanging out and chatting. To that end, we made them part of the healing cycle. I do think we achieved our goal here; most of the Entertainers I know were drawn to the profession because of its very social nature and they enjoy meeting all the other players who must come to them for BF healing.We also hoped that, by driving other players to the Entertainers in cantinas, cantinas would become social hubs where players enjoy some downtime, swapping stories and meeting one another. Although we do realize that the Holocron-grinding has led to quite a few AFK Entertainers (something we're hoping to remedy with the revision to the Jedi system), I also believe that the cantinas have become the social hubs that we had hoped for.4. We have heard that there is new music and dances in the works. Is it possible to get an ETA on when we will expect this? Are there any other non-specific details you can give us, such as how many new music and dances are coming, or whether they will go to the entertainer or the elite skill trees?The Good News: Creating new music isn't very difficult. We use a contractor who did fantastic pieces for the original suite of songs, and she is already working on additional music (and has completed a few songs) for us. The Bad News: Actually integrating the music into the game requires substantial effort on the part of the Development team, so no current ETA on when the new music will appear. I'll double-check the current priority and see where it falls.Haden BlackmanLucasArts Producer
First one..... *snip* no interest in that one.
2nd one...
Why can't you just use real original STAR WARS music from the movies instead of some cheesy synth variants that barely resemble Star Wars music. You have the rights for the sounds and music, what's stopping you? I for one would LOVE to hear cantina #1 being played vs the crappy synth version that lasts about 20 seconds...
Then ya got some faction specific songs like Imp entertainers can only play the Imperial march and rebels are the only ones who can play the Throne room ( end of anh ). Maybe even add to that they can only play said songs in a cantina that has a cloning facility taht's dedicated TO that faction to maybe spice up the currently vacant player cities.
Unfortunately, that has been disrupted a bit recently. People have, as a result, been looking to other aspects, and found the class a bit lacking. Perhaps it will get better with the lift of the holotainers. That is one of those complex social questions that only time and trying it can answer. Still, I saw the profession already sliding downhill before the holocrons. While I applaud the change in the jedi system as a step in the right direction, I would love to see more action taken in that direction. I even think there are new places the entertainer profession could be taken that would take the bold new step that SWG took in adding such a profession, and taking it a step further to give people a whole alternate style of gameplay that provides a complete game.