Entertainer Archive

Disregard my last post. I think this no xp when AFK thing is, well, brilliant... if you're awake enough to keep yourself non-afk and retain your xp, then you deserve the xp.

Also, if they change the AFK status so that it only goes off automatically, as mentioned by the previous poster, AFKers should also be booted out of groups after a certain amount of time [like, after going afk]. This will solve all of my problems with people not wanting to boot the AFKers for beginning entertainers so that the beginners can get their start. It will force spots in the band open, that have got to be filled, or else god forbid that the poor bandleader go without a couple extra xp each click. Maybe then I'd have gotten into that group when I asked, if all 12 or so of the macrobots would have been booted.

Then again, I have heard people say there's some way of writing macros that keep you from -going- technically AFK... which would negate this. That bites... maybe that should be looked at too somehow, so that it notes the action as being brought from a macro or alias, and therefor leaves you afk despite that.

"But AFK entertaining I cant see why it should be stopped IMO - it affects no one apart from the person using the macro. "

I have to disagree with this, from personal experience. The other day, as I was starting my dancer character, I was unable to get into a group, because it was full of AFKers, and the live leader didn't want to give up one of her "sure thing" AFKers for a live entertainer that might be leaving at some point. They can and do negatively affect the true entertainers in that fashion, as well as giving the entire profession a bad name... a lot of people don't realize that there are entertainers that actually try, actually sit at their computers and do this, rather than run a macro.

no matter what they nerf. There will ALWAYS be AFKers. To fix it really they would need to redo the whole macro/aliases/toolbars/hotkey... their whole interface. All to try and nerf something that will then be done by 3rd party programs that they will then have to try and track down because those are against the EULA. So instead of adding content and fixing bugs. They will spend major amounts of time trying to "fix" something that in the end they can't fix. My vote goes to fix things they CAN fix. And give us the tools to police AFKing ourselves.(aka Player Cantinas)

Someone suggested making it so that you earn no xp when AFK... that could deter "casual" AFKers, thought the "hardcore" ones will still find or write outside programs to do it.

The player cantinas will make a great venue for the death of AFKers... if they catch on to the general populous, which has yet to occur at the moment. But, of course, the player cities are still relatively new.

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sweatyclimber wrote:
they have BECOME ugly nasty places its not that they were its what afk'rs have made the cantinas and i despise them for it.

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I'm talking purely about graphics, art and what I'm staring at for 15 hours while I play and talk to my fellow entertainers when I get to play that long on the weekend.

I'm not going to deign to respond to the rest of what you wrote, or write the things I'm thinking, because it wouldn't be constructive. But I will say...please learn what that nifty key is on the row second-from-the-bottom on your keyboard. Using it and better grammar appropriately makes your diatribes easier to read.

As for nvoigt's insightful commentary: I am a total clotheshorse. I loathe hotpants and other skimpy outfits that are nothing but an invitation for lapdance comments, so I typically dress in colorful pants, various types of shoes and tops you don't see on every melon-chested tart. I was referring to the feeling I get about the way Entertaining is treated by the game developers.

I was also referring to performing in a small town (like Doaba Guerfel, for which I have a soft spot since I started there in beta), where the folks don't often get to see a real performer.All you lovely 'real' entertainers won't bother to visit these places because...well, as y'all must realize 'cause you're almost never there, performing there for hours at a time with no patrons and no bandmates is boring.

I most certainly enjoy aspects of Entertaining. I did it all through my beta tenure, and immediately started off doing it the day after launch. I'm back to it after a hiatus. I would like to see it so fun to do that just about everyone who tries it out finds it so...well, entertaining...that they continue to actively pursue it, rather than get so bored that they drop it or completely macro their way through it.

Well-reasoned commentary and debate willdo wondersto foster community among those of us who are, theoretically, the more socially-oriented folks in the game. Name-calling, trolling and flaming are wasted energy that can be better spent trying to improve everyone's game experience. I'm certainly trying; there are a very great many things I'm not saying, because it would serve no purpose to do so.

May your instruments always be in tune and you never miss a step!

Just answering the original question, not read the discussion

Yes! AFK entertainers is one of the top reasons why I have cancelled (holocron entertainers isanother)my account, and I won't reactive when this period ends unless this issue is addressed!

so your not the right person for me to ask how to do a looping macro then

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SlickRiptide wrote:

Okay, barring a barrage of input to the contrary, y'all are convincing me to keep working on this as a top 5 issue.

Now I need an answer to the second part of the question - What should be done about it?

Keep in mind that it's the "/ui action " command that allows the looping and that there are legitimate uses for this command.

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Not true. You can loop a macro infinitely by having two macros that call each other. You don't have to use the toolbar at all.

It seems to me fairly simple really. At least to first order. The game already autologs you out if you aren't running a recursive macro and don't touch the keyboard or mouse after a certain number of minutes. Why can't it just do the same thing if someone is running a macro? Just log the player out if he's not interacting with the keyboard or mouse, even if he is running a macro.

I realize people can still cheat even if you do that, but the fact that the game doesn't autolog you out if you are running a macro means it's designedto allowafk macroing at the most basic level. That in itself, encourages it more than anything else, IMO.

Maybe they don't know you are afk if a macro is running, as others have suggested. If that's the case they are screwed, there's nothing they can do short of nerfing the whole ui if the server can't tell the difference between the AFK macro entertainer and the "at the keyboard" macro entertainer.

But if the server can tell the difference all they have to do is autolog the player out.

Regarding the "program bits" suggestion: that seems somewhat reasonable, but why not just log the AFK'er out instead (like they already do if the AFK'er is NOT running a macro)? My guess is that their ability to detect the difference between and AFK'er and non-AFK'er when a macro is running is something that could only be done client side (because the server doesn't detect the mouse movements or keyboard presses), and they don't bother with it at that point because anything managed excluseively client-side could be easily worked around with third party software.

Anyway, I like the "program bits" suggestion, but that too may only be enforcable client-side because the server probably doesn't know you are executing a macro (my guess). But if program bits can be made to work, I'd suggest that you allow the player to continue executing macros after the "bit counter" is hit, but when the counter is hit, the client be forced to execute a /dump command (which purges all running macros) and then reset the counter back to zero. that way, players who aren't afk can just restart their macros and continue playing, and the afk'er would be effectively purged.

They could just toss all that complexity out the window and have the client arbitrarily execute a /dump command every N hours to purge the macros. The could even make N random. That would be a minor annoyance to the non-afk player though.

I dunno. It's a difficult problem to address if you think it is a problem.