Entertainer Archive
Thread: JustG: We feel that AFK macroers are not healthy for the game.We want it to stop as soon as we can.
PoetDancer wrote:
Now you are concerned with the mother or other individual who may have to get up at a moment's notice. Indeed, distractions from play come up all the time, and I sympathize with them. However, this alone is not sufficient justification why someone who is not playing should be able tointeract with the game environmentin the same manner as one who is playing the game in a manner consistant with the developer's original intent. And if you reserve unattended interaction for the momentary distraction, where do you draw the line? 15 minutes? 30 minutes? The whole day?
Poet, I am not drawing the line for AFK mothers. I personally believe any AFK dancing is AFK. Period. No question. No matter what the reason is, the result is exactly the same. Perhaps you are confusing my points with Tiaga's, he said stay-at-home moms and bio breaks were not included in the complaint.
On all your statements up until that quote, I not only agree with you but have also said the exact same thing in tons of posts for months now.
I don't know why I remember who stands where on the various dancer issues on this board. It's not a huge part of my life necessarily, names (not always spellings, sorry Niza) and the things said just stick in my head. *shrug* I still remember the full names of girls in my dance class from when I was eight and what kind of ice cream they liked, lol. (Yes, this gets on my man's nerves insanely)
Anyway, perhaps I've been unfair to myself and the forum by expecting ever one else to have my weird elephant memory so here's a recap if you care:
I am anti AFK - I do not begrudge people leveling w/o effort, only the devastating effect it has on this particular class (including rp, entertainment, worth, status, ability to earn money) - I think public buffbots and spamming macros are the biggest evil now and need to be dealt with ASAP - I am flexible on how they are dealt with because the devs have been so openly defensive of AFK and this creates a problem if this stance is going to be maintained - I see content additions as a separate but needed thing for some dancers - I think added leveling content will help the AFK leveling situation as much as the end of holotaining will, but not more than bannings would - I choose not to call for bannings anymore personally because I think I've said it enough and it's no longer feeling like a positive or constructive thing to say - that's it!
If anyone is still reading this, I don't like other dancers who I've been fighting along with in the forum fight to look at me as a threat now. I'm just saying the non-performing more game driven Master Dancer/Musician is here now and we had best give them something to do (or take away these elements so they will no longer be attracted to the class, but if that's the case I think more social content is needed fast! props, games, puzzles, tons of performing items like grand marquees that flash and can take text, the possibilities are endless) and the post that started all of this was taken out of context.
The post was taken out of context, I said it here, Tiaga said it in the Ent forum. The rest of this thread strayed so insanely much because Tiaga posted that content was not the issue. It was so not the point of my original post.
Tiaga wrote:
I am going to make a guess here. Perhaps you are looking at the bigger picture of why they are a problem in the first place? Specifically, that it just isn't that fun to be an entertainer when you're surrounded by people who aren't even playing. The fact that they are AFKers is just a periphery issue to the main point that it just isn't as fun to be an entertainer.
Bingo! Yes!
I don't think I'm ready to say we aren't fun... that just sounds sad and I don't think it's even true. We just aren't enough fun for enough people that are now in the class.
- AFK social types
- non-AFK true performers
- non-afk social gamers
- AFK gamers mastering for buffs which will be performed ATK (and cantinas and so on)
I think those are the iportant people to protect and make happy. We're all here now so we need to get a grip on it. None of the above types of dancers bother me as people as long as we can all stay safe from ruining eachothers content. Dig?
Shouters and public buffbots still get no love from me... I can only be so open minded, lol.
Kreistor wrote:
Not everyone is going to come to Theed and Coronet to get healed. Especially since more than half the people are AFK. Yes, people will actually avoid healing a place filled with zombie dancers and musician.
Actually, most people DO travel to Coronet and Theed becauseTHERE'SALWAYS SOMEONE THERE TO HEAL THEM.
Ya' know what?
I've heard rumors that AFK people can actually heal Mind wounds just like someonewho's at the keyboard.
Ya know what else?
I've also heard rumors that AFK people can actually BUFF just like someone who's at the keyboard.
Will the insanity never end?
The fact that the entertainer is AFK just means the customer can get healed without the guilt associated with leaving no tip.
Kreistor wrote:
... people will actually avoid healing a place filled with zombie dancers and musician.
Keep telling yourself that...
Stick to flourishes, that way you only look like an ass HALF the time
This thread is evil... there is some kind of bad hooey on it making us all evil and insane... it needs to die!
Run, run from the evil crazy making thread!
Really, I think a lot of valid things were said in all of the mess... but I'm sorry I even replied in the first place, I'm sorry I didn't just let Tiaga's posts go too. I usually agree with 99.9% of what he says, that really should be good enough for me. *shrug*
We've been doing so good lately! Let's not slip back into bad habits. 
These are four excellentreasons to add a more interactive dance system to the profession. We need a way to seperate the usefulness of a live person from a bot. We need a harder dance system that challenges a player who plays it (entertains the person playing the dancer). We need a system where in a live dancer has a better chance to get high experience for their time than an AFK one does.
PoetDancer wrote:
--Entertainers were made to be played by LIVE players. If they weren't, there wouldn't be three professions devoted to it.
--One master level dancer and one master level musician can give a 100% 2 hour buff for up to 19 people at one time via group commands every 30 seconds, and can service an infinite ammount of players. More entertainers are simply redunadant.
--Entertainers are also the ONLY professions that can mimic everything a live player can do by simply using the macro system. They can buff, service mind wounds, and heal BF just the same as I can.
--Entertainers who are AFK are superior in a game-mechanics sense to live players, because live players cannot provide service 24/7 and do not care about earning an in-game living.
WunuShi wrote:
Kreistor wrote:
Not everyone is going to come to Theed and Coronet to get healed. Especially since more than half the people are AFK. Yes, people will actually avoid healing a place filled with zombie dancers and musician.
Actually, most people DO travel to Coronet and Theed becauseTHERE'SALWAYS SOMEONE THERE TO HEAL THEM.
Ya' know what?
I've heard rumors that AFK people can actually heal Mind wounds just like someonewho's at the keyboard.
Ya know what else?
I've also heard rumors that AFK people can actually BUFF just like someone who's at the keyboard.
Will the insanity never end?
The fact that the entertainer is AFK just means the customer can get healed without the guilt associated with leaving no tip.
Kreistor wrote:
... people will actually avoid healing a place filled with zombie dancers and musician.
Keep telling yourself that...
Stick to flourishes, that way you only look like an ass HALF the time
Well, since I've been a dancer longer than you have, it's stupid for you to think that I don't know about AFK dancers able to give buffs and heals. That makes you an ass and that just the start.
Since I don't AFK when I dance EVER, I actually get to talk with my customers. Yes, there are some that don't care where the healing comes from. However, the majority of them will come in and ASK if there's an ATK dancer or musician. I've been there, I've seen it. How would you know different? You go into a cantina and AFK?
If stating facts that I've experienced makes me an ass, then sure, I'm an ass. I'm thinking though that it's more likely that stating things that go on when you're not there makes you the king of asses 
Rubicon49BC wrote:
- Entertainers suffer from the same problem as crafters. Nobody wants anything from you, unless you are a master. Now the first few weeks were probably different (I only started in August) since there were no or very few masters. But since then, unless you are a master, you are useless for buffs. So, people want to get that grind out of the way as quickly as possible. Personally I basically grind 24/7 with doctor buffs until I am master. When one reaches master, there is more fun in interaction since you are actually able to provide for something that people want.
Interesting point, and it may well be part of the problem. I remember when I started around September or so. Very few hologrinders in the cantina at that point. Most people were at the keyboard, and it was a lot of fun. Yes, sometimes I got frustrated staring at my cute Twi'lek butt doing Poplock or <shudder> Footloose. When that happened I'd go outside, run around, shoot at chubas with my CDEF, shop for bargains on the bazaar, etc., etc.
Anyway, once I had my full technique tree and was just working on the healing XP, I had many people ask me to mind buff them. They wanted the 75% buff that a non-master with full technique can give, and they tipped me handsomely for it. Why this changed, I don't know, but it does seem to be the case on my server that non-masters can't really sell buffs anymore. They can maybe give them away, if they're persistent about it. You'd think that this wouldn't be the case, because people are always complaining about how hard it is to FIND a master dancer or musician to get a buff. (And I think that's because we masters don't hang around in the big city cantinas very much anymore, because of the hologrinders/spammers/etc.)
But to get back to your original point, thank you for bringing it up, it's an interesting view of the situation.
Hello. A former master dancer here. Had to give it up because I wanted to explore some combat related content that I was missing out. Since I am also a master chef at the same time, doing dancing and crafting meant no combat. I had to make the tough decision to drop dancing... and now I really miss it so much, because I think entertaining is fun. 
Ok to the topic...
More content and more things to do while ATK ... they are badly needed, yes. I would really appreciate to see new things take into effect. But then again, there are only so many things that you can add as "content" for the entertainer professions. You are obviously not gonna have some killer attack moves or new weapon certification. It is gonna have to stay within the context of the entertainer professions. So this will probably mean some more dazzling visual and sound effects, more dance moves, more musicial flourishes, and even perhaps the introduction of entertainer items that can be used during performances like balloons, clown dresses, or anything outrageously funny. Now try this out for about a month or two, assuming that all these things get implemented. Slowly and eventually, the novelty will wear off. Then we are gonna see people complain that entertaining is boring again. Then people will want more content. Thus, it is an unavoidable cycle.
While all this goes around, the people who want to power level to get to master for any reasons, mainly the buffbot people, will continue to AFK. Why? Just because they can. Adding more content will definitely help players out by easing the boredom for many people who do find entertaining boring, but that doesn't mean they won't go AFK because they like the "new" content so much.
However, it is the best solution that we can ask for. SOE is clearly supporting the AFK macroing, and I don't think they will change this policy of theirs. Auto logout for AFK macroers could work, but it won't entirely eliminate this problem either. So why not introduce something new and fun and try to remove this image of our professions as being simply boring?
Although I guess SOE can implement a system where an AFK entertainer will get incapped if his/her action pools reach 0 and he/she tries to flourish again. LOL.
Youna wrote:
Although I guess SOE can implement a system where an AFK entertainer will get incapped if his/her action pools reach 0 and he/she tries to flourish again. LOL.
lol what am interesting thought. Of course, then the cantinas will be littered with bodies 
Great post Youna.
andyy wrote:
How many people actually enjoy doing the entertainer proffs anyway, i mean id is cool cant afk that but dancing and musician omg so boring and it takes literally forever. If you want to make ppl not afk do this proff then they should remove all the entertainer proffs from holos and silents. I mean without the afkers how many entertainers would there actually be?
Plenty. Those would be the good entertainers.
Check out the thread "Be honest, did you master dancer without ever going AFK?" You'll see that most entertainers don't go AFK and enjoy it.
Message Edited by Kreistor on 04-02-2004 01:14 PM
Message Edited by Kreistor on 04-02-2004 01:16 PM