Entertainer Archive
Thread: I asked...I got an answer. :(
I wake up and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a shiny new (and apparentlyvoluntary!)Dev post in the Dance forums. It made me wonder if I was still sleeping.
SOETyrant wrote:
1) We do take the unattended macroing issues seriously, and this ability will go away, but we are not going to address it this month. It is a big technicalchange, and takes a serious amount of development and testing. It is being done by a different team than the Combat Upgrade folks so it is not gated by that effort.
As the great philosopher Phillip J. Fry once said, "Faster!Faster!Faster!"It's great to be reassured directly that this fix is being worked on at some level and that it seems to be a pretty high priority.
2) Yes, the other professions (including all Ents) are scheduled to be revamped right after the Combat Upgrade and before the GCW. This is our stated development strategy. When we start that process we will engage with the community on the design in the In-Development section of the website to ensure what gets done enhances the gameplay and fun within the Ent professions.
Again, this sounds great, but I'm somewhat leery about the part about engaging us on design in the In Development forum. The last time we had a thread outside the Entertainment forums, the Developer started it and then apparently never returned even when that design was implemented, unchanged, a month after the thread was started. That doesn't really count as engaging us in the design, or in that case, testing.
3) There is another team doing fixes on all theprofessions not covered in theCombat Upgradein the meantime to address immediate issues, bugsand low (dev) cost enhancements. We will being doing some interim fixes to the Combat Upgrade professions too, as warranted. With over 30 professions they have a lot of ground to cover but Ents willl be getting their share.
Yay! We do understand that there are other professions out there--heheh I'm a member of lots of them, so it's defenitely ok with us for our friends to be getting their much-needed fixes as well. Can we assume that these little bugs and low-cost enhancements will be things from our top 5-10 issues lists? (not counting our #1 issue, AFK'ing, of course)
4) SWG as a wholeis an entertainment experience which integrates lots of gaming and social elements. It is intended to have an entire series of compelling and fun activities. Not all of these activities are working the way you or we would like them to. I don't think it is healthy or appropriate for people to continually do things that make them frustrated or angry. This seems like common sense to me, but common sense appears less common all the time as I get older.
When I'm not having fun at something, but I still love it at some level, I take a break. This seems better than driving myself to an emotional breaking point. I would hope the same for our customers, as I don't like it when people leave us angry. I would rather people took a break, than got to their breaking point with us, because when they get to that point, there is no chance they will ever come back (it is a divorce, not a breakup).
We've been frustrated for a long time as fix after fix and revamp after revamp seems to happen for all the combat-oriented players, and yet almost nothing comes down the line for crafters, and especially not for Entertainers. However, many of us cling to the memory of what our professions used to be before the huge influx of AFK'ers & the advent of other problems. We also treasure the idea of what the Entertainment professions could become. So yes, on a level, every person you see here as a frustrated performer does love the game and the people in the game at least on some level. We wouldn't be here if we weren't having at least a little fun still.
All the devs, myself included, work every day to try and improve the fun within SWG. We all get sad when we see people leave the game because we couldn't fix it fast enough to save them from leaving. We don't want anyone to leave the game, we want them to enjoy the SWG that so much of our effort and emotion is invested in.
We too have a good deal of our blood, sweat, and tears invested in making the game work for us, and it's painful for us to watch people go as well. I myself am a self-appointed keeper of the memories of the past Entertainers atthe Memorial cantina on Bria. Sadly, the lists of names grow monthly and few are ever removed. It's good to know the Devs also care when people leave the game (and I'm sure it's for more than just financial interests).
I think that unattended macroing doesn't belong in our game and it will be removed. I have committed usto this, and I remain committed to it. When morepeople play AFK than ATK, we haven't done our job very well, and we need to fix that.
Thanks for listening. We haven't forgotten your issues and we will work to ensure the Ent professions provide the social gaming experience you deserve.
We appreciateanything, even when it's just a post or two in our forums, from the Devs. At the veryleast this means you're aware of our professions' problems from coming to the forums even long enough to post this, and from what you've said, you're more than just "aware of our problems."
This has made my day.
Beery wrote:
Warryyr wrote:
"Let's talk about professions in your game that will very soon cease to have a purpose to play or pay for, except for someone just liking to be a Dancer or Musician."
It's always been what I was in it for. I welcome the change, if indeedit comes to pass.
I know you do 
I'm in it for that, too.
The problem is the new person to the game (to increase the Entertainer community population) who starts playing an Entertainer and realizes, "I have nothing to offer anyone else. I have to beg for credits. It's fun, but real fun is helping people and feeling valuable. I'm going to go do Rifleman so I can help kill stuff."
The current new Entertainer sees zombie Entertainers all around, no talking except "Tips and heals are appreciated!," and people who come and go without so much as a word (usually to those annoying spam zombies continually asking for invites for some reason) and who rarely tip. No credits + no interaction + stuck in one place = find a new profession to a lot of new folks, I'm sure.
I very much fear that all of our purpose in-game will soon be stripped of us, and then we'll watch our numbers dwindle.....and dwindle....
I really hope there's a plan for something to prevent that.
Well, I guess I can't offer you much comfort other than that I'll be dancing on your buffbots' graves 100% live and ATK! (Your comfort should be taken in how bored I must be having to dance on graves while At the Keyboard.) Oh, and since I don't thinkanyone has chimed in with ityet... Bye, sweetcheeks!
cknoos wrote:
Huh, guess I can close two of my accounts then. Of course, this will bring about a flurry of active and readily available entertainers everywhere, as well as make those tedious crafting professions a -lot- easier.
Huzzah! I hope this makes crafting non-macroable as well, that would be great! Just that thought has made my day even better!
Let me take a stab at some numbers here, lets say that each server has 15,000 active players, I would imagine that perhaps 150 of those are characters who play fulltime entertainers. Rightly so, we need to make life a lot more difficult for the remaining 14,850 people.
/sarcasm on
/comfort
/say I'mSO sorry
//End Sarcasm
/End Sarcasm
DarkY0da wrote:
Wow... I honestly thought I would never see this happen. THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH. For posting.
We all understand that no game wants people not playing and instead just afking the whole time. But people have been doing this from beta. It's good to know that something is now going to be done about it. But I like many fear it will be enough but far, far to late. Surely you agree that the phrase "Better late than never" applies here?
[snip]
Hmm not really... I mean if an EMT shows up a few days after called and finds someone dead from a heart attack and then decides to use those little paddle things and shock them... the phrase "Better late then never" really is rather pointless...
LeBob wrote:
But I like many fear it will be enough but far, far to late. Surely you agree that the phrase "Better late than never" applies here?
[snip]
GonkSevenT3 wrote:
One thing I hear over and over from players here on the boards is "I play at odd hours and there are never and Ents up at that time." I have to admit I rarely enter the various Ent forums, so please excuse me if what I'm about to suggest has come up before....
But to take care of the no Ents issue, why couldn't cantinas have a house band? I've heard you will heal slowly if you just sit there even if it's empty, but I have yet to see this actually happen. (It does work, just VERY slowly. I've had to do this from time to time when there are only AFK macrotainers in a cantina. Do you know how boring it can be sitting in amongst a group of player-controlled NPC's waiting for BF to go down...? /shudder) So, perhaps the "house band" is always there playing and PC's can pay to listen to them. This also creates one of those credit sinks the Dev's are always looking for. But once a real ATK Ent shows up and registers at the cantina the "house band" goes on break and no one new can listen to them until there are no more registered Ents in the cantina. If you were already listening to the "house band" you can continue and won't be impacted since you've already paid.
The only "house band" I know of is theModal Nodesin the Mos Eisley cantina, and it's kind of cool to have them there, but mostly because they're part of Star Wars lore.
I think something like this could work for hospitals as well. The NPC doc's in the hospitals can heal you faster than if you were just sitting there, but charge you for the effort. Once a PC shows up and registers the NPC doc is disabled from healing anyone new until any registered PC leaves.
I'm not suggesting this to take anything away from Ent's. I think you all deserve to play a game like this the way you want. I don't think you are a useless profession as some people would like to suggest. But we do have to face the fact that there is an Ent shortage and something needs to be done to fill that gap. BUT that something CANNOT, repeat CANNOT take away from your game experience as an Ent.
I hope I haven't ruffled any feathers and would welcome any further suggestions regarding my concept. Perhaps with this new focus on Ent's we can come up with a solid proposal at the right time that gets the right person to look at it.
This isn't a bad suggestion, and it's a step in the right direction, but I think it assumes that Entertainers aren't ever going to be available anywhere in the galaxy when someone wants one. There was a time, long past, where live Entertainment was readily available on several cantinas on each of the starter planets and at least one place on the adventure planets. It was only when hologrinding became popular that everyone started congregating en masse. It's ridiculous when there are three groups of 20 avators in the dathomir outpost, with 3 live people (the group leaders) amongst them, but that's how it was around this time last year. The AFK macrotaining is really what caused this gathering of "entertainers" in one place. The AFK macroers gather together for xp, and the Live Entertainers huddle together for love and support while our profession is made less and less playable (while sane )
Ok, sorry about that little bit there, guys, that probably belongs in the sticky....
/bad lilo
/out