Entertainer Archive
Thread: L.A.M.Er (Longterm, AFK, Macro, Entertainer)
k, im really new, have only played 2 days. I worked my way up the ranks and am now a "Dancer". Last nite, I was about 3k from my Dancer goal. I was tired of staring at the screen,
btw i use NO macros simple because i'm new and havent explored that aspect. they sound interesting. i've been playing online games since 1993, there were only about ONE hundred peeps playing Gemstone (for all you super old schoolers). Macros became common when DragonRealms (these are both text based MORPG's that still exist) came online. We use to call these peeps "zombies" they were annoying, but we delt with them via bugs in the game that allowed us to do fun but destructive things to them, anyway to my point...
at about 6am, just a few hundred xp from my dancer goal, i put in a dvd "the two towers", hooked up my usb extention and layed on the couch with the keyboard within reach,watching tv while every 5-10 seconds did a florish. i'd keep an eye on the 17inch monitor from across the room for signs of peeps heals and gave a quick "Ty". if they said anything, Iwouldn't know (cant see the bub quotes from the sofa). now i know i'm not away from the keyboard, but lets face it, i wasn't playing or enjoying the game much, i was just trying to reach my goal before i logged. Well i fell asleep and i'm sure i went static. awakened to find i had in fact somehow auto logged out of the system, which was fine by me.
question,,, is this considered bad gameplay? dont we all do silly things when a prof. upgrade is so close yet so far? i dunno.. anyway comment / flame / whatever if you want.. just wanted to know.... btw i like the acronym. it's creative and has a good ring to it..
Apriel Twentie- noone seems to get it = )
Klio wrote:
I work 40 hours a week, third shift.
Same. Is that a justification to AFK Macro? Hm....
*beats this dead horse*
Let's get down to the real deal here, and that is that there are just some people in the world who aren't happy unless they have something to complain about. I don't care how you play your game, and I would hope that you wouldn't care how I played mine.
This complaint should be going to the dev's, and argued on their boards, not ours. If you're venting....well that's one thing, but if you actually think that you're going to convince the community at large to stop afk macroing, the truth is that you won't.
If you feel like you're hurt by the afkers, then that's ridiculous! You aren't hurt any more by someone who's afk than you are the other 10 at key players who are in thecantina working right along side you. I'm SURE that I'm gonna get flamed for this response so I've already braced myself, but did it ever occur to some of you complainers that afk macroing isn't giving this profession any more of a bad name than the entertainers who refuse to perform unless tipped first, or the people in the cantina bitching about how bad money's been that day, or the folks who constantly remind the crowd to tip, what the hell is entertaining about that? And what's so entertaining about a group of people who stand around talking to each other that aren't interacting with the crowd? Or the dancer/musician who never speaks???
Maybe it is because I've had experience working as an entertainer in real life that I have a different view of the profession, but if I were a marksman wandering around on the entertainer boards what I would see is a whiney bunch of snivling ingrates who think that because they show upthey should get paid! There are a lot of people on these boards that make me SICK!
You picked a class that is what it is....if you don't like it, then for goodness sake GO AWAY and let the rest of us enjoy our char that we love in peace! And I'll take my own advice. If we don't get some happy "I love my job, hoooray for the entertainers" talk in here soon I shall certainly take my toys and go play on another board. I pay my money every month to entertain MYSELF, and this ain't entertaining..........
"if I were a marksman wandering around on the entertainer boards what I would see is a whiney bunch of snivling ingrates"
hehe I'd probably think a similar thing going to the combat profession boards and reading those.
Sorry, but I got a chuckle out of that comment. 
SpacePie wrote:i wasn't playing or enjoying the game much, i was just trying to reach my goal before i logged.
While I understand the wish to attain a goal, what is it worth if doing so entails having no fun? In your example, wouldn't you have been better served to have just logged off when you got tired, and logged back in the next day to finish up? I fail to understand why everyone needs to be master right now so badly that they have to macro while doing the cooking, cleaning, watching a DVD, whatever. What is so "great" about being master that it just cannot wait for anything?
Bored? Nobody to RP with in the cantina? Have house work to do or homework? OK... then what is so terrible about just logging off and doing that, and coming back later (when things may be more active in the cantina and when you, certainly, will be more "refreshed") and gaining XP then? Why does XP just have to be gained every minute of every day no matter what?
I just do not understand this mentality. I never have, and never will.
C
Waho, seeing as I spend about 6 hours a day in the cantina, I certainly DO understand the problem with AFK players! I stand in their with them everyday!!! But how is it my place to condem them for their actions? They are playing their game the way they want to! I run into annoying people all over the place in this game, and in real life....if you ran into an **edit** at the grocery store would you petition the owner to get rid of them and ask them not to come back? I haven't spent an inordinate amount of time trolling the boards, but I still haven't found a place that tells me that this is an illegal exploit - until it is, call them an **edit**, send all the afk entertainers you find e-mails telling them that they are annoying, avoid them, don't tip them but DONT tell them how to play their game!
And don't assume too much either. I know that in the course of an evening I may go afk 7 or 8 times! It's rare that the duration is more than 15 or 20 minutes, BUT I always put in my afk auto response what I'm doing or when I'm going to be back. When I'm in /tell hell I go afk so that when people talk to me ig they know that I'm /telling and that I'm not looking at the screen atm....there are a lot of reasons for a person to be tagged as /afk besides just setting a macro and walking away.
Examples: Starting dinner (away for 10 min), starting clothes washer (away for 10 min), letting out dog (away for 2 min), answering dryer buzzer (away for 10 min)....but I always mark myself as afk with an explaination of what I'm doing and when I'm going to be back - so please don't assume that because it says afk over my head that I'm gone for good!! I havea very good friend in game who is afk quite a bit!! She is caring for her invalid grandmother, and often has to walk away to help her by getting her a drink, or a blanket, or helping her make a phone call.....doesn't mean that she's afk macroing....
Do a lot of people afk macro for hours on end....you bet! But because they do don't assume that everyone you see with an afk tag is doing the same!
This isHidomatzu's wifey
Thank you for becoming an intelligent voice of reason in this thread RageGod
I do appreciate that you understand how incredibly boring it gets after a while watching yourself do the same dances and flourishes over and over and over...........*pants* I am working at becoming a master dancer and I know the road is going to be a long and boring one at times. The worst times are when there is no one but me in the cantina and I have nothing at all to listen to but the barbabble..but when you or other players come in (whether I happen to be afk at that time or not) I'm there to heal up your heads. I have no intention of changing that when I'm in the cantina unless the Devs decide that I must.
I get a few tips when I afk dance but not many, (sometimesa lot, sometimes not but that's no less true when I'm actually there and make a sincere effort to talk to every single playerwho comes through the door and stops to see what's going on *shrug*) but that's pretty much what I expect and I think it's fair. When someone knows that you're often there and actively engage in chat and fun conversation while everyone is getting what they need accomplished, theyoften generously leave tips even when I happen to be there afk. Strangers do sometimes, but most people just get healed and leave..well, I need those long boring ranks to get where I'm going in the game right now and the macros help me a lot, so thanks for reminding people that there are some skills in virtually all professions that are no less boring or tedious than what the higher level entertainer encounters, but I have heard no great cry of "KILL THE LAMER ABILITY!" about them...have you? You seen any "BOYCOTT PLAYER SO-AND-SO BECAUSE HE/SHE AFK SAMPLES RESOURCES!" posts? I didn't think so.
Hope to see ya at the club next time!
Mrs. H.
~
Games are meant to be FUN. If you are not having fun, there is no point to playing. If I were bored, I wouldn't do my best to skill up in a game that bored me ... rather, I would go find a game that held my interest enough that I wouldn't be able to take my eyes off it. I sure wouldn't pay $15/month just so I could be a master at a profession and in a game from which I derived no enjoyment.
There are 32 professions in the game. I have no doubt I would find some of them tedious and uninteresting. My solution is NOT to take those professions and then find ways to AFK Level up... intead, my solution is to NOT take those professions at all, and spend my time and hard-earned money doing something I find to be fun.
I still do not think anyone has explained to me WHY you would want to be master in a profession that, up to the point of mastery, you find boring. As one of the better dancers said not long ago (I paraphrase), "If you find being an entertainer boring when you are a novice, you won't find it any more interesting when you are a master." Sure, you have more dance moves or musical songs. These will hold interest for an evening. After that... what's the point of being master of a profession you don't enjoy?
I'm sorry but I still do not understand this.
C
This is Mrs. H again..yep, it is obvious that you don't understand it so I'll try to explain the best that I can *takes a deep breath and clears her throat*
Why play it..well, I think there are tons of life experiences that one of we who choose to play games like this fail to consider, so I'll do my best to make it more plain. I'm very new at SWG but I'm not new at gaming. I'm really burnt out with huntinghuntinghunting so I thought I'd try something new. I do like becoming an entertainerquite a bit actually and have made several very sweet friends even though I've just begunhere.Every time I come in it's a totally different experience and there's always something I can find to enjoy about it, even if it's just watching myself and laughing at how silly some of the dance moves really look.
Boring..well, I get bored when I am dancing with people who don't talk back, when I listen to the same musical phrase for the thousandth time that a fellow player is working on (which of course I have no problem with since they have to watch me do the same steps again and again until they go blind), when I am in the cantina at all hours of the night or morning hoping to be there for someone who needs a mind heal and I'm the only one available to help, when there is no music at all, when all the people around me are afk, macroing and not talking or about to log out, when I have seen myself do the same dance a thousand times that day and have grown tired of all my changes of clothes for the moment,....Idunno, all games I've ever played have some things like this in them that must be accomplished for points but become rather dull for one reason or another sometimes. I didn't mean to mislead you into thinking that I'm bored out of my wits with SWG and I just come in to afk/macro dance to impress people I don't know on the other side of half a million other computers, ok?
If this bored me to tears I wouldn't do it at all. I completely stopped online gaming for almost two years because I just got tooooo sick of hunting to get materials to craft to surviveand make points to hunt better to get materials to craft to survive and get points to hunt better to....I'm sure you get my drift. IHAVE been enjoying the dancing, the music, the people, the atmosphere, and whole experience of the entertainer's life since I started. I love to shop and have been building a pretty wardrobe. (My husband will tell you that this one aspect alone would be enough to keep me coming back for an undetermined period of time *grin*) I love to look interesting. I love to talk to people and listen to the conversations of others. I very much enjoy a great jam session with good musicians and as many dancers and patrons as possible. I like the bar brawls that happen on occasion..I like a lot of things about SWG Chess. There's no reason I'm thinking of quitting tomorrow.
You're right, games are meant to be fun. I find this one quite fun so far but I won't be playing it forever. I don't play anything forever..do you? My husband pays the monthly fee because he has 5 different characters and likes to come home from work and use games to unwind his mind while we talk about how great or how not so great his work day was. I sleep odd hours and he's alone here often so I know he games during those times too. Like I said, I started this on his recommendation and so far am glad I did. Even though this is fun, I still mean what I said in the post you responded to. There are other reasons why a person might sit at a computer and do something that isn't terribly exciting today..maybe they're close to achieving a goal and just like watching their numbers get closer and closer to that goal..maybe they're waiting for a friend to come back to talk or join in or go do something else with..and MAYBE they have enough strength today to sit up and do something that helps them to forget how sick they feel or takes their mind off how much they hurt tonight...ever think about that? Probably not.
As you said, with 32 professions to choose from I have absolutely no doubt in my mind at all that YOU would seek out the most fabulously interesting and mentally engaging ones that appeal to you and go for it all the way. It's not hard to tell that you (speculatively) love to game and enjoy things that really challenge you to your limits. I wonder if you've ever considered that for some of us just getting a little bit done today and being able to have some social interaction with other living people via computer makes our day a victory? I don't think you have, but you might after reading this. Maybe. Maybe not. You're free to do as you choose, to listen or not and that makes living in America a wonderful thing
What fun would it be to become a master at something if it takes effort that sometimes bores me..well, I'll be brutally honest with you. There isn't anything at all that I can become "master" of in real life any more because of physical disabilities, so I have a pretty fun time when I'm not too sick to sit up by just watching my animated dancer do what I used to be able to do in real life. It makes me feel less limited. Can you understand that? There are many, many more people like me who play games like this day in and day out than you probably ever imagined. I don't just sit down for a couple hours after I finish my homework or housework..I come here when I feel like the world is closing in on me and I need to be someone else for a while. I know there will be hundreds (if not thousands)of you who read this who know EXACTLY what I'm saying. And I'm sorry that it's that way for you too, but it's cool to be able to come here, isn't it-
I know I won't find this game or this particular profession hugely engaging forever, and when I don't anymore I'll just find something else to fill the many hours of my day that require that I rest and let my body try to recover from my last little household task. When that time comes, you'll still be here leading your squad or your guild to victory and I'll be somewhere else playing MahJongg and neither of us will care, will we..? Is it so important to you that stress makes me more sick and that I turn the timer off when I play simple games sometimes, or do you have an irrepressible urge to tell me how to do that too..? Ya know, we all think that everyone "should" think the way we do, want the things we want, live the way we choose to live, be the way we feel is right... but that's not realistic. Think on it, k? I do hope to see you in our little cantina some time. We won't know each other but that won't matter will it. I'll smile at you and ask how your evening is going and you'll tell me about your day and we'll have fun together. For now.
If I get ripped up for adding my two cents worth here it won't make any difference at all. I'll play my way and you play yours until the game designers make something different and I doubt that I'll be coming back to sit and read this continuous stream of argument that truly amounts to little or nothing when placed into proper perspective within the entire scope of one's daily existence. It's a game. I play it and have fun when I am able and feel like it. If that bothers anyone I guess you'll just have to be bothered~
Enjoy things however you find them fun and I'll see you out there. (And I'll work on curbing my run-on sentences *lol*)
Mrs. H
Chessack, I'm going to give this a shot too. Going to try and explain to you why I want to play a profession that "bores" me. I think that you aren't understanding what I mean when I say "bore". I finally mastered last night, with a little help from my friends, and now I'm on my way.
Being a Master Dancer requires HOURS of time spent in the cantina. Usually, being in the cantina meeting people, hanging out, healing, etc etc is very VERY fun. If I didn't like doing that, then I would certainly not be playing a dancer. But in order for me to gain, then I have to be dancing somewhere - the cantina being the logical place to do that in the hopes that people will wander in, which will give me greater experience.
During non-peak playing times, the skill gains not only come slow, but you stand in the cantina staring at yourself, listening to the bar babble and the system music for hours on end. THIS is boring, not the job itself. In order for me to be online and gaining skill toward my mastry then I have to do what I'm doing, boring or not. I can't time when people will be around and when they won't (my crystal ball is on the fritz) so I have to go and hang out....and hope..... I can't just run right out into the wilderness and find prey for gains like the combat professions.... I have to wait....and wait....and wait....and wait.....and wait so long that I find myself dreaming about the durn cantina, and humming that system music at my desk at the office while I'm working.
I can't just pop round to the Bazzar Terminal and buy resources and quietly gain skill at my house alone, I can't go out and survey by myself and see the sights while I'm making gains, and I can't gather a party of people together and ride the coat-tails of the stronger ones to help me get GREAT exp...I have to stand in a cantina, day after day, going insane......
Now that I've made it, I don't have to stress it!! Now it's not about the gains, it's about having fun and making money so I don't feel guilty spending some of my in game time working on other skills. I've mentioned before that I'm a one track mind sort of person and I set my sightson mastering. I love this char, and I love to dance in the cantina and hang out and make new friends, but now my being there doesn't hinge on the fact that I HAVE to be there to further myself, it means that I'm there to have fun because I WANT to be there, and I think that is the point at which you and I part company on this subject. Reaching the ultimate ig goal for me was the brass ring, and now I can sit back and enjoy it. If I go to the cantina and no one wanders in for 30 minutes....I don't need the gains, so I can go decorate my house, or get incapped by a ril and not wonder if I've missed that hunting party from the Fort for the e-heal gains.
Will I still be afk? You bet!! That's how I play!! I have to mix my play time with my home time or I wouldn't be able to play. If I don't do laundry....people are dirty or naked....if I don't cook dinner....people are hungry....if I don't play with the puppy for a few minutes....he pushes me out of my chair.
And I need to give an AMEN SISTER to Mrs. H. Thank you ma'am for a very well written explaination!!!!
TiakaCW wrote:
Will I still be afk? You bet!! That's how I play!! I have to mix my play time with my home time or I wouldn't be able to play. If I don't do laundry....people are dirty or naked....if I don't cook dinner....people are hungry....if I don't play with the puppy for a few minutes....he pushes me out of my chair.
LOL What a cop out.So what are you saying? Youthink the rest of us who stayed at our keyboards while we mastered music and dance wereunwashed,goinghungry, and neglecting our families? That has got to be one of the most ridiculous paragraphs I've ever read in support of afk macroing.
And it wasn't enough that you mastered the easy way? Now you're telling us thatwe can still look forward to you being azombie entertainer because you can't make up your mind if you should go do laundry, feed your family, or play an online game? That's great...just great.