Entertainer Archive
Thread: I asked...I got an answer. :(
Modo77 wrote:
I agree that AFk bots shouldn't be used as it goes against the whole MMORPG thing, But and its a big BUT as someone who plays at odd hours its sometimes hard to find ATK entertainers (even more so now everyone but me is in space). So removing this from the game is going to affect a lot of other players too.
We either need a NPC version (which I'm sure entertainers won't be too happy about), or well emm, can't think of much else.
So I guess unless there is another idea about, you have two options leave the bots alone, or give us something else to get buffed by.
Here is the example that I, a Master Musician that has played since launch, try to express to the entertainer community.
What we disagree about is how to fix the problem.
You and many people complain that there are not enough entertainers that actually play at all times.
So, that ismany people'sarguement to have afk play or NPC entertainers.
Okay, here is the real sollution that needs to be figured out...
Make the Entertainer Professions more DESIRABLE to be played.
That IS the problem.
Oh, eliminating the AFKbots will bring more entertainers back to our community, but it will not be enough to serve everyone's desires.
No one complains that there are no Doctors around to ever heal of buff them.
That's because enough people want to play the doctor profession the way that it is.
It's a profession thatcan beuseful in combat, it is a great profession to combine with another combat profession, itcan interest the crafter typeand it can make credits.
Entertainers have long been referred to (and wholey classified) as a "Social Profession".
While obviously entertainers are social by naturedue tothe fact that they perform for others and are needed by others for their entertainment... the game mechanics do not have to limit the profession toONLY being that.
If we could open the door for other types of players to want to become entertainers (without them resorting to AFK Play) then there would not be the problem of not enough entertainers around, true entertainer players being pushed out by the majority AFK Bots, and the disatisfied entertainer that drops those skills for profession(s) that are more beneficial and functional in the whole rest of the game world.
Entertainers can still be social, but let them be other things as well.
Every profession can be played in so many different ways, that is part of the beauty of this game.
While there might be certain methods that make a profession the most beneficial (See Uber)...
there are many players that just wish to play their profession the way that they want to, in order to have fun.
As it stands now, the entertainer professions have one way to play.
Plot themselves in a cantina (or the like), flourish and chat.
Obviously there are many different facets for role-playingand a chance to exhibit your own style,but the profession's game mechanics should offer more.
No matter what they would change to make playing an entertainer more beneficial to the player, you could still play the entertainer the way those that enjoy it do today.
Perhaps they could actually make more credits if they ever increase the entertainer missions' insulting payouts, but regardless they could still perform their tails off in the cantinas and chat away just as they always have.
To solve the real issue... Why there are not enough entertainers around at all times... the profession itself has to be looked at and fixed-up to welcome more than one play-style.
I've seen too many entertainers wink out of existance because the game offered the profession they chosevery little. Very little credits and no in-game NPC content.
Those social-type of entertainer playersneed more rewards for that play-style.
I've seen many entertainers completely drop the profession and go on to other more productive professions because they couldn't stand to waste the skill points.
Those type of players should have some kind of reason to want to spend those skill points on Entertaining.
I'm not saying that every profession needs to be for everybody, but I do believe that every profession needs to have more than one (more than two, even) play-styles that works well with the profession's functionality.
It's hard to say what should be added or fixed to the professions (And Image Designers truly are a whole breed of their own).
However, Self Buffing, eliminating the AFK Bots, increasing the entertainer mission payouts (And adjusting them based on Skill Level), Adding Entertainer-Only content and rewards, opening the entertainers up to benefits in the field of adventure by allowing them to heal BF in camps (Perhaps only certain higher level camps), grant them the ability to perform different benefits when outside of a cantina... perhaps remove certainCombat States by calming and soothing others, calming hostile enemies or if not calming perhaps skating by on their ego and reputation thus enabling them to avoid certain bad encounters, certain combat modifiers based on their nimbleness and/or their free spirited minds (Intimidation comes to mind), there are many things that could be applied here that do not have to be ridiculous but would be rewarding enough to hold on to.
There are many ideas that could be put in place and that could work all the while not ruining what IS good about the profession and not coming off too much like some fantasy Musical Magician. (I have heard the statements and I understand the fact that in no way do you want to make the SWG entertainers into anything like the EQ Bards)
Regardless, the issue of how to open the door for more than one play-style for the entertainers is what needs attention.
We can gain a lot of ground by fixing AFK Play, but I promise you it will not SOLVE the problems that plague the entertainer professions and in turn the problems that plague the entire game's community.
- Omadda Szool
Kauri
Message Edited by LeBob on 11-05-2004 11:37 AM
Message Edited by Beery on 11-05-2004 12:45 PM
LeBob wrote:
[@ DarkY0da ] Then I guess we differ in my opinion that the Social professions can still be succesfully revived.
Message Edited by LeBob on 11-05-2004 11:37 AM
Sort of and sort of not LeBob.. I believe much like apparently the Devs do that it was flawed from the start and our Social playstyle and profs as we currently know them or have known them are dead or close to it. That doesn't stop us at all though from turning to our good friend Doctor Frankenstein to cut up the body take the parts we want and then replace the parts we don't... aka 6million dollar man. It needs to be looked at and redesigned from the ground up. When done there will be parts that are the same but overall it will be a very, very, extremely different beast then it was when we started this journy a year and a half ago.
Message Edited by kirah_ashlin on 11-05-2004 05:29 PM
By those very honest and understandable statements, you have earned a ton of my respect. I have been quite the dev hater since the ugly CH "revamp," and have had little good to say until just recently, being in JTL beta for a short time and seeing the progress starting to be pumped out even after JTL, I must say that I am very impressed, and would like to apologize to the ENTIRE dev team, and would like to thank you for your hard work...and now, your honesty. I think we are getting on the track to making SWG the best out there...
SOETyrant wrote:
Concerning future publication times. Almost every time we give a timeline we lie. And we *never* do it intentionally. Poop happens, that is we have emergencies, unanticipated challenges, the bugs take longer to resolve than planned and just the general friction and chaos you could associate with any large multi-location team organization combined with the large city of people who are our audience. Going forward you will see us state our development strategy, and when we are ready to work on something it will show up in the In-Concept, In-Development sections of the website. We will engage the community on the majority of the development we do. And most importantlywe need to publish things when they are actually done, that is working as designed with a very high quality level.
Message Edited by Aakhperkare on 11-05-2004 10:15 AM
omadnay wrote:
Modo77 wrote:
I agree that AFk bots shouldn't be used as it goes against the whole MMORPG thing, But and its a big BUT as someone who plays at odd hours its sometimes hard to find ATK entertainers (even more so now everyone but me is in space). So removing this from the game is going to affect a lot of other players too.
We either need a NPC version (which I'm sure entertainers won't be too happy about), or well emm, can't think of much else.
So I guess unless there is another idea about, you have two options leave the bots alone, or give us something else to get buffed by.
Here is the example that I, a Master Musician that has played since launch, try to express to the entertainer community.
What we disagree about is how to fix the problem.
You and many people complain that there are not enough entertainers that actually play at all times.
So, that ismany people'sarguement to have afk play or NPC entertainers.
Okay, here is the real sollution that needs to be figured out...
Make the Entertainer Professions more DESIRABLE to be played.
That IS the problem.
Oh, eliminating the AFKbots will bring more entertainers back to our community, but it will not be enough to serve everyone's desires.
No one complains that there are no Doctors around to ever heal of buff them.
That's because enough people want to play the doctor profession the way that it is.
It's a profession thatcan beuseful in combat, it is a great profession to combine with another combat profession, itcan interest the crafter typeand it can make credits.
Entertainers have long been referred to (and wholey classified) as a "Social Profession".
While obviously entertainers are social by naturedue tothe fact that they perform for others and are needed by others for their entertainment... the game mechanics do not have to limit the profession toONLY being that.
If we could open the door for other types of players to want to become entertainers (without them resorting to AFK Play) then there would not be the problem of not enough entertainers around, true entertainer players being pushed out by the majority AFK Bots, and the disatisfied entertainer that drops those skills for profession(s) that are more beneficial and functional in the whole rest of the game world.
Entertainers can still be social, but let them be other things as well.
Every profession can be played in so many different ways, that is part of the beauty of this game.
While there might be certain methods that make a profession the most beneficial (See Uber)...
there are many players that just wish to play their profession the way that they want to, in order to have fun.
As it stands now, the entertainer professions have one way to play.
Plot themselves in a cantina (or the like), flourish and chat.
Obviously there are many different facets for role-playingand a chance to exhibit your own style,but the profession's game mechanics should offer more.
No matter what they would change to make playing an entertainer more beneficial to the player, you could still play the entertainer the way those that enjoy it do today.
Perhaps they could actually make more credits if they ever increase the entertainer missions' insulting payouts, but regardless they could still perform their tails off in the cantinas and chat away just as they always have.
To solve the real issue... Why there are not enough entertainers around at all times... the profession itself has to be looked at and fixed-up to welcome more than one play-style.
I've seen too many entertainers wink out of existance because the game offered the profession they chosevery little. Very little credits and no in-game NPC content.
Those social-type of entertainer playersneed more rewards for that play-style.
I've seen many entertainers completely drop the profession and go on to other more productive professions because they couldn't stand to waste the skill points.
Those type of players should have some kind of reason to want to spend those skill points on Entertaining.
I'm not saying that every profession needs to be for everybody, but I do believe that every profession needs to have more than one (more than two, even) play-styles that works well with the profession's functionality.
It's hard to say what should be added or fixed to the professions (And Image Designers truly are a whole breed of their own).
However, Self Buffing, eliminating the AFK Bots, increasing the entertainer mission payouts (And adjusting them based on Skill Level), Adding Entertainer-Only content and rewards, opening the entertainers up to benefits in the field of adventure by allowing them to heal BF in camps (Perhaps only certain higher level camps), grant them the ability to perform different benefits when outside of a cantina... perhaps remove certainCombat States by calming and soothing others, calming hostile enemies or if not calming perhaps skating by on their ego and reputation thus enabling them to avoid certain bad encounters, certain combat modifiers based on their nimbleness and/or their free spirited minds (Intimidation comes to mind), there are many things that could be applied here that do not have to be ridiculous but would be rewarding enough to hold on to.
There are many ideas that could be put in place and that could work all the while not ruining what IS good about the profession and not coming off too much like some fantasy Musical Magician. (I have heard the statements and I understand the fact that in no way do you want to make the SWG entertainers into anything like the EQ Bards)
Regardless, the issue of how to open the door for more than one play-style for the entertainers is what needs attention.
We can gain a lot of ground by fixing AFK Play, but I promise you it will not SOLVE the problems that plague the entertainer professions and in turn the problems that plague the entire game's community.
- Omadda Szool
Kauri
Floored.
5 months later and someone finally mimics my previous posts on the subject.
Additions, not subtractions, will make this game better. You will never get rid of the AFK bots. It's too simple to completely mimic one with built-in software in the Windows operating system.
Why not choose making the profession more exciting and viablein a combat or even **gasp** crafting symbiotic relationship?
Fivo Asia
, but certainly enough to keep monitoring the changes knowing that I will play again.Message Edited by fett3041 on 11-05-2004 10:38 AM
Thank you for takeing the time to respond to me. As you can see by the outpour of thanks on the thread this type of communication was really needed and you have delivered. I do understand how timelines are liquid when dealing with project management. I've fallen victim to it while at my own occupation numerous times. It is quite refreshing to know the development strategy you folks have taken. We can see the 'method to the madness' as it were. Thank you for addressing my specific concerns. I feel much better now. Sounds like a fun future...
Let's make it happen...
*quietly goes about decorating "Yacht Zee"*