Entertainer Archive

---

Vaelorn wrote:

Excuse #1: "They're playing the game the way they want to. You have no right to tell them how to play this game!"

Rebuttal #1: "THEY ARE NOT PLAYING THE GAME AT ALL. That's the crux of the entire problem! There is no player involved, just an empty player-character sucking down *my* framerate and *my* ping times and getting *them* all the benefit of exploiting the macro. Everyone who is actually at the keyboard has to suffer the consequences of everyone who is using an AFK macro to cheat for free loot and experience."

They are playing the game. They pay their monthly fee, they buy equipment/clothing/harvesters, they do something with their characters when they are not AFK.Also, your framerate and ping times are because of your machine (sorry to say). I never have any problems even in the Coronet Cantina. Don't blame a large player base for poor machine performance. Their cash is providing expansions/updates.

Excuse #2: "Vendors can still make money for merchants while the merchant is AFK or not even online! What's the difference if Joe Schmoe wants to use an AFK macro to gather loot from NPCs, or gain experience from newbie city monster spawns, or sample for resources?"

Rebuttal #2: "Vendors cost money to run. Vendors require skills to use them. Vendors require items to sell, items that have already been worked on by a player, or produced in a player's factory which also costs money to run. Even using the bazaar costs some small amount of money, and has limited space for wares. A personal harvester is not at all expensive, but it does have cost; half the people using an AFK macro to sample resources are probably just doing it for the experience anyway."

If I want to macro combat, it costs money to run, it takes skills to do so, it requires equipments to do so, equipment that has been worked on by a player or produced in a player's factory which also costs moeny to run. The only profession that can be macro'd for 'free.' That's a problem with Entertainer, not macros.

Excuse #3: "AFK macros do not hurt this game, because EVERYONE can use them! You shouldn't get upset that someone is using an AFK macro, because you can use the exact same macro to do the exact same thing. The playing field is even, so you have no right to complain."

Rebuttal #3: "You almost had it right. AFK macros DO hurt this game, because EVERYONE can use them. You will know this game has died when you log on and find 23 people in a city, and every single one of them is AFK and using a macro to gain experience or loot. AFK entertainers completely ruin the game for the players who actually want to PLAY an entertainer. AFK people slumming the newbie monsters around newbie cities for weapon or creature experience completely ruin the game for the real newbies who cannot go anywhere else to hunt. AFK spammers sitting in front of the Coronet starport shouting out locations to a shop ruin the game for everyone who hears them shouting dozens of times in a row."

AFK entertainers have such a negative effect because entertainer is a poorly done profession. AFK combat people for weapons xp don't hurt newbie that run missions for cash and xp (and there's way more newbie creatures than macro runners and newbies can handled). AFK spammers are just trying to get business. I guess the frequency of the spam is to target the peopel that move in and out of the star ports quickly. I mean, the Planetary Map registration is there for a reason, but I guess advertising any way you can is how business gets done...

Excuse #4: "Fine. If you hate AFK macros so much, just put the character on ignore. Then you don't have to listen to them anymore."

Rebuttal #4: "No, it's not fine. The command to ignore other player characters does absolutely nothing for the 13 AFK macro-zombies bumbling around in the middle of the cantina floor. The ignore command only prevents text from the character, it does not completely hide the character or remove them from the game."

I agree that it is still a bother to see them in game. (Completely valid complaint :smileywink

Excuse #5: "If you hate the game so much, why don't you quit playing it, and stop crying about it here on the boards?!"

Rebuttal #5: "I don't hate the game. I hate the AFK macro-zombies in the game. The playerbase should not be forced to deal with them on a nightly basis, so I fully expect them to be removed orhindered to preserve the integrity and spirit of this game."

Firstly, I also like the game. Secondly, those 'AFK macro-zombies' are in fact part of the player base (the do play at least a portion of their time online and they're paying customers). You see, there is a problem with the Entertainer profession. AFK xp is the same as ATK xp. HUGE PROBLEM!!! For combat, AFK xp is a lot less than ATK xp. Thus, it's only logical to do it while sleeping, at work, etc reducing the amount of AFKers.

---

Now, before I'm flamed out off the boards listen fora minute.

Let me, for sake of arguement, concede the point that AFKers are a problem/plague/whatever and have a negative impact on the ATK players of ALL professions. Let me also say that there is a large ratio outnumbering the AFKers (thus the ones being bothered are the ones paying more money).

So, how do we fix it? Do we simply treat the bad effects of AFKing? Is adding the option to hide players while they're on /ignore enough? Nope. Do we remove the AFKers? Will taking away one of the neatest aspects of the game and/or cracking down on people using an in-game feature make everyone happy or anger a lot of paying customers? I think that would be a horrible idea. So, what's left? How about putting time into the Entertainer profession? I'm not talking about 'motion capture' or other expensive/fanciful development actions, I mean sit down with a pen and paper, dry-erase board, rock and chisel, whatever and rework the Entertainer profession and give them gameplay, content, and give more xp to ATK than AFK.

I suggested a nice little system that would take care of everything and I haven't received my award for simple genius from the devs yet... Anywho, these top 10 answers were pretty disappointing. All negative answers (yeah, we've got nothing for Entertainer, nice ideas though). I really liked that Haden posted, it made me feel special

Hello All (SOE),

I've only read some of the dev &correspondentresponses to this thread. In regards to question number #7 that ThunderHeart originally responded to about entertainers (musicians / dancers) going AFK.

I have a simple solution for that, when the game via metrics realizes that a player is AFK using a macro after say a fixed number of minutes. Then all the experience gained in the Entertainer (Musician / Dancer) skills they're using is halved or they gain only 25% of the actual experience pool they're getting now. Basically a restrictive modifier base when the player is on an extended AFK macro session in-game.

So players who grind without being AFK macro's will yeild the full benefit of the experience they accumilate in-game while in active participation.

First, something a little on a side note.. "Let me also say that there is a large ratio outnumbering the AFKers (thus the ones being bothered are the ones paying more money)." AFK players have a huge advantage in percieved presense because they are always there, whereas ATK players are only there while they are playing. I would go so far as to say that anAFK player have the percieved presense of 4 or 5 ATK players.

On to business... I am doing everything I can to let the devs know the community is not happy with these answers. I wish TH had run the answers by me first. I would have been able to tell him they would go over like a ton of bricks here, and that unless he wants to piss off, dishearten, and in general demoralize the community, he might want to rethink the answers. Unfortunately, he didn't. Some things, once done, can not be undone. All that is left to do is look forward and try to change the future instead.

Oh, and I have been hurt by AFK combattants. I was trying to get smuggler, so I was out killing two birds with one stone,not to mentiona lot of meatlumps, getting the unarmed xp and locked containers. One day I tried to find meatlumps to kill that didn't have someone parked in the middle of them AFK, and I had to take 2 shuttle trips to find them. That inconvenienced me by about a half hourand 300 credits. Sure, eventually I found some to kill... But the point is I was inconvenienced *during my playtime* because of it. Is the fact that they don't have time to play as much worth costing me some of my play time? 10 minutes here, a half hour there.. It starts to add up. And I'm just one person, I'm sure other people have done the same. There are otherways AFK players hurt ATK players, but they are less tangible. I imagine if you had an advanced degree in psychology relatedmobs/groups, you might be able to explain or predictsome of it, but the chances someone here has that are slim.

---

Tiaga wrote:

On to business... I am doing everything I can to let the devs know the community is not happy with these answers. I wish TH had run the answers by me first. I would have been able to tell him they would go over like a ton of bricks here, and that unless he wants to piss off, dishearten, and in general demoralize the community, he might want to rethink the answers. Unfortunately, he didn't. Some things, once done, can not be undone. All that is left to do is look forward and try to change the future instead.

---

As a soon-to-be-not entertainer, former Master Musician and Master Dancer (Musician for many months), I have a few things to say on this topic.

1) Entertainers, more so than any profession, are hurting for money. Even the elite professions branching off entertainer rely largely on tips for credits because the missions PAY SO LITTLE. An entertainer has to play CONTINUOUSLY, often relying on medics, for 20 minutes to get a meager reward of about 180 credits MAXIMUM...and that's if the entertainer isn't grouped. If the missions paid more, maybe entertainers would be happier.

2) Holocrons have destroyed the cantina environment. Before we even START complaining about AFKers, let's look at the reason they arethere. A large reason I am leaving entertainment is because I am so tired of being in an overcrowded cantina in which 97% of the entertainers are only there because holocrons told them to master an entertainment profession, rather than because of the love of the art. (I will say that I mastered Musician and Dancer...and am working on ID now...because I wanted to, not because any holocron told me to. In fact, no holocron ever told me to master an entertainment profession.) Why are people motivated to just AFK play? Because they have to master a profession they hate, to get what they want. That doesn't make it enjoyable to entertain.

3) I do not like the suggestion that AFK entertainers are being reported. That is like expelling an elementary school student for bringingone Tylenol tablet to schoolwhile turning a blind eye to plenty of them smoking pot in the restrooms, or busting a 12-year-old for downloading mp3's while ignoring rampant child pornography. See what I'm getting at? AFK entertainers aren't violating Sony's rules, AND they can HELP you just the same as an @K entertainer, so why are people shooting them down? How about concentrating on reporting the REAL players deserving it, like those who are continually harassing other players? Again, the hologrind has made them feel like they have to do AFK, and like Thunderheart said, the devs don't want to make it so only the computer experts can AFK, so they are letting it be so everyone can. Thus, with TH's quote as my support, I will saythat the devs apparently do not believe it isa severe issue requiring immediate attention and change. And please remember, when you type /report, you have to enter the name of the player that "you are reporting for harassment". That's what /report is for, harassers, not people who AFK grind. I think that reporting players who don't deserve it is ITSELF a form of harassment!

1. Unattended afk gaining and looting is the issue,,not macros

2. From personal experience Ihave playedan on-line game where using afk macros and afk gaining was controlled and policed. If they would assign one or two csr's to just follow up reports from players, it wouldnt take long to get the message out that if you get caught, and warned more than once you can be suspended or banned. And catching the afkers isnt hard,,and at first the reports of afkerswould be overwhelming but as time went by there would be fewer and fewer.

3. I believe that there are plenty of players that feel their game play is being harmed and/or the fun diminished by such afkers that will act responsibly and report violators without creating tons of false alarms.

This needs to happen for the benefit of all and the the good of the game,,

I personally support csr's acting as the afk police ,,and we arent talking tech wizards to do this,,we are talking inexpensive labor,,,

---

RiskyBusiness wrote:

So the basic question I wish an answer to is, why do the non-combatants or people who wish not to participate in combat, want a force-sensitive, Jedi character?

---

Taken from the boards EULA

Frankly, I found this non-response to the single greatest problem facing musicians (and other entertainers) -- ongoing AFK abuse -- as something indicating the studied ignorance which the devs enjoy toward our profession. Do they not listen or do they not care? Both? Makes me wonder about the wisdom of continuing. Are they truly just unable to understand the nature and scope of the problem? If so, that explains a lot.