Entertainer Archive
Thread: Entertainer: 10 answers.
ShianseMoyle wrote:
Taken from the boards EULA
[...]you may not use or distribute macros or other programs which would allow unattended game play. [...]
Now with that stated TH. Why would any game developer allow the AFK problem to
continue. Per your own rules, unattended game play is against EULA. Its a problem,
one that needs to be addressed and fast.
Actually no, if you're going to play cookhouse lawyer, play it right. 
The EULA does not say "You will not play unattended." It says that you can't use or distribute macros or othersoftwarethat would allow unattended play.
If I walk into the Cantina, type /startdance footloose, and go eat my dinner, I have not used a macro, I have not used third party software, and I have not violated the EULA. And that is precisely what many AFK entertainers are doing. You may not like them doing it; but you cannot bust them for doing it.
Furthermore, there is explicit confirmation from the CSR's, on record in these Forums (I think the FAQ points to it somewhere), that they do not consider the use of SWG's own in-game macro facility by Entertainers to be a violation, and they will not do anything when Jr. Hall Monitor types try to narc on AFK entertainers.
Again, if you want the facility changed, fine, let's have that discussion, but don't try to say that the people out there using it today are violating SOE policy. They're not.
Personally, I can't for the life of me figure out why ANYONE would pay to not play
a game. Whats the point? Where's the honor and satisfaction in gaining anything
you didn't really earn? So you hate the profession you are trying to Master? Big
deal, get over it, deal with it.
Great, let me help you to figure it out. First of all, you don't pay to play or not play, you pay a monthly feefor your Station account. That account lets you read and post here, and it lets you log into the various game servers on Live and Test. If your account is in good standing you are free to mix and match these as you see fit.
Secondly, why would you possibly be interested in logging in and dancing or playing music somewhere for hours without sitting at the keyboard and staring at your avatar? Because the lower ranks of Entertainer are a soul-numbing, quasi-useless, boring grind, which you would very much like to get through, by levelling up to the point where it is fun to play - at Master or other high levels. You will then be useful to your Guild, your huntmates, and your friends, and you can enjoy the profession in all its splendor.
Oh, and did you think that those Commandos and Hunters and TKA's sitting around the Cantina getting their BF and Mind healed are glued to their keyboards? Double standards, anyone?
Vaelorn wrote:
First of all, not once did I ever say anything about completely removing macros from this game. They are extremely useful for ATK players who need to do several unrelated and very complex things, such as performing a series of flourishes while also talking to the crowd, or performing a standard series of combat specials while communicating with a group.
Macros are not the problem here.
The problem is the exploitation of macros, allowing players to leave their characters running *unattended* forupwards of 12 hours or more, all the while gaining experience and loot that they did NOT earn because they were NOT playing; their character should not be there if they are not actually playing the game. Simply put, AFK player characters should not be allowed to nearlymonopolize something through the use of unattended macro useage (entertainer experience, Meatlump loot, creature handling experience, etc.) to the detriment of gameplay for the ATK players who are actually there playing and trying to enjoy the game.
Secondly, it's absurd that there aren't enough socializers to tend to the needs of the playerbase. A lone dancer or musician in a packed cantina can heal the battle fatigue and mind wounds of EVERYONE IN THE BUILDING. There is no limit on the number of people allowed to listen to or watch a single player character. There are no Imperial Fire Marshals going inside every cantina, hotel, and tavern to enforce a legal maximum occupancy.If the AFK zombies were all gone, then those 3 ATK entertainers in the Anchorhead tavern would have a blast, because that place has people inside 24/7, and who knows, they might actually make a killing in tips to boot.
Shug_Ninx wrote:
We also hoped that, by driving other players to the Entertainers in cantinas, cantinas would become social hubs where players enjoy some downtime, swapping stories and meeting one another. Although we do realize that the Holocron-grinding has led to quite a few AFK Entertainers (something we're hoping to remedy with the revision to the Jedi system), Ialso believe that the cantinas have become the social hubs that we had hoped for.
How can you call the cantinas social hubs? Well if you fixed macroshouting/yelling/saying then I wouldn't mind the afk entertainers but as we all know their "/yell Tips and heals are always welcome" part of the macro loop is making every bit of socializing a pain in the ....
Do something about the macroshouters or any fix you'll do to the Sw-feel of any city will at least pass me by. My and other'signore lists are huge by now. And the new jedi system won't fix that. There will still be the advertisers (for some reason you didn't add npc barking in cities, instead you replaced it with macroshouters) and the people looking for apprentice points, locked containers etc.
ehem.... i lead the largest entertainer PA on Ahazi... i can tell you we are scattered throughout the galaxy at all times and at all times of night... We host cantina revival tours posting where we'll be, we have so many tells to come to x cantina its rediculous. Also i can tell you that pre afk this was not a problem... once a few started to get masterships, they/ we were all touring all over the galaxy. There were numorous bands at that time 6 well known ones... now there is one 1.. ffwb.. i assume you are "new" to the game ie didnt come till fall when problems were occuring. There is nothing wrong with that its just that you don't know as well what we are reffering to. But i can assure you before the rampant afk problems in Ahazi there were TON's of entertainers and they traveled the whole galaxy. On a side note since you mention endor... we did a few cantina revival tours on that planet in that god forsaken "cantina" and had the lowest turnout of all of them... mostly the cantina was empty except once when it was "full" with 6 people. Of those, 4 were "groupies of the cantina revival tour" ... that is why you dont see ents on endor
Karquile wrote:
In my experience, people who say this usually have some particular favorite town or Cantina in mind. It's definitely not true everywhere. Sure, I can always find someactives in Theed or Anchorhead or the other most crowded spots in the galaxy. But try that trick in Endor some afternoon, or a player city in the boonies. You are lucky to get an AFK'er, very lucky. I am touring Ahazi right now verifying this as I write.
I have been in the game since July. I'm standing in Ahazi/Kor Vella Cantina right now. You're not. (nor is anyone else)
When I started my Dancer in early August on Kauri, there were AFK'ers every night and day. This was well before the Holocron was announced. And I remember people arguing over whether you should tip AFK entertainers.
The only difference these days is that there are more of them. I would estimate about 4-5X more.
Message Edited by nvoigt on 02-03-2004 05:29 PM
Frankly, I think all this support around AFK entertainers is merely an excuse on the part of the combat types to feel good about not paying for our services. Its a lot easier to stiff someone that isn't there than to stiff a person you know is on the other side of the monitor. Someone mentioned that AFKers provide services at odd hours and in exotic locales. Tell me, when was the last time you saw an AFK dancer at Dearic? Or Narmale Theatre? Or Bela Vistal? You DON'T. AFKers are either in Theed or Coronet, places which would get live attention 24/7 all other things considered. Besides, all the AFKers go kaput after the server reboot anyway. Someone mentioned that this needs to be done to make the player useful to one's guild. Well darling, there is a difference between being USEFUL and being USED, and don't blame me if your PA boss orders you to macro 24/7 in the city cantina.
Shame on you developers who promote not playing this game! They make fun of you on Blizzard's World of Warcraft page because of the VERY CONCEPT of gaining skills while not playing. I as a live player simply cannot compete with an alt that does not need to pay maitenance on her home, who works 24/7, who provides service and buffs and does not require tips to make a living. So tell me, oh wise pro-unattended players, what would you recommend I do to play the profession I love (and am good at), and make a living?
Tiaga wrote:
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.
You completely missed the point of that... I was saying that there are WAY MORE accounts ATK than AFK, so if SOE wants to please the bigger wad of cash it's the ATK people. I guess I should also say thata great majority ofeveryone plays some ATK and AFK (whether it's to let out the dog, use the restroom, eat, etc). The problem that most are having is that constant AFKers that will try to master Dancer by AFKing for a straight week or so.
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.
I don't consider that being hurt by AFKers. They could have been ATK hypothetically. Those places were just being camped either way. The game is set up to have LOTS of spawns like that so everyone gets some. Just because you didn't get an open spot the first place you went to doesn't justify saying you were inconvenienced (in my eyes anyway).
I don't consider that being hurt by AFKers. They could have been ATK hypothetically. Those places were just being camped either way. The game is set up to have LOTS of spawns like that so everyone gets some. Just because you didn't get an open spot the first place you went to doesn't justify saying you were inconvenienced (in my eyes anyway).
Karquile wrote:
All Entertainers, including the ones who are only in it for the mind buffs or the BF heals, deserve representation.
The alternate to AFK is ATK. You can be either At The Keyboard or Away From Keyboard. Also, you can be logged in or logged out. If your problem was that they were logged in, then you've got a different problem altogether than AFKers (you want this game all to yourself).
Tiaga wrote:
I don't consider that being hurt by AFKers. They could have been ATK hypothetically. Those places were just being camped either way. The game is set up to have LOTS of spawns like that so everyone gets some. Just because you didn't get an open spot the first place you went to doesn't justify saying you were inconvenienced (in my eyes anyway).
But you see, the alternate to AFK isn't ATK. The alternate to AFK is logged out. If they had been logged out, there wouldn't have been a problem.
nvoigt wrote:
A simple question for you: We both cannot know what would happen. But we can guess. If unattended gameplay would yield neither xp nor money and the afk character would forever stay a poor novice entertainer, do you believe a single one of those would do it ?
Second question: As a single entertainer of any level is enough to heal as many people as the server can hold in a certain area, how could it happen that we had plenty of them at release, but we are lacking now ?
PoetDancer wrote: Now the clear fact that many unattended entertainers try and hide the AFK tag through long spans via the option menu only proves that AFK entertaining is seen a shameful act.
Um, I don't want to spoil any big surprises in gameplay for you or anything, but were you aware that there is a checkbox to turn off auto AFK? A lot of us select this by default because we're not eager to get flagged or bumped if the phone rings or we're typing up a bug report. You don't need to mess with the minutes counter.
If it wasn't shameful, then why try and hide it? Why not type /afk so you can let the galaxy know you are not playing, if being AFK was so virtuous?
I don't know about you, but most of the rest of us do use /afk now and then, the difference is having the choice. This is also straying from the original question. Most of the AFK entertainers out there are not ashamed of it in any way, they are doing exactly what they came there to do, there's no deception involved whatsoever. This doesn't do anything to make the non-AFK entertainers happier though! They don't care if you're proud or sneaky about being AFK, they just don't want what they see as unfair competition.
There has been some talk about boring grinds. Try telling a BH about boring grinds, or someone wanting to get TKA. Its actually FUN to gain levels while entertaining, because you get to do what you like to do: display your wit and roleplay skills.
Hey- there are a lot of boring grinds in the game, no doubt about that. (I didn't say that someone might do AFK Entertainer macroingbecause it's the only boring grind in the game, did I.) But the Entertainer grind is unique because it's so passive- and it's the only one where people actually get jealous of each other's levelling.
Not to burst your bubble on this, but 'wit and roleplay skills' belong to everyone in the game. They are no excuse for a meaningless AFK'ish profession grind. I can stand and be witty as heck while my Factory produces Wall modules, or while I sicc Pets on n00b Mobs for the CHXP. So what. Frankly, given a choice between watching Hug'gee Bun'nee (yet another fleshwrapped Twilek - how original) go smoochy-smoochy-smoochy with some obese Bothan, or an AFK Wookiee silently frugging in the corner, I'll let the Wookiee win.
...I as a live player simply cannot compete with an alt that does not need to pay maitenance on her home, who works 24/7, who provides service and buffs and does not require tips to make a living. So tell me, oh wise pro-unattended players, what would you recommend I do to play the profession I love (and am good at), and make a living?
LOL. I laughed when I read this. Not because I disagree, but because we could endlessly argue back and forth that it's out of egoism and not altruism that they're doing it. Anyway, carry on
Karquile wrote:
But they are useful, so people set them up either as part of a Guild arrangement or just out of altruism so that others can benefit.
