Entertainer Archive
Thread: Stop the AFK Hate
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Thraggeriffic
Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:38 am
#1
I know that AFK'ers are annoying, but all the hate on here needs to stop. The devs have made it clear by now that they won't do anything to explicitly stop them (and why would they? Several people pay an extra $15 / mo. to have an alt ready to AFK buff them at a moments notice. Why make a change and lose that additional revenue?), so we might as well just learn to live with them.
What are the biggest grievances against AFKers?
They are akin to killstealers. This is true depending on what you define as the entertainer equivalent of 'killing'. Combat types hate killstealers because they can prevent someone from getting xp, money, loot, and possibly completing a quest. Plus, they deny them the joy of the kill. As entertainers, we don't get loot and an AFK bot cannot affect our ability to complete a quest, so we are affected as far as not getting appropriate xp and/or money.
An AFK bot cannot stop you from getting Musical/Dancer xp. You get that for performing and flourishing, regardless of the size of your audience. The only experience that AFK'ers can deny ATK players is Healing xp. If injured people don't watch/listen to us, we won't get that xp. Furthermore, if people don't watch/listen to us, they can't tip us. (And even if they do tip us, because people know that they can get it for free from an AFK-bot, the tips are probably lower. AFK bots do affect the economy.)
But, as entertainers, should we be concerned about not getting a certain type of xp, or not getting a certain amount of money? Is that why we selected this profession? To just focus on advancement and riches? If as an entertainer our only concern is to get to that next skill rank, and to master our profession, then how are we any different from the holo-grinders or the AFK'ers? I understand that people want to be able to offer the full range of services (variety of songs/instruments/dances and the best buffs), but why are we in such a rush? As entertainers, we're going to be performing no matter what, so why should a denial of xp concern us? We're going to be performing anyway, and we know we'll get there eventually. AFK'ers may slow us down from being able to put a special title over our heads, but they won't stop us. The only way that this becomes a problem is if you don't like engaging in the entertainment aspect; if you don't like playing your instrument or dancing. And if you don't like that, then why are you an entertainer?
Well, AFK'ers are killstealers in the sense that they steal our audience. Without an audience, who are we performing to, and how are we supposed to make money? Again, this is true to an extent. If you are alone in a cantina, and all the players are at another cantina full of AFK-bots, then there isn't much you can do. But if you are in a cantina with the AFK-bots, there's no reason for you to not have an audience. Yes, technically everyone in the area may be \listening or \watching the afk-bot instead of you, but unless the technology in SWG is vastly different than what we are familiar with, there's no reason to roleplay that everyone can hear/see you, even if they aren't focused on you. By enlisting in this profession, I'm presuming that your goal is to entertain people, and so long as someone is within earshot/eyesight, there's no reason you can't do that. If someone enters the cantina and focuses on the buffbot, engage them in conversation anyway. Chat with them. Do what you would do as if they were a client of your own -- engage in the 'social playstyle' that the entertainer profession is supposed to allow and encourage. There's nothing the AFK-bot can do to disrupt this (except the occasional spam, which you can ignore). Even if you don't get the xp and the tip, you should be getting the reward of having successfully entertained someone. Plus, once people see how legitimately entertaining ATK people can be, you may have won over a client when they return.
But what about the money? How are you supposed to buy stuff if you have no money? What are you trying to buy? As an entertainer, all we need is an instrument, and that's only if we are a musician. There's nothing we need beyond that that we need to pay for, and if there's anything else that we want, then either we patiently wait till we can afford something, or we may have to take up a new profession anyway. (Even if you master all entertainer, musician, and dancer, you still have 47 sp to throw into another profession to generate revenue.) But even if you want to maintain being a strict entertainer, so long as you can entertain people, why should you care what physical items you have? Maybe you can't afford maintainence on a house, or maybe you can't immediately afford that sweet nargalon or dance outfit, but so long as you have slitherhorn or your underwear, there's nothing stopping you from performing.
Basically, the problem with AFK-bots is that they make it take longer for the 'real' entertainers to achieve certain goals. But when you enjoy the ride, do you care how long the trip takes? We need to stop focusing on the AFK'ers and buffbots, and start focusing on ourselves. If they are really ruining the profession for us, then maybe we shouldn't be entertainers.
What are the biggest grievances against AFKers?
They are akin to killstealers. This is true depending on what you define as the entertainer equivalent of 'killing'. Combat types hate killstealers because they can prevent someone from getting xp, money, loot, and possibly completing a quest. Plus, they deny them the joy of the kill. As entertainers, we don't get loot and an AFK bot cannot affect our ability to complete a quest, so we are affected as far as not getting appropriate xp and/or money.
An AFK bot cannot stop you from getting Musical/Dancer xp. You get that for performing and flourishing, regardless of the size of your audience. The only experience that AFK'ers can deny ATK players is Healing xp. If injured people don't watch/listen to us, we won't get that xp. Furthermore, if people don't watch/listen to us, they can't tip us. (And even if they do tip us, because people know that they can get it for free from an AFK-bot, the tips are probably lower. AFK bots do affect the economy.)
But, as entertainers, should we be concerned about not getting a certain type of xp, or not getting a certain amount of money? Is that why we selected this profession? To just focus on advancement and riches? If as an entertainer our only concern is to get to that next skill rank, and to master our profession, then how are we any different from the holo-grinders or the AFK'ers? I understand that people want to be able to offer the full range of services (variety of songs/instruments/dances and the best buffs), but why are we in such a rush? As entertainers, we're going to be performing no matter what, so why should a denial of xp concern us? We're going to be performing anyway, and we know we'll get there eventually. AFK'ers may slow us down from being able to put a special title over our heads, but they won't stop us. The only way that this becomes a problem is if you don't like engaging in the entertainment aspect; if you don't like playing your instrument or dancing. And if you don't like that, then why are you an entertainer?
Well, AFK'ers are killstealers in the sense that they steal our audience. Without an audience, who are we performing to, and how are we supposed to make money? Again, this is true to an extent. If you are alone in a cantina, and all the players are at another cantina full of AFK-bots, then there isn't much you can do. But if you are in a cantina with the AFK-bots, there's no reason for you to not have an audience. Yes, technically everyone in the area may be \listening or \watching the afk-bot instead of you, but unless the technology in SWG is vastly different than what we are familiar with, there's no reason to roleplay that everyone can hear/see you, even if they aren't focused on you. By enlisting in this profession, I'm presuming that your goal is to entertain people, and so long as someone is within earshot/eyesight, there's no reason you can't do that. If someone enters the cantina and focuses on the buffbot, engage them in conversation anyway. Chat with them. Do what you would do as if they were a client of your own -- engage in the 'social playstyle' that the entertainer profession is supposed to allow and encourage. There's nothing the AFK-bot can do to disrupt this (except the occasional spam, which you can ignore). Even if you don't get the xp and the tip, you should be getting the reward of having successfully entertained someone. Plus, once people see how legitimately entertaining ATK people can be, you may have won over a client when they return.
But what about the money? How are you supposed to buy stuff if you have no money? What are you trying to buy? As an entertainer, all we need is an instrument, and that's only if we are a musician. There's nothing we need beyond that that we need to pay for, and if there's anything else that we want, then either we patiently wait till we can afford something, or we may have to take up a new profession anyway. (Even if you master all entertainer, musician, and dancer, you still have 47 sp to throw into another profession to generate revenue.) But even if you want to maintain being a strict entertainer, so long as you can entertain people, why should you care what physical items you have? Maybe you can't afford maintainence on a house, or maybe you can't immediately afford that sweet nargalon or dance outfit, but so long as you have slitherhorn or your underwear, there's nothing stopping you from performing.
Basically, the problem with AFK-bots is that they make it take longer for the 'real' entertainers to achieve certain goals. But when you enjoy the ride, do you care how long the trip takes? We need to stop focusing on the AFK'ers and buffbots, and start focusing on ourselves. If they are really ruining the profession for us, then maybe we shouldn't be entertainers.
Beery
Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:49 am
#2
"I know that AFK'ers are annoying, but all the hate on here needs to stop."
What hate? I don't see any hatred here. All I see is a bunch of players trying to minimize the use of a pretty widely-used exploit - one that, in some cases costs the rest of us money and fun. There's nothing hateful about wanting to stopthe abuse.
Atiknin
Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:52 am
#3
Thraggeriffic wrote:
Basically, the problem with AFK-bots is that they make it take longer for the 'real' entertainers to achieve certain goals. But when you enjoy the ride, do you care how long the trip takes? We need to stop focusing on the AFK'ers and buffbots, and start focusing on ourselves. If they are really ruining the profession for us, then maybe we shouldn't be entertainers.
I respectfully disagree. The real problem with AFK entertainers is that they devalue all entertainers. Other players treat us as though we're foolishly adhering to a profession better serviced by automated healing vendors. In a thread on the Chilastra board on buff bots, my impression is that many of the combat classes despise having to get mind wounds/BF healed. More than that, they place no value on the services an entertainer provides, because a machine, no different than an NPC or vendor, can perform the same service that we do.
I'm a Master Entertainer, Master Musician -- I don't care at all about XP. For that matter, I don't care about money. If I did, I'd play a combat profession, or just buy the credits off of a web site (which is against the terms of service, but SOE does nothing about them, either). I do care about being treated with some modicum of respect. I do care about continuing to enjoy a game that I have participated in since beta 2 (November 2002).
If buffbots can perform our jobs, and other players continue to patronize them, or worse, to prefer them over human entertainers, then why have entertainers in the game at all?
Gramon Blatt, ME/MM
Imcus
Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:55 am
#4
Buff-bots are taking away the main source of income that a dedicated entertainer has. This is the biggest problem we face. The good thing is AFKingis effecting many professions now. I actuallyenjoy traveling by a static spawn spot nowadays and listening to the 'fighter types' complaining about the AFKers parked on a spawn site killing and looting for hours on end. Serves them right... they can get buffed by their private buff-bot, but at least now they can't just park themselves on a spawn site and loot till they get the item they are looking for. As AFKing finally works it's way into more and more situations we will hopefully hear a larger outcry to have it removed from the game.
Liani
Wed Jul 28, 2004 11:56 am
#5
I do not hate afk entertainers.
But they do NOTHING to enhance the game.
In my opinion, this option should be removed from the game.
Then, we should all pay a fair rate for buffs and heals....based on the local market price.
Liani
xTown
Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:01 pm
#6
I never cared about money, and somehow always had enough. It's not money.
It's not the amount of xp. At least, not by itself.
It's not the loss of audience as such, either.
It's the loss of community. There's no one to talk to. Combat types come into a cantina, stand there, ignore the greeting I give, and leave. Zombies spam "Plz invtie meh 2 grp if not alredy" and "Heal me! Tips appreciated! thx!" and are otherwise silent. When I started entertaining, I genuinely loved the interplay between all of the live entertainers and the customers. It made entertaining fun. It made entertaining something I wanted to do.
It no longer is. I derive as much enjoyment from cantinas (large and small, NPC city and player city) as I do from entertaining absolutely nobody behind the closed doors of my house, which is to say none at all. As one of a vanishing breed--the 100% ATK entertainer--I no longer feel the desire to take the time to earn the couple of million xp to master Dancer and Musician if that time has to be spent in spammed, silent solitude.
That! is what AFKers have taken. They've taken the fun.
It's not the amount of xp. At least, not by itself.
It's not the loss of audience as such, either.
It's the loss of community. There's no one to talk to. Combat types come into a cantina, stand there, ignore the greeting I give, and leave. Zombies spam "Plz invtie meh 2 grp if not alredy" and "Heal me! Tips appreciated! thx!" and are otherwise silent. When I started entertaining, I genuinely loved the interplay between all of the live entertainers and the customers. It made entertaining fun. It made entertaining something I wanted to do.
It no longer is. I derive as much enjoyment from cantinas (large and small, NPC city and player city) as I do from entertaining absolutely nobody behind the closed doors of my house, which is to say none at all. As one of a vanishing breed--the 100% ATK entertainer--I no longer feel the desire to take the time to earn the couple of million xp to master Dancer and Musician if that time has to be spent in spammed, silent solitude.
That! is what AFKers have taken. They've taken the fun.
Utess
Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:25 pm
#7
^^ That is how I feel too. They most definitely *do* have an economic and xp impact for regular entertainers. But money has never been an issue for me, and xp can always be found, it just might not be ideal. What afk buff bots and afk entertainers have done is take the heart and soul out of this profession and ruined the experience for many.
Gone are the days when players would use a cantina as a cantina. Gone are the days of talking with other entertainers in the cantinas, trying out routines, making close long life friends.
Do you know what my happiest days as an entertainer and dancer were? It was when I first joined Test Center back in December and made it my permenant home. Back then there were no more than 4 master dancers on the entire server. That is including the correspondant! I found a nice little player cantina by chance, there, 3 to 4 of us were working on Master Dancer. A few more came later. We spent a month to a month and a half working on Master Dancer. We would sit there and chat, discuss our future plans, try out routines, and just have fun.
Players would come into the cantina and sit down and talk with us, sometimes for a good hour or more just to relax and talk. There was no kiddy attitudes and language. No "leet speak". It was everything that entertainer was designed for, and it was the most wonderful time I've ever had in this game. We even afked believe it or not! But it wasn't a 24/7 afk. It wasn't even regular. A lot of times we would just log. But, every now and again, maybe once or twice a week, we would afk when we went to bed and the rest of the server was asleep. Then, either log out in the morning or start playing again. And that felt perfectly alright.
*That* is how entertainer should be, and the xp macroers and buff bots have stolen all that away from entertainers. I count all those entertainers I leveled with and thehandful ofexisting ones who would come dance with us and share their wisdomamong my best and closest friends. How many entertainers leveling today can remember their time leveling fondly, or count on one hand the close friends that they made? That is what is wrong with afking. It has stripped the social aspect of a "social profession" completely away and made what was intended to be the social hub of the game, into a healing and buffing droid factory.
Beery
Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:51 pm
#8
"I never cared about money, and somehow always had enough. It's not money."
Well it's those who always feel theyhave enough who never have toworry about it. For me, it's mainlythe money. If I can't make enough money, I can't buy raw materials, and if I can't buy raw materials I can't level. Also, if I have no money I can't keep a house. I have a secondary profession that requires a big budget and which doesn't start paying me back until I master it, and so I'm working from paychecdk to paycheck. If an AFKbuffbot parks in my town, I'm stuck.
Amida_Enterprises
Wed Jul 28, 2004 4:36 pm
#9
I started the game as a combat class.. brawler cause I think there's more honour in it, then TK cause.. well, they look so cewl when they sit down to meditate 
When I was playing I met a few dancers, joined them when they went to an atk party at one's house and the game never was the same again! I just found so much social play there which is just impossible in combat..
My starting out as a combat character made it quite easy for me to gain the money I need.. it's the people who start this game specifically as entertainer who are hurt the most! They get all the bad comments and experiences and close to no tips! Why ? Because the entire scene has been infected, only the people who value friendship over credits stay true to the game.. who these days respects atk entertainment ? people that have been there themselves.. or the real roleplayers who share our dislike for the lifeless nature of AFK/Buffbotting..
I've seen time and again that some people honest to god really support atk entertainment by giving incredible tips to EVERY atk entertainer in the cantina, top I've seen was a guy running around giving 100k per person, then when I /told him I just loved his attitude he said he was running off to the next town to do the same 
ATK isn't dead, just very very sick and for financial reasons the developers refuse to inject the antidotes.. a mentality I think is even worse then the buffbots themselves but hey, who am I ?
)
lycanthropy
Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:46 pm
#10
Going AFK should disable your avatar until you return to your computer.
i am not an entertainer, but 80% of my friends and customers are dancers and musicians who
accually roleplay the profession, not set up their avatar to dance for hours while they
watch TV! you end up cheering and clapping for some bot that isnt even aware you admire
their dancing or musician skills!
MaiMai
Wed Jul 28, 2004 7:37 pm
#11
There are hates every where 
Mai often afk in some town just for the heck of it. Mai thought that would be nice since Mai can't place and let Musician (master) on so people can heal their BF... Mai does not know the macro to be an AFK buffbot and even if Mai does know it, Mai would not do it... If Mai is there, then mai will buff. Other than that, sorry no buffbot... Any way, some people just banned Mai from their cities for no particular reason...
Why? Mai is competing with their entertainers in town?
- Mai hardly thinks so... the town is dead but travellers, hunters and adventurers... who just stop by to get missions now and then.
- no entertainer in cantina at all
- Mai was not even any where near the cantina so there is no competition to their entertainers if there is any in town.
Another thing, Mai noticed some people who go around telling other that they hate AFK entertainers and they often come to them to heal their BF.... Mai over heard this one person and later he was the one came crawling to Mai for healing while Mai was AFK...
What is it about AFK entertainers that people hate so much? Not all of them spamming while AFK?
Not all of them are grinders... Mai is not a grinder...
Amythen
Wed Jul 28, 2004 10:57 pm
#13
You don't think we have a right to hate those that have utterly destroyed our beloved profession?
There are many reasons that entertainers love to perform live for their community. I could go on and list them all, but to keep this post short, I'd venture to guess that 80% of the reasons entertainers love to play are negatively effected by AFK-macroing-buffbots.
Thraggeriffic wrote:
I know that AFK'ers are annoying, but all the hate on here needs to stop. The devs have made it clear by now that they won't do anything to explicitly stop them (and why would they? Several people pay an extra $15 / mo. to have an alt ready to AFK buff them at a moments notice. Why make a change and lose that additional revenue?), so we might as well just learn to live with them.
What makes you think SOE should, or do,prefer AFK accounts over live playing accounts? I have to doubt that the AFKer's accounts out weigh the nearcomplete loss of a whole branch of their target audience. SOE touted SWG as being the first to have gameplay designed for social gameplay. Do you really think they have abandoned their baby? There is no way, AFK accounts offset the losses of players that they have had simply since the day they added to the holocron that AFK macroing players were not a problem for community would not attempt to stop them.
Here are some really rough numbers; It has been estimated that at one point there were 40,000 entertainers in the game. Right now, according to the MM black book thread on Musician Forum there are 382 master musicians. Thats only .9%. What does that mean? Well, the way I see it, there is some great deterent for players to consistantly hold on to just one of 4 of the possible master professions of the entertainer branch of the skills tree. Why is that? Well, I think you have picked the number 2 reason. A very major problem, that makes it hard to have fun with our social professions, since there is practically no one left that wants to socialize with us. They are all AFK or too annoyed that they have to waitfor theirhealing.
Another good question, which you later touched on, is why should we continue to be entertainers if the profession is no longer fun? Frankly, I'm not really sure anymore. I can tell you, that the only reason why I am here, is because I was duped. Five months ago, like many other musicians that I once knew, quit the game, because we could only see the game continuing to get worse in all aspects of our profession. All of the content that the development team kept adding was broken, we rarely got any kind of respect for our profession, holocrons came and suddenly everyone was taking up real estate that we once played in, and none of the development could promise us new ways to perform our arts, to say the least. So now, just over a week or so ago, I by chance spotted a post in the Musician Forum titled "New Music in Publish 10!". I was overjoyed, somewhat drunken by the prospect I signed right back up just in case I could not reclaim my old account, and I could still be ready for those new songs that were on the way. I signed up for a whole three months right on the spot! Imagine it, more music! LIES!!!! Publish 10 is not going to recieve the attention it requires in order to new music, all of the development resources are getting diverted to JtL. Well, you know what, because of proof that there are still idiots like you, who do not undestand what it is to be a good entertainer, the other players that couldn't give a rats ass about us thanks to your defenseless AFK entertainers, and the lack of any understanding of our profession by the development team, I am leaving once again! As soon as my 3 months are up, I am out of here, and I doubt I will bother to keep logging for that long.
So, do you still think we shouldn't be hateful of our bane which could easily be ended and no is willing to help us end it, even if it means a better game for everyone involved? Look, read the thread "thread on Sunrunner!
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Sunrunner&message.id=142482
They don't care one lick, except about themselves!
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