Entertainer Archive
Thread: Charm Forum 3: Attentiveness
Page 1 of 1
PoetDancer
Fri Feb 20, 2004 5:37 pm
#1
Here is a link to Charm Forum 2:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=entertainer&message.id=8163
Hello Dears:
I can think of no other skill that an entertaining player must take seriously than attending to the patrons. It is what makes entertaining more than merely pressing F12. Its what gives you the opportunity to roleplay and have fun. It gives you the means to learn more about the important members of your galaxy. Most importantly, its the one thing that unattended entertainers cannot do.
Being attentive means never letting the patron forget that when he or she enters into your cantina, that he or she is more to you than healing XP. Because while other player income is based on the work of purchasing and maintaining harvestors and factories, gathering resources, and performing missions, an entertainer's means of making a living is wholly in the realm ofthe patrons' good sentiment. Therefore, it is imperative that you give each and every patron that enters your cantina the sense that they are better off having the fortune of being at your cantina over another's.
This is no easy feat, and it can be difficult sometimes when a large group comes in to the cantina all at once. Giving each and every patron the personal, individualized attention one would expect fromgalaxy class service can be impossible, but you must make it your mission to give each patron at least something, even if it ammounts to little more than a /tiphat or /wink.
Let us say a wookiee walks into your empty cantina. I would usually be sitting in a chair, I would rise, give the stylized /deepbow, and say, "Hello tall, dark, and furry. May I dance for you?" Of course, what wookiee could resist an offer like that
! Once I have him in the chair, HE'S MINE!
! Once I have him in the chair, HE'S MINE! Tableside service is a lost art, but it can certainly help your career. If you are currently servicing a client by tableside, and an armouredhuman comes in,simply give him a /smile and say, "Over here tall, dark, and heavily armoured!" Now you can play with both the wookiee AND the human! Of course, if you are male, you may want to think of something else to say, but there are plenty of things to greet with using your imagination.
It helps if you can provide what I call a "turning emote," or an animated social command that makes you turn your avatar toward your patron. My favorites are /wink, /smile, /eyebrow, /glare, /grin, /accuse, /comfort, /grin, /laugh, and /tap. Indeed, you would do well to look at the wide range of emotes in your repertoire, and know which ones actually shift your body, and which do not. Some, like /comfort, do not shift your body toward your target, and are useful exactly because of this feature.
However, its important to know that attentiveness does not end with the greeting. Indeed, while the patrons are in your care, you must constantly think about things to talk about while you are animating, be it music or dance. Try and stay away from real life things. That is to say, if you ask a question like, "where are you from, stranger?," and the reply is, "Hammond, Indiana," give a gentle reminder that it is not the answer you were looking for by saying, "In the GAME, Silly ."
."Also, try and keep it in spatial. Because although I understand that the cantina can be filled with a lot of spam and chatter, your spatial responses are a good advertisement to the seriousnesswith which you take your attentive service. If you are having one hoot of a spatial conversation with a patron, then it says to everyone else, "Geez! I want to go to SIRII's TABLE! She makes the cantina FUN!" Use /tells only for secrets and thank you notes.
Talk about where the patron is from. Talk about where you are from. Have an opinion about all the planets your character has been to. Sirii's opinion of Naboo is that she can't get over the fact that Naboo has green grass. While this may sound silly, if you consider that Sirii was born and raised on Corellia, it makes sense, no? Have an opinion about the places you have been, the people you have seen, the content that you have explored. Allow the patron to share his or her own experiences about the same. Indeed, use the experiences you have heard from other patrons to have more to talk about. If that wookiee that is at your table is going to the Rebel Base, say to him, "I had a guy come in here with half his mind blown away because he ran into Lord Nyax's boys out that way." It will help your patron, and most importantly, it will help YOU.
Now the point of this is not to figure out the best thing to talk about, but just be able to talk about something; never to stop the attentive conversation between entertainer and patron(s). Because I don't care how high a players BF level is, or how efficient the entertainer is at removing BF, if they are in anattentive and thought provoking conversation, the BF is gone long before the patron really wants to leave. And the psychological effect on the patron is nothing short of amazement at the quality of your service. And the patron cannot help but tip you as much as he or she is able for providing them with an immersive experience to replace the slow, tedious BF healing process with something far more interesting. Just make sure that when they tip you, send a thank you through the /tell, so as to not embarass him or yourself, or make the other entertainers jealous. This serves two functions: it dispels the problem of "no more attention after payment is rendered syndrome," that many patrons are concerned about, as well as gives the patron a little reminder that he's not alone in the big-sometimes cruel-galaxy.
Other players go to work by scrambling to get resources or complete missions. Luckily, you do not have to do these things as an entertainer. What you MUST DO however is be attentive to your patrons EACH time, and EVERY time you step foot inside a cantina, for EVERY patron ALL the time CONSTANTLY. Why is it so important?
The problem is that AFK entertainers and many ATK entertainers seem to believe that attentiveness has very little to do with the entertainment professions. They do not greet at the door, and if they do, it seldom goes beyond that. They do not constantly give the patron things to talk about. What this does is leave the patrons with little else other than the mechanized flourishes and periodical spam. It reaffirms in the patrons mind that he or she is little more than a vehicle to dole out XP, and this causes resentment. And the patrons will not only not tip you, but they will HATE you for having to sit around and watch their BF meter go down while you talk about how fat Marjeli's backside looks in her new leotard in your own private groupchat while they have to go out and gather 10,000 more units of wooly hide. And THAT's why it is so important to understand that the patrons must be attended to.
The standard I set for myself in this regard is that EVERY patron, from the 50crednoob to the 50k weaponsmith mogul must be treated with the same attentive service as the Emperor himself. And with a little effort to think about new things to amuse your patrons, you can be an entertainer worthy of an Emperor too!
NJ62
Fri Feb 20, 2004 5:44 pm
#2
Also, you can turn toward the patron without an emote by shifting to first person view and rotating. Very handy.
KoraJubali
Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:00 pm
#3
In my cantina and when I'm in bands, it really helps me to have the rest of the group helping with the patron interaction. The crowd at my cantina is generally light, but when I played in Coronet and sometimes on Monday nights it helps tohave the rest of the entertainers catching any people I might not notice walking in.
Poet has nailed it. We sell enjoyment and imersive atmosphere. There is no better way to start that atmosphere and enjoyment than by personal interaction.
Eaca
Sat Feb 21, 2004 6:08 am
#4
Turn on chase camera by hitting the . key on the num pad. This forces your character to always look away from the camera. This with lyrical or formal dance styles can let you actually dance around instead of randomly all over the place. A little practice and you dance all the way around a cantina.
NJ62
Sat Feb 21, 2004 8:09 am
#5
I hate looking at the back of my own head. I'm just too cute for that
nvoigt
Sat Feb 21, 2004 1:54 pm
#6
Another tip: If you want to use a turning emote like /smile, but don't want to turn, it helps to know the in-game text for /smile. Just do "/emote smiles at MrX" instead of "/smile MrX" and you will not turn but produce the same line in spatial. The manual emoting will produce a chat bubble though, so some people will notice the difference.
Kyorlana
Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:53 am
#7
PoetDancer wrote:
Try and stay away from real life things. That is to say, if you ask a question like, "where are you from, stranger?," and the reply is, "Hammond, Indiana," give a gentle reminder that it is not the answer you were looking for by saying, "In the GAME, Silly
Just a small thing I do differently here, as a rper I do keep things in character so rather than giving the response you use in the example above, I'd say something like...
K'vera gives %NT a confused look
/confused "Indiana? I've never heard of that before... which system is it in?"
That kindof response keeps me in character and also gives them the message that I am wanting them to join me in some good old rp Of course you get those who say "IRL silly"in which case I play the ignorant rper game with "IRL?" etc or send a private tell explaining the concept of rp.
Page 1 of 1