Entertainer Archive
Thread: Should AFK entertaining really be a top five issue?
I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
To me, this appears to be a social problem and social problems are rarely solved using game mechanics. They're solved by educating the community and, hopefully, rallying them to your cause.
I see evidence that this community education is working to a great extent. Having so many holocron chasers has probably helped because it has brought the profession onto the radar of a lot of people who might otherwise never think about it. Folks come into the venue and ask questions to find out who's "awake" and then give those people preferential treatment. AFK folks tend to spend more time in the crowded cantinas where it matters less instead of taking up prime floor space in the smaller, more profitable cantinas.
The problem hasn't gone away and will likely NEVER go away. We have to face that. But people are at least getting sensitive about it.
I'm pursuing this as a correspondent because I see it as a concern of the profession. My personal opinion, though, is that we can't solve this with game mechanics. There seem to be very few game mechanics that can affect only AFK entertainers. The proposed mechanics nearly always affect an at-keyboard entertainer as much or more than the AFK entertainer. When you're putting on an organized performance as a band or dance troupe, the last thing you want to be dealing with is popup boxes and other assorted distractions.
I'd like to get your input here. Should we really be pursuing this as a problem that we want the developers to try and solve for us using game mechanics? Why or why not? If you think we SHOULD keep it as a top five issue, do you have a suggestion for how to deal with it that doesn't include some mechanism to block the execution of a macro? IMO, there are just too many legitimate uses for macros in our profession for a macro-blocking mechanic to be a reasonable solution to the problem. (Heck, even putting a bandflourish command on a hotkey is, in essence, a one-line macro.)
Of course, in my opinion, any macro that helps anyone in any profession reach mastery by removing a large part of the effort and work involved needs to be removed.
To me, it's not just about tips or cash or having customers give preferential treatment to the at keyboard folks. It's about cantinas, which used to be lively places, becoming graveyards filled with zombies. It's just not fun anymore.
Is there a solution? Of course there is. A very simple one. Disable the ability to loop any macro. It'd take a developer about 10 minutes to make the change, I'm sure, but they'll never do it. Why? Because the outcry would be too large. These devs are scared. They're bullied by the community badly.
And don't tell me the ability to macro would be hurt by removing the ability to loop them. I've made macros that don't loop that can last quite some time. Yeah, you may have to press a single key once in a while. Wow, that's a lot of work.
In short, yes, there IS something they can do game-mechanic wise to fix the problem instantly. I would pose this challenge...give me a good reason why macros being able to loop is critical in any way to the game when you can already create a rather lengthy macro or an alias.
- J
I was composing an e-mail to send to another entertainer this morning about AFK macroing (I do it myself, but I try to abide by Miss Manners' Polite Rules to AFK Macro Performing). I included the line "It's too bad we can't make recordings!" and it hit me...why can't we? Doctors can make woundpacks and sell them on the Bazzar to others with basic Medic skills. So...I think I've come up with a way to abolish AFK entertaining:
Video recordings for Dancers, audio for Musicians. When you get a new song/dance, you get a schematic to 'record' a performance. Made out of polymer and metal. Experimental effectiveness based on Overall Quality and Decay Resistance stats of resources. Must be used in a cantina, hotel, theatre, amphitheatre or scout's camp (the latter only healing mind wounds). You know, exactly the same way medics' woundpacks work, combined with how our skills work. One shot deals, like pet vitality medpacks. Give us Entertainment Healing xp when it's used. Entertainment Healing can give the experimentation points for making the recordings better. It would give us something to sell on the Bazzar, and a way to earn xp while not at our keyboards, like almost every other profession.
Also...Cantinas are boring, ugly, ill-thought-outplaces to be stuck for hours and hours on end. Kinda like Med Centers. How come Medics can heal running around the city, but I can't? Because they have droids. Why aren't there modules for droids that are 'speakers' and allow us to have a small range of Entertainment healing, like Medics? Do not give me some old wheeze about...well, about anything. If Medics can do it, we should be able to, too. Quit trying to keep me barefoot, fleshwrapped and bored in the Cantina. It's obvious that the devs don't have a whole lot of respect for the Entertaining professions. (Red Light District? Not able to do anything but engage in a graphical chatroom?) But they designed the system, and I think it's incumbent upon them to make it a viable profession as compared to others.
We are the Medics of the mind. Treat us like it. Maybe then people will be interested enough to stay at their keyboards.
Just an opinion from an observer.
AFK macroing is a problem with all professions. The fix would be something that spans all professions. The devs aren't going to spend time creating a solution for each of the 30ish professions.
Because of this, fixing this problem is a very large task. As I've never done an entertaining profession I'm not going to tell you want to do or what not to do. However, in my other professions I would much rather have bugs and other smaller issues worked on first rather than waiting 2+ months for a fix on something. Little fixes for other problems show that the devs are actually working on x profession. Working on something for 2 months makes it look like they don't care and your just getting ignored.
AFK lvling is a problem, but I don't see how it affects how someone else enjoys the game. You can't macro any high end profession at master. You can only macro up to Master. What you do at master shows how good you are at that profession. I don't know why anyone would give someone credit for mastering something in 5 hours using a macro. I'm not going to have a person that made Mast Arch in 6 hours annoy me even though it took me 2 months.
"We are the Medics of the mind."
No we're not. We're entertainers, the socializer's profession. Medics are something completely different. Mind healing and battle fatigue are creative game mechanics designed to collect people in one place so we can socialize. Healing the mind is a means to an end, not the end itself.
Anyway, getting back on topic, I don't want the answer to the AFK problem to be "let's just kill the cantinas and get all the entertainers out of there". I like the concept of the cantina, and have great hope for the player cantinas. Once upon a time cantinas were a heck of a lot of fun to be in. AFKing (and certain other elements) has changed that. Let's not cure the disease by killing the patient.
- J
"I don't know why anyone would give someone credit for mastering something in 5 hours using a macro."
For an entertainer, those two statements contradict one another. We make our living via tips...gifts from other players. Other players are not going to give tips to people they perceive don't deserve it.
Also, the entire ambiance of the cantina, once a source of fun, is now dead in most place, thus killing the fun. So yes, speaking personally, the AFKers very much affect my enjoyment of the game in a negative way. Do you still see no problem with it?
While this problem exists in many professions it is highlighted in the entertainer professions due to the above issues.
- J
I have to disagree somewhat. Entertaining is not just a Socializer profession. It's also a Healing profession, with a seriously social bent, and some artistic flair. Limiting it to the Cantina, however, I think dooms it to failure. Yes, Cantinas should be a place for social activity. I strongly disagree that we should be locked in there, though. That, I think, along with the ability still on the live servers to loop macros, is what has made Entertaining Not Fun (tm). If all I was interested in was chatting, I'd be in an AOL chatroom (I think...I've never been in one. I shudder at the thought of all that inna.) Trying to make a game that's primarily based on socialization makes the game boring as hell. I beta-tested and played The Sims Online for a couple months, and it's nothing more than a series of 18-19 person chatrooms. Bo-ring. There also needs to be content to keep people interested. While yes, we can master other professions and go do them, that sort of explains why Cantinas are dimly lit zombie havens now, doesn't it? 'Cause just standing in one place is boring. Give me the ability to stand other places (like the starport...traffic there is guaranteed and always will be, unless the Space expansion is going to give people the ability to bypass ships as a means of transport between planets). And give me the ability to pass my healing on to others in a portable form.
Without those kinds of changes to the basic functionality of the performing professions, I think they're doomed. And I really enjoy them...been doing it since beta3. The very first character I ever created was an Entertainer/Medic named Tarot Panacea on Bria during beta. But the system the way it stands right now is, in my never-humble opinion, doomed to failure for no other reason than fickle human nature.
And no, I don't think this is off-topic. I think this is the root of the problem. Why do people AFK macro through Entertainment? Figure that out, find a solution to that, and then you solve the problem.
People AFK macro through the profession because they think doing exotic or playing virtuoso on a Nalargon is more fun then basic or playing Starwars1 on a Slitherhorn, well it's not...
I've been having fun since I walked into my first cantina, Lucky Despot Inn after a 30 minute run from Mos Espa becauseI didn't know you could take a shuttle, and during my past 2 month trip I picked up more tools so I can have more diversity in how I have fun.
What about houses? What would you say if people kept going into each others houses? Is that a social issue or a mechanics issue? Would you try to combat that by trying to teach people that it is your house, or would you just put a lock on your door? I don't know about you but I'd just put a lock on my door. Sure, a lock can be bypassed if you know how... But it's presense is a deterrant. Someone that might otherwise be an honest person won't be tempted to go in. Someone who is intent on stealing would just throw a brick through the window anyway. By putting in something to stop people from doing it, those who would otherwise be good entertainers enjoying the class wouldn't be tempted to use a macro to catch up to the masters. Sure, the block on in-game macros can be bypassed if you know how (And I don't mean by working around the system... For sake of argument I'm assuming the block is complete and successful.. I mean by using a 3rd party macro program.) but it will be enough of a deterrant to keep the casual player from doing it. And those that do will be obvious to spot and up for a warning from a CSR.
So yes, I say keep it on the top 5 issues.
As to a way to fix it.. Well there actually already is a mechanic in place to prevent aliases from calling themselves. Give it a try. However it's prone to errors. I've had it trigger on aliases calling other aliases, not themselves. I've proposed this in the past. It's something I have actually implemented in a MUD style game... So this is a bit technical of an explanation...
The idea is that you keep a counter as part of the macro execution context. When you issue a command (Hit a hotkey, type it in, or otherwise manually trigger it) a new execution context is created (This is something I'm going to assume is already done) with the counter initialized to 0. Every time a new macro is executed, it initializes it's counter to one more than the value of the context that called it. If the counter ever reaches a certain threshhold (Say around 5) the macro execution is aborted before it starts.
So in psuedocode it would look like this, assuming the execution is an event driven system.
Execute new macro (command list, recursion counter)
If counter > 5 abort execution
Create new context
Store command list in context
Set recusion counter in new context to counter + 1
Place context onto event queue as pending execution
Return success
Execute chat window commands (command list)
Create new context
Store command list in context
Set recusion counter in new context to 0
Place context onto event queue as pending execution
Return success
This prevents macros from running indefinately while still allowing quite a bit of flexibility and creativity.