Entertainer Archive

Some of this has already been addressed, some of this no one gives a **edit** about. I'm mostly posting to get all of it out of my head - since if I never say anything, no one's ever going to hear about it - and if you agree, feel free to share thoughts. If you don't, then you have my sincerest apologies for wasting three minutes of your time, and I hope you go on to live a happy and productive life.

After a gyro sandwich, two glasses of cranberry juice, and filling out at least twelve different job applications, I hopped on Star Wars to run around with my entertainer on Shadowfire for ten minutes and underwent an epiphany. I barely entertain with Venev anymore - I tend to my harvesters. I sell what my harvesters earn on the bazaar. Upon making money, I buy one or two more harvesters, and then blow the rest on clothes. I've tried to get back into dancing, and find myself bored. Where's the entertainment in the entertainer profession?

The entertainers rely ENITRELY on other people for money and for fun. We play a game to enjoy ourselves, right? Right. The entertainer class is essentially for those who like both the social aspect of chatting and role-playing and the bells and whistles of an MMORPG. Don't know if anyone's noticed, but there are people on Star Wars that would die before they'd role-play, and I'd say a good 50% of the players use MMORPGs as their preferred hobby due to a lack of social skills. This does not prove conducive to a fun environment for those of us hanging out in a cantina - which, while people have had VERY creative ideas on how to instill some enjoyment into the profession, it's difficult to arrange those every single day while grinding for XP to get master.

Here's my vision of what the Entertainer profession SHOULD be:

Lower Experience: The people who are going to macro to master will do so whether the XP requirements are 10,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000. Give those of us that are working our way up manually a break - to get decent XP, we must play the same song or do the same dance right up to the next level. Entertainment healing XP, due to the decay patch, has more people cloning - cutting people in need of mind heals pretty much in half. I have performed in the Theed cantina for 3 hours with my new entertainer on BRIA (one of the biggest servers) during peak hours and did not receive ANY healing experience.

Factional Entertainer Missions: We've all seen the old movies that show an army base full of men on leave with some gorgeous dancer or singer doing a gig in the middle of it. Why not carry it over into the GCW? Have an option for entertainers in the faction mission terminals, which either requires them to go to a factional base, or sets up a base in the middle of the wilderness (a la combat missions) and perform for the soldiers there. After fifteen or so minutes, they receive payment and faction points calculated by how many NPCs were in viewing range of the entertainer. Otherwise, for my Bothan Imperial, doing delivery missions just to get that Imperial couch is going to take a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time.

Raise Entertainer Missions: Well-known problem. Just base it off entertainer skill. Don't have to make me a millionaire off it or anything. Just enough that it at least takes into account it'll usually end up being split between a dozen people...

Separate Window for Tips: It's annoying to miss it when somebody tips me, and then start whining about 'ungrateful #(*@(@ entertainers!!!!!'

NPC Recognition: I don't know how hard it would be to program into Star Wars, but it's been done in other games very easily to take profession into account. I want fanboys. I want to click on an NPC in the cantina, and have him go "You're... you're... ohmigosh! I'm your biggest fan! Can I have your autograph??" Stroke the entertainer ego. About the best I've gotten from players is "A Bothan entertainer.. um.. wow. Brave." and "Are you related to Scooby Doo?" There was a sweet Bothan boy who gave me some clothes and sat in wonder by me with the occasional /blush in my direction, but he was the exception.

Stages in cantinas: Please. I know it's extra animation, but.. please. It stinks being stuck out in the middle of the floor. Almost all the cantinas look the same. If we're expected to be in a cantina for most of our entertaining career, couldn't we AT LEAST have a designated area conducive to performing? Why should the Fallen Star be about the only place that has a stage - in a place few people are in?

But, more importantly...

Make Entertaining... Entertaining: If there are social people in the cantina, or there's lively role-playing going on, then all's well. But if you happen to be in a slow cantina, or when your bandmembers are all afk-macroed, or people just aren't talking, GIVE ME SOMETHING TO DO. Watching my toon twirl around does NOT provide as much amusement as one might think. About all there is to do while dancing is... write macros.

Thus, here are some ideas to that end -

• Make it possible to craft and/or image design while skill animating. For those of us that are artisan/entertainer combos or trying to move up in ID, it'd be nice to grind multiple XP at once - and at least keep our minds semi-busy.


• Pop-up events are probably the best idea I've seen suggested. Wouldn't even have to pay me - just give me some bonus experience for successfully doing them, and I'd be in clover.


• Make all songs/dances match your current level - i.e. if you have Popular dance and get 35 XP a flourish in it, then all previous dances will give 35 XP/flourish as well. This makes it easier to mix and match dances/songs with some unique flourish chains.


• Transitional flourishes - also a good suggestion I've seen. Put in a couple of flourishes that go easily from one song/dance to another, to facilitate mixing and matching.


• How about an entertainer droid that can provide some basic background music?


• Be able to 'unlock' flourishes - put in two-three new flourishes for each dance/song. At regular XP intervals - a fourth of the way to next level, halfway to next level, three-fourths to next level - we 'unlock' the flourish for that dance/song. And, until those flourishes are unlocked for that song/dance, clicking on them just won't do anything.


• Expand on 'Register Location' - give us a little more. Space to not only say there's an entertainer active in the cantina, but also a short blurb: like, "Venev Fe'thal, the sweetheart of Bothawui! Live tonight in the Bestine cantina, from 8-10 PM only!" Yeah, you can sit there and /shout it every ten minutes, but that's tacky. Or, if that's too difficult to implement, maybe another type of entertainer droid that would /shout the ad periodically? Or implement a terminal in cantinas where entertainers can register - people can come in and see who's performing, how long they'll be there for, and some fluff details - like the dance they're doing, their preferred customers, and their healing rank. They'd be instantly 'checked out' upon walking out of the cantina, or they can do it themselves if they decide to stop performing.

And there's my rambling. I think that about sums it up, without treading entirely into already-beaten-to-death requests.

Hmm.

The great thing about the entertainment class is that it requires very little keyboard/mouse interaction, whether you're dancing for fun, or just grinding your skill up. That means that your hands and attention are free to chat and interact, which is great for roleplayers or people who just like to chat.

Yes... that time could also be spent grinding another skill. But I'd hate to see all dancers and musicians having their attention on grinding away at other skills, rather than interacting with their customers. If you don't get your fun out of interacting with other players, then perhaps the entertainment profession isn't for you.

Forgive me for not adding in another part to that - in between customers. I spend a lot of time in out-of-the-way cantinas so people will have healing from a live entertainer. I'm usually sitting 30 minutes to an hour between customers. And half the time when people do come in.. they start watching and immediately go link-dead. I'd like to be able to fill in deadspace - sociability and role-play is great, but, uh.. not when you're by yourself.

I'm also online quite a bit on non-peak hours anymore - and non-afk entertainer companions, by that time of night, are very rare.

I know what you mean about patrons coming in and going LD...or AFK. Kinda blows the the whole thing of me interacting with them out of the water, huh? I mean, what's the point of me being at my keyboard if they're gonna come in, park it on the floor and go AFK themselves?

I also do a lot of Sampling, 'cause I like making things. While I'm sampling, I can practice Image Design on myself or make things. I can also talk to friends and answer e-mails...both of which I can do while performing, but when the e-mails are all answered and there isn't anyone around to talk to, it would be really nice to do something else without abandoning my performing. Like with sampling. I figure, if you can do it for one class/activity, it's do-able for another.

I intended to spend a lot of time in out-of-the-way cantinas, too. Just not getting the EntHeal xp out there, though, so I caved and went to Coronet. On Starsider, it's not bad. There's still plenty of live entertainers to talk and goof off with. I'd forgotten how hard it is to keep up with that many conversations at once! On Chimeara, though, Coronet's full of automatons, all in the middle of the floor and spamming. Tyrena's much better.