Entertainer Archive
Thread: A newbie question on AFK entertaining
I plan to travel to out-of-the-way spots when it is near time for me to call it a night, find an empty cantina, and set up to macro dance or play until server-down.
I am picking up base medic skills, so I will be able to do the /tenddamage self heals, and I plan to do a long sequence of music with enough changes and flourishes to keep it from being the same 2 bar repeat all of the time. I set up in the corner or off to a side room, so I do not take up the main dance floor for "live" entertainers, but I am there when the occaisional injured player stops by hoping for a relaxing mind heal.
I plan to alternate between dance and music during the performance, to allow me to build both skills, and I am not looking simply to grind to master without working at it; I enjoy playing with friends in the cantinas as my other character, and I plan to put just as much into my "live" performances for this character.
So, is this a reasonable thing to do, and is including a pair of messages - one that says I am really resting but here to help you heal if you need it, and a second that says I am "about to play a medley of my hit" to keep me active and let anyone that comes in know that I am AFK if there are live entertainers there; the messages work out about 2-3 minutes apart, so I am not spamming too much and I do not ask for tips. My opinion is that I am offering a service where the healing is otherwise unavailable, as unobtrusively as possible, and varying the performance enough to avoid annoying repetitions, as well as informing those that come in that I am AFK so they need not tip (though several generous folks who appreciated the availability of the heals apparently did so last night.)
As more experienced Entertainers, what do you think?
Barix n'Covv - Hound Dog with a Slitherhorn
The problem that most entertainers have with you plan is that it negates the need for a live entertainer. Hunting groups take with them a medic, a ranger, a squad leader, a rifleman, a pistoleer, etc. The theory is they would also take along an entertainer if it weren't for the AKF bots parked on those out of the way places.
Solo hunters will argue that entertainers aren't online when they play. My question is always, "why play an online game if you're playing primarily solo anyway?". Should there be AFK doctors that can heal you too? Maybe there should be NPCs for hire so you can form a good hunting group too. /sarcasm.
AFK macrotainers are damaging to the profession of entertainers on many levels. As many will undoubtedly tell you, reaching Master level is not the point of this game. My suggestion is that if entertaining isn't a job that you enjoy from 0xp to 1,000,000,000 xp, you should take up something else you do enjoy.
Good luck.
Not to sound bitter or anything but it's been mentioned by a CSR that there's absolutely nothing wrong with using macros while AFK. And since there's no point in being at the keyboard while in a cantina I don't see why you just don't set up in camp along with the rest of them and spam away.
I'm not saying this to be mean to you, it's just that the entertainer profession is useless now unless you just plain want to be there talking to people. If they bother talking to you at all.
If I were going to offer advice, it would be to forget the entertainment line and find something else to do. All they really need to do is take out the entertainment line, except for image designer, and just replace it with mind healing NPC's; there would be no change in the game at all. They could do this today and I don't think anyone would know the difference (except for current entertainers of course).
In fact, I would go further and say keep ID, get rid of the rest, and give everyone the ability to play whatever instrument, song and dance that they liked. Sort of like what they did with languages. Just no one would get experience or be able to heal mind damage. They could give that to the medic profession (psychiatrist tree?).
Okay. Maybe I sound a little bitter.
Why not just give everyone the ability to heal all their wounds and take medics/doctors out of the game? You could just have crafters make kits that you use to heal yourself. While we're at it, why don't we just have those healing kits drop as loot on low end NPCs and take crafters out of the game? Armour and weapons could just drop as loot too. Then we don't need all those useless characters lagging up the servers. Heck, we could have NPCs that kill other NPCs and critters and run missions! Wow, this game doesn't really need players at all if you code it right.....
Believe it or not, there are some people who bought this game just because it did offer something to do other than killing stuff.
On another server, I am a master CH, master scout, 1/1/1/ Medic, 0/4/0/1 Marksman (pistol) and 0/0/0/3 Artisan. Creature Handlers are quite as difficult as entertainers to make credits while playing; pet sales fall between the "d00d, got any kowrd Guurks" or "that's too much, I can tame one myself", and we do not tend to take an entire group out to sit around and watch us work a lair while we look for the few interesting creatures available to us. My artisan skills are in survey, to allow me to locate and harvest resources for sale; my main market is medical resources. This means Lok, Dantooine, backcountry Talus (why can't water ever be within 5K of a starport) and assorted others for the rare spawns of Liquid Petro 4, Dolovite Iron and other rare and necessary items. Harvester runs are yet another real draw for crowds of friends, and a biggie for pickup groups.
About 1/3 of my time is spent between getting the resources and delivering them to customer's vendors, and the costs of travel and cloning add to that, as does the maintenance and investment in the higher spec harvesters. That means I don't clone everywhere, and I seem to run into the maulers, thugs, and generally unpleasant denizens of the galaxy at the least opportune times.
So, with 2 of my major activities, one of which makes me wealthy enough to lavish nice gifts and gear on my friends (see the Nimby's Chronicle post on Naritus if you want an example that is fun to read; my gurreck has a unique point of view) and the other of which makes me devastatingly useful in a group hunt by providing serious tanking strength with my pets, I have good reason to solo. Don't get me wrong, the most fun I have is with friends, and I would not be here long without them; the things I do to succeed just require some significant individual effort.
This means dying in out-of-the-way places, and empty cantinas in my experience. The rare AFK entertainer in one of those places is an absolute godsend; though I will always prefer the live player and focus my attention, heals (it is not unusual to see me go through 2 or 3 1500-credit stimpacks in an hour or so in a cantina) and significant tips (generally in the 1k or higher range if I am in need of heals, and always something for a performance, especially for a novice or journeyman level performer). So I am a hard sell on AFK entertainers in out of the way places being a major evil; though I definitely dislike the AFK "Tip bots" in the busy cantinas, and I sometimes leave a baby dung beetle or rot mite crawling their datapad if they are genuinely annoying.
I understand the argument on the need for "live" entertainers in out of the way places, but FAR too often there simply aren't any, though the dance floor in Theed is too crowded to walk through. I'm just trying to see if the afk macro I am using, and the practice of staying out of the main floor, etc, is enough to allow the "live" entertainer to take the floor and the patronage, while being there for the times that there's nobody but me in town. I'm hoping to find the best balance between the issue of AFK vs Live, and the best suggestions for how to make the AFK time worthwhile and at the same time unobtrusive, at least until there are enough live entertainers willing to staff the outposts on Lok, Dathomir and the far flung cities on the closer planets that there is no longer any need for an AFK entertainer to be the only game in town.
Luciee_Depri wrote:
Why not just give everyone the ability to heal all their wounds and take medics/doctors out of the game? You could just have crafters make kits that you use to heal yourself. While we're at it, why don't we just have those healing kits drop as loot on low end NPCs and take crafters out of the game? Armour and weapons could just drop as loot too. Then we don't need all those useless characters lagging up the servers. Heck, we could have NPCs that kill other NPCs and critters and run missions! Wow, this game doesn't really need players at all if you code it right.....
Ah, I'm afraid I was using irony. Sort of. Do I believe that the entertainment profession has become useless, thanks to a lack of commitment from the developers? Yes, I do. Do I believe that AFK Macro'ers have ruined the profession? Yes, I do. Do I believe that all they have to do is stuff NPC healers in every cantina? Yes. Do I like it? Not a bit.
Actually, if I had the time I would have kept going. You know, about making all races exactly the same except for graphics. Making all combat professions the same, except for graphics. Giving all professions to every player as soon as they logged in. A bank with an unlimited credit account. Unfortunately, there are about six people in the Star Wars Galaxies game that actually like to play the game as it was meant to be played: as an RPG. And the developers are doing their best to change it around so that the RPG aspect is less important. Keep an eye on it, and you'll see what I mean.
Believe it or not, there are some people who bought this game just because it did offer something to do other than killing stuff.
Yes. I'm one of them. That's why I'm an entertainer. Or rather, was an entertainer. I really don't see the point in it anymore.
Sorry if I upset you, but I did admit to being bitter.
" understand the argument on the need for "live" entertainers in out of the way places, but FAR too often there simply aren't any, though the dance floor in Theed is too crowded to walk through."
Have you tried *hiring* an entertainer to come there? Offer X amount of credits plus the cost of a two-way ticket. I myself have tried dancing in the out of the way places and 1-patrons are few and far between and 2-I rarely even make back the cost of the travel ticket there. Maybe if you combat types actually *paid* for the service of healing, just like you *pay* for the service of a weaponsmith or armorsmith, there would be more entertainers in out of the way places. A 500 credit tip for healing a black mind bar on Lok quite honestly isn't worth my time or effort to go there.
"I'm just trying to see if the afk macro I am using, and the practice of staying out of the main floor, etc, is enough to allow the "live" entertainer to take the floor and the patronage, while being there for the times that there's nobody but me in town."
Stay in a back room and don't put *any says at all* in your macro. Ie. AFK macro and shut the heck up. You might think that you're 'only' saying something every 3 minutes, but if a live entertainer shows up, every 3 minutes gets old real fast. Someone who is actually there playing the game shouldn't have to use the ignore feature just because of someone who is NOT there playing the game.
" at least until there are enough live entertainers willing to staff the outposts on Lok, Dathomir and the far flung cities on the closer planets that there is no longer any need for an AFK entertainer to be the only game in town. "
Again, I bet there are a lot of entertainers would take the time to go to these places if the pay was worth it. Many, many of us are in it for the social aspect of it. If we're not getting good socializing (no matter how hard I try I've yet to elicit a response from the cantina wall when I try to engage it in conversation), you had better be making it worth my while in another area. There's nothing more galling than hearing someone going on and on about how they're making credits hand over fist doing the missions, only to watch them run out after they're healed, paying you nothing at all. Notice that I'm not using the word tip here, because if you're on an adventure planet, paying the service provider that's delivering their service to your door, or as close to it as possible, is NOT optional. It is NOT a gratuity, it is PAYMENT for service rendered.
There will always be a perceived 'need' for an AFK entertainer because the entertainment professions are the only ones that are required by the player base to provide instant gratification. As I've said before, what do you do when your favorite weaponsmith is out of guns? Gee, you *wait* or go somewhere else. Entertainer services are the same.
And since you seem like a reasonable person, how about educating your fellow combat types with regards to manners? Logging in to Lok and havingone's screen spammed with 'you better hurry up and get dancing' is hardly the way to treat someone you *need*.
Akelan wrote:
You might get significantly better tips from people doing 25K missions on Lok or Endor than you do from people that are on Theed or Coronet for the other vendors, especially if a hunter on Lok did not have to spend 1700 cr just to get to somewhere that he could find the entertainer in the first place.
I'm sorry but... This is bull. I play on the Naritus server. I spent all Saturday on Endor this past weekend as a near-master dancer. I lost thousands of credits on the total trip.
"Oh but you have to stay there longer. Stay there all week."
Are you freakin' kidding me?? Do you know what I DID all day on Endor? NOTHING. There was nobody there. I think maybe 5 total patrons came in the whole entire day. I went to both outposts. There weren't any patrons. Those that were there, came in, healed, and walked out, either with little or no tip. I tried to be nice, friendly, chatty -- they ignored me.
The short of it is, I was BORED OUT OF MY SKULL on Endor. Why the heck would I sit there and be bored? I pay for this game. I do not pay to be bored. I can do that for free sitting around watching the paint dry.
Now, maybe if the people on Endor were actually friendly and chatted a bit I wouldn't have been bored, but they didn't.
You know why I think they didn't? Because of people like YOU. That's right, just like YOU. People who go in and AFK macro-bot. That's right. The LAMErs. I'm not going to be shy about saying it any more. Because it is LAME. The combat types on Endor are so used to LAMErs like you who are not at keyboard that they are conditioned to treat all entertainers like furniture. Then when a "live" one shows up, they just treat him/her the same way -- like a piece of furniture or an NPC. They have been conditioned that way because of people like YOU. The Long-term, AFK Macro Entertainers.
Your very presence in the cantina automatically takes business away from live entertainers. The solo combat types don't need us, because they have YOU there, all night, every night, to heal them for free.
I'm sick and tired of the LAMErs saying their selfish, "I can do what I want and screw you" behavior doesn't hurt anyone. It hurts every live dancer and musician out there by conditioning the player base to think of us as pieces of FURNITURE instead of characters with real people sitting there behind them.
C
Chessack wrote:
I'm sorry but... This is bull. I play on the Naritus server. I spent all Saturday on Endor this past weekend as a near-master dancer. I lost thousands of credits on the total trip.
"Oh but you have to stay there longer. Stay there all week."
Just like all other cantinas, I've noticed a hot-and-cold feeling with the advanced planets. I've gotten some good tips on Lok and Dathomir. I did pop into Dathomir quite a few times 2 weeks ago (this is Radiant, if anyone cares). I even shouted out that I was dancing and offering Mind buffs when I could see over a dozen people standing around in the Science Outpost. Not a single person came into the cantina for a show. While it's probably true that they didn't have any Mind wounds, I don't know why they would turn down a free Mind buff. I was ignored; it was quite surprising.
Interestingly enough, as I was waiting for my shuttle off-planet, someone asked me for a dance, so I obliged. His guildmates showed up, and I joined their group so I could buff them all. They tipped me a total of about 10k credits. So, that was nice, but if I were any less patient, I would have given up and gone home already.
To answer Akelan's original question about doing the public service of AFK Dancing on adventure planets, here is a copy of a message I posted on the main board in response to that very question:
Actually, AFK entertainers provides a disservice to entertainers and the game world by making entertainers less needed and making advanced planets less lethal. It also provides a disservice to the adventurers on those planets as the risk is reduced, but not all players enjoy a game where you might actually be inconvenienced or killed.
The AFK entertainer on Lok does not prompt players to hunt down entertainers. Thus, entertainers aren't encouraged to spend the money to fly to these planets. Why pay an entertainer for his travel costs when you have a bot there?
The planet is not as dangerous. This ties into the worth of entertainers, as well. Do you have everything you need for your trip into Endor? You have your doctors, you have droid batteries, you have fully grown pets, you have power-ups. Do you need an entertainer? Nah, once the wounds get bad, you just run back into town and get charged up. How dangerous is that?
Endor is much more dangerous if there is a chance you won't have what you need. Didn't bring a doctor? Hope there's someone in the med center. Didn't bring a dancer? Check the cantina. Didn't bring batteries or power-ups? Maybe there is a droid engineer or weaponsmith in town.
Yes, it's easier on some players to have an entertainer bot on the advanced planets. It'd also be easier to have a weaponsmith bot, an armorsmith bot, a doctor bot, etc. Why seek out people with a specific role when you can just get what you need for free?
If you feel that entertainer bots are vital to survival on the adventure planets, then I propose that we don't stop there. Let us implement bots that will heal us, give us good weapons, slice our armor, and buff our stats. No interaction. No hunting down Masters. Just give us all the goodies whenever we want it. So what if Wayfar is supposed to be an isolated town miles away from civilization? All the amenities are there for the taking. Dantooine? Not such a harsh planet after all. Just bring in five of your closest friends with maximized combat skills. No need for entertainer or medic skills, really. Nicer reward split, too.
If you support removing all support professions altogether, then it would be easy to advocate the AFK entertainer.
As an addendum, I can see why you would say that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy for Entertainers to find these places boring. Some Entertainers could stand to be proactive on this. I'd suggest for some Entertainers that if someone finds a good Entertainer buddy, they pair up and fly to Endor. That way, they can chat with each other when things are slow and bounce some persiflage off the patrons as they come in. Certainly, there's no reason that an Entertainer has to go solo.
All of the debate is almost over,,the cantinas are slowly becoming an afk park,,,its now common for players to listen to the afker rather than someone at the keyboard,,so they dont have to tip,,,and why should they think differently,,
My suggestion is just to eliminate mind wounds of any kind,,that way,,,the entire entertainer profession can surrender their skills,,and move on to a skill thats fun to play,,
When I log on to my master dancer ,,my friends list is almost totally off line,,,that says volumes about the state of the entertainer profession,,,the players that chose entertainer in the first weeks of swg have mostly moved on to other servers or left the game entirely,,,
They need to make afk entertaining impossible or they need to just eliminate mind wounds,,,one or the other,,
The fact is that the entertainers have set the expectation that you will not find them in anything but the major 'nightspots', so the patrons don't go anywhere else. You might get significantly better tips from people doing 25K missions on Lok or Endor than you do from people that are on Theed or Coronet for the other vendors, especially if a hunter on Lok did not have to spend 1700 cr just to get to somewhere that he could find the entertainer in the first place.
On Naritus, there is a group of entertainers that have formed a wonderful 'act' as the Phat Wookies; a group of brothers orphaned on Endor and raised by Ewoks, who told them they were too big to dance or perform. Groups of people from Theed or Coronet will head to Endor JUST TO SEE THE PERFORMERS because they are fun to watch and to play along with. I have yet to hear one of them complain about not making their travel costs, either.
If you get a few tells about being needed to dance/play in Lok, maybe rather than turning up your nose, you might turn up your awareness, and realize the market for performing. If you want to wait until someone else does it for you, and sit around waiting for a tell to hire you to come to Lok or Endor, you might just as well be AFK in Theed for all the good it will do. It's the players that think ahead, and take a few risks to get set up and make themselves a unique niche that make the game worthwhile. You are turning you back on a goldmine because you might get your slippers dirty walking through all that shiny dust.
You want to see the end of AFK entertainers? Make them unnecessary. You want to make more in tips? Go where the people need you, not where there are 20 others to choose from, and you have to strip/lick/tease your way into any attention at all. You want bigger tips? Go where people have more in their pockets, and a bigger need for your services, and where it means more to them than it does when they have to stop what they are doing and travel halfway across the galaxy to find anyone to provide those services.
I'm not directing this as a personal criticism, please understand, but only as an effort to show that there are ways to take advantage of a market than 99% of the entertainers on the server seem to be ignoring. You want to socialize? Make yourself the center of attention, and the most highly anticipated player on the planet. I guarantee that if you make your services available where they are most needed, and where they will be most appreciated, you will never lack for company.
Trade in the slippers for a good pair of boots, and wrap the cloak a little tighter around that exotic leotard, and make a difference somewhere people need you. Yes, it may take a little while to establish the clientelle; mostly because it will be unexpected to find a real entertainer in a remote cantina. Once you do, however, the chances are you will be much happier as an entertainer, even if you have to make a few extra trips to the bank once in a while.
Barix / Ake'lan
you know, akelan, my "main" is on the same server as yours. and that character has always favored at-the-controls entertainers when they were available. and tip well, she does. very well.
yet, as i started this character and started reading the entertainer and dancer forums, i find that they, as a group, are bitchy, self-righteous, and indignant. they want to tell others how to play the game.
so now i'm questioning that commitment i formerly felt toward at-the-controls entertainers.
no, i won't ever tip an AFK entertainer. but i may never make use of an at-the-controls entertainer again. at least not if there's an option.
lighten up, entertainers. most players don't pay any attention at all to the AFK ones. and for those players who do, even if you can get them to switch to you instead,they're just treating you as an NPC anyway. they wont' talk to you and they won't tip you.
and if someone wants to AFK entertain in an out-of-the-way spot on a remote adventure planet to help other players and level up over time, more power to them. why the heck aren't you out there doing it at the keys? nobody's stopping you.
