Entertainer Archive
Thread: Entertainer Strike On Naritus
Tonight, in Coronet, on the server Naritus, us entertainers revolted. Earning 500 credits a day isn't good enough - so we decided we'd go on strike and play outside the cantina, where no one gets healed. For the past few hours (and it's still going now!) we've been partying like mad - but no one gets healed. We plan to return to the cantina tomorrow - hopefully everyone will have learned their lesson.
Unfortunatly, there were still a small group of entertainers who were not supportive of the strike. They entertained inside, and many people still healed. Just remember - we remember your names.
All-in-all though, it was fun. We got a group of 15 going at once, and it was the most fun I've had in SWG. Hopefully more will realize that entertainers aren't getting treated nearly as well as other professions - entertainers, feel free to start rebelling against these self-centered players with no respect for entertainers, who think that they can get healed for free. All services have a charge - and you will pay.
I play on Naritus, but my character spends her time bouncing between Moenia and Keren on Naboo. So I was not in a position to see or know about the strike.
But... if I had been in Coronte, I would not have honored it. I don't believe in going on strike as a reasonable way to increase tips. Tips depend, for their size and frequency, on happy customers. You cannot generate happy customers by ticking them off.
You know what my little Twi'lek dancer girl has in Keren and Moenia? Fans. People who like her (mostly men, but a few women who just think she is a nice person, which she is). Fans tip big time. Fans are people who like and respect you. How many fans do you think you generated by going on strike? I'll hazard a guess: zero.
Ticking people off is not going to make them tip more. It's going to make them tip less. Worse, it makes the job of us Entertainers who do not want to coerce tips, but see them as somthing given freely and joyfully, much, much harder.
What a sad day. I hope this does not happen again on my server.
C
You_Myst wrote:
how would you feel if a resturaunt closed for 1 day because nobody tipped for a few hours?
This is a poor analogy. Try the restraunt closed because only ONE person tipped out of 50 customers that were served. Waitresses LIVE by their tips. As do entertainers. Sure it was quite noble of you to use 600 credits of your own to send back the 40k of tips that you were given. But why is it that no one else ever gets that much in 3 hours.
I've been both on the stage and in the audience. When I first started, I shunned the idea of being an entertainer. It seemed that it would be boring and wasteful. While it is very boring, it is essential to the game. I took up the entertainer profession on my main character because I play late at night, and could never find an entertainer when I needed one.
Before I tried it out, I thought I was tipping sufficiently. But then I realized how much time it is for an Entertainer. Now I will tip a minimum of 1k to each entertainer I listen to or watch.
Now it may seem I'm picking on you Myst, but your post just made me feel like speaking up. Everyone in this thread has the same agenda, we just see different paths to the goal. I am all for a strike though. Tough love is what the children of Bloodfin need, and sounds like it's what the children of Naritus need aswell.
Anyway, this one time it got so bad that the entertainers just picked up and too the show outside.
as for getting 40k+ tips in 3 hours, the only reason i was getting tips like that was cause players thought it would be a way of 'getting back' at the entertainers that were on strike, thats part of the reason i was returning the tips to sender...
as far as the strike for the creatures, that would fall under the harrasement area, and is a feasable reason to strike since we dont have a /deny on players that do that kind of thing, and wouldnt be abusing the /deny to earn more tips.
Yeah, it's like I stated earlier. I'd strike more for the lack of respect entertainers get than the lack of tips, but the tips would be a bit of a factor in the strike as well, though not as much. We're the crap-end of the classes, I swear. Us and probably medics. We(Entertainers and Medics) are ESSENTIAL to players in the game. Yet we'll still get jerks who DEMAND we heal them(Hello, having us is a privilidge, not a RIGHT thank you much), people who will harrass you, either by propositioning you for sex and suchlike if you're female, calling you fag and other crude remarks if you're male, etc. etc, and something SHOULD be done about that.
As for tips, yes, I'd love them. But I don't talk as often as I probably should(concentrating on hitting my flourishes and whatnot, as I don't use macros, and that takes up a lot of my time), but either way, I get good tips from people now and then, and usually from the SAME, respectful people at that, so I'm a happy Dancer.
But either way, that's my thought on the matter.
Oh, and yes--NO ONE should be thought less of/blacklisted/etc for not participating in the strike(or participating in it). That's life...live and let live.
First of all,Myst, your restaurant scenario is very flawed. A more proper scenario would be a dance show. Now, most dance shows have a cover charge, but we can't do that yet in SWG. We have to rely on everyone to tip us. A waiters/waitresses and an entertainer are different - an entertainer, in this situation, would be the main object, but you don't come to a restaurant to see the waiters/waitresses, you come to eat. The main object is food, which you pay money for. On top of that, the waiters/waitresses get paid most often outside of tips. Entertainers rely on tips.
Second of all, you have to understand how bad this has gotten. When we went on strike, all the other professions really cared less - and everyone who wanted healing just went inside. The point is, we were trying to make a point, not heal people last night. We would have liked to heal people, but things have gotten so bad that we were forced to make a point on the population. However, due to your stubborness last night, we were unable to make our point as well. Last night, everyone that went inside the cantina for healing was really self-centered. Tipping you guys for 'revenge' on us? 
What you did, last night, was provide a service, despite how bad your customers have gotten. Last night was an attempt to try and teach the customers how bad things have gotten. Hopefully, they'll remember it tomorrow.
your strikes will never work. many people have bought novice entertainer. in a pinch, they just heal themselves.
want a tip? go learn another profession if you want cash. you'll never make any real money off tips alone.
Ornen wrote:
Yes, I've noticed that entertainers in smaller towns normally get much better tips. However, in Coronet, the tips aren't even worth mentioning.
Maybe I'm being dense here, but... So move to a different city?
I started out in Moenia on the same exact server(Naritus). After a while I got sick of a few things there, not the least of which was all the AFK Macroers, which are our fault (entertainers) not the customers.
So I went off to do some surveying one day and when I couldn't find what I wanted near Moenia or Theed, I decided to try Keren. Walked into the Cantina just for a hoot and there were 2 performers and 1 customer and they were all RPing and nobody was AFK (imagine that!). So I started dancing and I noticed that while the amount of tips was not high, the frequency of tippage was much higher there, and the frequency of RP was also.
The moral of the story is: if the venue isn't working, change your venue.
Part of the reason people may not tip in huge places like Theed's and Coronet's cantinas is because there are so many of us that entertainers are a dime a dozen. In the smaller towns where there are fewer of us, we become a hot commodity. It's all about the law of supply and demand.
Now, I do agree about the creature handlers and their stupid giant dinosaurs being plopped onto the dance floor without so much as a howdy-do. I will stop dancing and have even left the cantina over it, but I don't go "on strike" per se. I just RP that the character is bothered by it and go out surveying. Most of the time when this happens though, the other players go postal on the CH's butt until he retrieves his stupid animal. They don't want their dancers to leave.
But the players in my cantinas like me, for the most part. My character is not rude, never begs for tips, and is always willing to dance and heal people. They also know (if they know her) that she is a budding artisan as well (that's her hobby and 2nd profession) so she does have other things to do. Which means they appreciate when she stays to dance for them.
If you are not being appreciated in your home cantina, my advice is, find another cantina.
"But Chessack! We won't make XP as fast in smaller places and smaller groups!" OK, that's true. You have to decide. What's more important? The respect and appreciation you aren't getting in the high-XP venue, or the XP? Because the law of supply-and-demand suggests that you can't have both at once. Either you go to a small place and be the only supply with a large demand, or you stay in the big place and get lots of XP but are a dime-a-dozen performer. Your choice, but I think you're going to have to choose.
C
Ornen wrote:
Tonight, in Coronet, on the server Naritus, us entertainers revolted. Earning 500 credits a day isn't good enough - so we decided we'd go on strike and play outside the cantina, where no one gets healed. For the past few hours (and it's still going now!) we've been partying like mad - but no one gets healed. We plan to return to the cantina tomorrow - hopefully everyone will have learned their lesson.
/applaud
I have to say that you role-played a prissy prima donna whiny entertainer very well. Keep up the good role-playing.
My current character isn't that petty, but I may have to create a new entertainer character just to have fun with that concept. "Well, my time here is worth thousands a credits an hour. If you philistines cannot appreciate me, then you don't deserve me *huff*"
Good job.