Entertainer Archive

Look at what Deila said! I think this could be great!

---

Xyrdre wrote:

Whereas there have been several versions of proposals to get people to spread out to different cantinas, all of them have always left something to be desired in my mind thusfar. And usually, I think it's been some kind of negative reinforcement that's sat wrong with me in one way or another.

The audience goes where they go for a variety of reasons, I think. Whether that was 'convenient' starport/shuttleport travel lanes and hubs, or just because they become creatures of habit. Or on the other hand, the audience may go where they expect to have the highest probability of entertainers. More likely, it's a combination of those factors. Some of that may be mutable now though, with JTL instant travel reducing the effectiveness of Coronet or Theed as central travel hubs to the rest of the galaxy - but people can be creatures of habit, especially if the other elements are still at work.

This proposal includes allowing for entertainer mechanics and experience gains to drop below the norm for their skill levels, thus 'punishing' the entertainer for going where the audience is. Which... seems a bit counter-intuitive for a performer. Seems we'd want to be playing the hotspots of the galaxy. Okay, so let's drop the idea of it going negative from 'normal' for a moment. In similar proposals in the past, the guess was that those other cantinas that got the bonuses would just become the temporary new Coronet/Theed, until their bonus died off. Result might be that both entertainers and patrons were forever trying to guess where the bonus was going to be hour by hour, and that seems like it'd make it difficult for audience and entertainer to reliably find each other in practice.

I think that perhaps the reason that we haven't found a really elegant way to get a more even distribution and desirability of visiting a variety of cantinas throughout the galaxy is that we've lacked the draw to do so. The only real game element we've had to work with to entice either ents or patrons to spread out is in manipulation of either XP, EH or buffing bonuses, or penalties to those by going to the 'overused' venues.

What though, if we had real cantina mini-games? What if we had 12 mini-games, and each cantina could have 3 of those, with some overlap, so that each cantina had a mixed offering of varied mini-games that could be played at that venue, but no one place had it all? Players wanting to play one or two particular mini-games would naturally prefer that cantina over one that had other games to play.

Ooh.. and if dreaming... what if we had different cantina interiors, so that style of venue might help form a preference from player to player as well? Having a mix of types of fun activities as the draw, and some aesthetic differences between the different venues, might go a really long way to opening up a much more rich and spread out cantina/social hub setting in SWG.

---

---

PoetDancer wrote:

Funny. I just saw in the musician forum a rather disturbing thing. There is something one can get that can play sounds that are more interesting than the same old hat they are stuck playing.

And this is my fear of these new and exciting mini games in my workspace. If they are indeed a lot of fun, why would they ever want to see my dances?

I think they'll just /watch me, and watch their mini game.

And when the game we play becomes that, then all this profession becomes is the attempt to get +125% clothes and spam the fact that they possess +125% clothes.

I don't want to be put in the position of competing with a terminal, like the musicians have to. Because if these mini games are so exciting that it will bring players to the cantinas, why on Corellia would they care about watching the virtual dance enough to say, "hey, that dancer is pretty good?"

---

Well, if it were implemented properly, players wouldn't be able to /play sabacc and /watch poetdancer at the same time. If they wanted their buffs and their bf healed, they'd have to get up from the sabacc table and out to the stage. Also, it would be a Good Idea to limit the number of players per game. If there's one sabacc table, and only five (or whatever) players can play at once, then anyone else there "just to play a little sabacc" will probably look for some other entertainment - dancers, musicians - to kill time while they're waiting for the table to free up.

Copying this from my Tirius Lights Casino documents, seems relevant here. We have rules for some of these, but it would be great if the devs would implement some of these properly!

Cards
Tirium (black jack style Pazzak)
Pazzak (basic Pazzak)
Dantooine Double-hand
Two-Hand

Dice
Jacks
Alley Craps
Trader's Feet

Others
Pool

Roulette
Lady Luck
Orbiter
Territory Roulette
Uvide wheel
Yarno

Slot Machines
A - Fauna
B - Hearts
C - Trivia
Mind-Jam

Trin-Sticks

Holo-Wing - strategy

Games of Chance
Kenoballs
Magna-shuffle
Mung-tee - set of metallic balls
Nierer's Folly
Null G-Ball - physical game of chance
Tregald
Vector
Warp-Top - this was the traditional, horseshoe-shaped surface on which a game of crinbid was played in many casinos.
Zinbiddle

EDIT: For the person new to Sabbac here you go! I knew I had the link in my bookmarks somewhere.

Message Edited by Kyorlana on 02-26-2005 11:59 PM

If you can make a lot of money on the games the people will come. They should also record high scores etc. That gives a reward to being competitive.

---

Vorpaks wrote:
If you can make a lot of money on the games the people will come. They should also record high scores etc. That gives a reward to being competitive.

---

Most MMOG players are motivated to participate in a game element by Phat Lewt, Payout, Bragging Rights. And it's going to have to be pretty high stakes. If the payout looks anything like our missions then they're all going to walk away laughing.

Something I'm very concerned with in all the talk lately is "what's in it for us". I think a good deal of the focus on redesigning our professions should be fun game play for the members of our professions..not just what we can do for others. Mini-games offers us a lot along those linesbut I'm worried it'll get stuck in the "doing it for others" thing.

Honestly, right now... Players go where the buff bots are. On Tarq a lot of us make an effeort to perform live in the Theed cantina so the people who would rather see an entertainer can find someone to interact with, but the majority of players on the server will go to where they can get their free mind crack. I thin that issue has to be dealt with before any other solution changes the Coronet/Theed as the only cantinas mentality on most servers.

---

Ternque01 wrote:

They need to introduce a playable form of holochess and sabaac. You have no idea how many people would hang around in cantinas just to play others (hopefully alot, haha).

The only problem is that many players have no idea what the rules are to these games; I sure don't.

Maybe they could just put in a version of the chess that Earthlings know, but with holo-characters. Perhaps they could put in poker or blackjack in place of sabaac.

Maybe a better solution would be to just print the rules on the "Examine" feature of the tables.

I think another great way to make major city cantina's useful would be to have a vendor inside only for spices and chef's food. Cantina's would then be the ultimate in wound healing, mind buffing, food grabbing, spice selling, and, hopefully, leisure!

---

The thing with sabacc is that there are different rule sets, which could play into the idea of spreading around the games to different cantinas. For example, in Mos Eisley, the Mos Eisley rules would be in effect; Imperial rules inany Imperial stronghold cities, Corellian rules in Corellian cantinas, etc. The rules are a bit complicated, but I suppose they could be put into the Holocron help files.