Entertainer Archive

Note: I know little about ID, and am basically ignoring them for the purpose of this discussion. I've never heard complaints from them over this issue, so presuming it doesnt' apply. This may need changing based on reality. As such, when I refer to an entertainer here, I mean a dancer or musician.


Issues:

1. Entertainers get more performance xp by being in a large group.
2. Entertainers are more likely to get healing xp by being in a large group
3. Entertainers are social people, and like being around others, to talk with, etc.
4. Entertainers are hard to find if not in one of the 'core' spots.



Issue 4 has many levels, including others expectations ('why bother looking in near cantina, they're all in Theed'), unable to /register until novice dancer/musician, etc.


Issues 3 is the hardest to deal with. Some have proposed an entertainers-only channel, though I've never heard of one being started (I'm on Kettemoor).


Issues 1 and 2 are the biggest issues (and easiest to focus on, not having to deal with players, emotions, and expectations). Currently The combination of these 2 issues makes 99% of un-teamed [not on mission/raid/guild group/etc) preforming entertainers be in one of 2 locations.

This means that there are lots of AFK'ers, lag, and lack of room to preform in a realistic manor. How often do you see 2-3 dancers moving through each other here?


Proposal:
1. Allow lower-level entertainers to /register in pc or npc theaters and cantinas
2. Add to /find functionality to find a registered person
3. Reward entertainers that are in NPC cantinas without other entertainers


Part 1 and 2 allows others to FIND the entertainer, no matter where they are, thereby letting them get healing xp without being stuck in the 'known' spots. It should be noted that novice dancers/musicians may consider this a nerf, 'stealing' of one of their abilities.

Part 3: Server counts performing entertainers and performing groups within a certain distance. Suggested possable distances are: building/city limits/zone limits.

Based on the number of performers and number of groups, people get rewarded for being away from the crowd.

XP heirarchy:
Full performing group in out of way area [ex: 20 people peforming in Moenia]
Full performing group in 'busy' area [as current in Theed]
Group preforming together, in a low-entertainer area [ex: 3 entertainers grouped in Restuss]
Soloist performing with no other entertainer nearby [ex: Nym's stronghold cantina]
Soloists performing near each other [ex: 3 entertainers NOT grouped, performing in Narmle]
Soloist performing near large assembly of other entertainers [ex: soloing in Theed].


I'm not sure if this should include PC-owned cantinas and theaters, testing would have to be done to see if it could be misused.

The goal of the xp heirarchy is to reward those that perform in 'performance empty' areas. In Real Life we see this, small-time bands can back stadiums in out of the way area, yes fizzle in 'the big city', the novalty factor increases their exposure and attendance.

We reward those that risk lack of healing xp with more performance xp, and likely better tips from their customers (who don't need to travel to other planets to get healing)

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Spudsin wrote:
Note: I know little about ID, and am basically ignoring them for the purpose of this discussion. I've never heard complaints from them over this issue, so presuming it doesnt' apply. This may need changing based on reality. As such, when I refer to an entertainer here, I mean a dancer or musician.


Issues:

1. Entertainers get more performance xp by being in a large group.
2. Entertainers are more likely to get healing xp by being in a large group
3. Entertainers are social people, and like being around others, to talk with, etc.
4. Entertainers are hard to find if not in one of the 'core' spots.



Issue 4 has many levels, including others expectations ('why bother looking in near cantina, they're all in Theed'), unable to /register until novice dancer/musician, etc.


Issues 3 is the hardest to deal with. Some have proposed an entertainers-only channel, though I've never heard of one being started (I'm on Kettemoor).

Bria has a very good ent-channel. It's open to anyone who wants to come in though. It's easy enough to get one started, just start one. Create the channel and start letting entertainers know about it. You'll be amazed how quickly people will join up.


Issues 1 and 2 are the biggest issues (and easiest to focus on, not having to deal with players, emotions, and expectations). Currently The combination of these 2 issues makes 99% of un-teamed [not on mission/raid/guild group/etc) preforming entertainers be in one of 2 locations.

This means that there are lots of AFK'ers, lag, and lack of room to preform in a realistic manor. How often do you see 2-3 dancers moving through each other here?


Proposal:
1. Allow lower-level entertainers to /register in pc or npc theaters and cantinas
2. Add to /find functionality to find a registered person
3. Reward entertainers that are in NPC cantinas without other entertainers


Part 1 and 2 allows others to FIND the entertainer, no matter where they are, thereby letting them get healing xp without being stuck in the 'known' spots. It should be noted that novice dancers/musicians may consider this a nerf, 'stealing' of one of their abilities.

Part 3: Server counts performing entertainers and performing groups within a certain distance. Suggested possable distances are: building/city limits/zone limits.

Based on the number of performers and number of groups, people get rewarded for being away from the crowd.

XP heirarchy:
Full performing group in out of way area [ex: 20 people peforming in Moenia]
Full performing group in 'busy' area [as current in Theed]
Group preforming together, in a low-entertainer area [ex: 3 entertainers grouped in Restuss]
Soloist performing with no other entertainer nearby [ex: Nym's stronghold cantina]
Soloists performing near each other [ex: 3 entertainers NOT grouped, performing in Narmle]
Soloist performing near large assembly of other entertainers [ex: soloing in Theed].


I'm not sure if this should include PC-owned cantinas and theaters, testing would have to be done to see if it could be misused.

The goal of the xp heirarchy is to reward those that perform in 'performance empty' areas. In Real Life we see this, small-time bands can back stadiums in out of the way area, yes fizzle in 'the big city', the novalty factor increases their exposure and attendance.

We reward those that risk lack of healing xp with more performance xp, and likely better tips from their customers (who don't need to travel to other planets to get healing)

---

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Spudsin wrote:

Issues:

1. Entertainers get more performance xp by being in a large group.
2. Entertainers are more likely to get healing xp by being in a large group

---

Definately a problem there. The ideal situation for entertainers is everyone in one big group, while the ideal sutiation for eveyone else is having them spread out. It's a little more complex though. If an entertainer goes to an empty cantina they get the healing xp for everyone there. But if they leave that empty cantina and go to ne of the entertainer hotspots, they will probably STILL get the healing xp for everyone that would have gone to that cantina, in addition to everyone else that comes by. It's not a case of getting 80xp here vs 100xp there. Right now it's more of a case of getting 20xp here vs 200xp there.

---

1. Allow lower-level entertainers to /register in pc or npc theaters and cantinas
2. Add to /find functionality to find a registered person
3. Reward entertainers that are in NPC cantinas without other entertainers


Part 1 and 2 allows others to FIND the entertainer, no matter where they are, thereby letting them get healing xp without being stuck in the 'known' spots. It should be noted that novice dancers/musicians may consider this a nerf, 'stealing' of one of their abilities.

Part 3: Server counts performing entertainers and performing groups within a certain distance. Suggested possable distances are: building/city limits/zone limits.

Based on the number of performers and number of groups, people get rewarded for being away from the crowd.

XP heirarchy:
Full performing group in out of way area [ex: 20 people peforming in Moenia]
Full performing group in 'busy' area [as current in Theed]
Group preforming together, in a low-entertainer area [ex: 3 entertainers grouped in Restuss]
Soloist performing with no other entertainer nearby [ex: Nym's stronghold cantina]
Soloists performing near each other [ex: 3 entertainers NOT grouped, performing in Narmle]
Soloist performing near large assembly of other entertainers [ex: soloing in Theed].


I'm not sure if this should include PC-owned cantinas and theaters, testing would have to be done to see if it could be misused.

The goal of the xp heirarchy is to reward those that perform in 'performance empty' areas. In Real Life we see this, small-time bands can back stadiums in out of the way area, yes fizzle in 'the big city', the novalty factor increases their exposure and attendance.

We reward those that risk lack of healing xp with more performance xp, and likely better tips from their customers (who don't need to travel to other planets to get healing)

---

I'm not sure I understand the /find thing... People can already look on the map and see where people are registered already.. That's better than /find which only searches nearby. Of course, that assumes the registration system wasn't horribly broken. People USED to use /find to find entertainers by title, but nobody bothers anymore. My first day playing I got a tell from someone who needed an entertainer. These days, a lot of people just can't be bothered to look. I've been in an outpost before (You know, the thing it takes 10 seconds to run across) in the cantina and heard people /shout for someone to heal their BF instead of taking a few seconds to run to the cantina/tavern/whatever and notice there are people. I've also tried starting an entertainer channel on Kettemoor, but it never got used, so I stopped bothering.

For the rest.... I'm going to play devils advocate here. Not that I don't think there is something that should be looked at, but I see a few flaws right now...

• I've thought about the idea of rewarding smaller groups, but people would see that as penalizing larger groups, and that would create some animosity, especially towards masters who "don't need the xp" and are just "taking xp from the group". This is something that has happened before; a master is kicked from a group or not invited because they will steal xp from the group. And that was with it not being true, I can only see it worse with it being true..
  
• To be honest, entertainers focused on grinding tend to have a harder time with the healing xp, so trading healing xp for performance xp doesn't do a whole lot.

A bigger problem is right now, not only does the system not reward someone for going to out of the way places, in extreme cases it penalizes them quite heavily. If someone is going to an out of the way place, they are looking for tips, xp, interaction or to do a service. The more of those they can get the better. But all it takes is one afk person camped there and they've just wasted a trip and get none of those. If it was someone who was ATK at least there would be someone to talk to. I don't know about others, but lately I've been performing in cantinas less and starports more. On the whole, people are more appreciative of the random entertainer in the starport than they are of an entertainer in a cantina that already has a bot perma-camped there. So the choices are compete with the bot that people are used to using, find somewhere else that likely hasn't seen a warm body for quite some time, find somewhere else that there is a decent chance of finding another bot, or take the show on the road.

I will say this. To penalize players for being a large group would pretty much be against one of the key reasons Entertainer was made in the first place. Entertainer was designed to heal but also to give a profession for people that love to socialize it was for that reason you have the large benefit to large bands. Now if they added a xp multiplier to out of the way planet cantinas, then you would have people leave and go to other places. That is the easiest blanket fix for Entertainers that want xp.

Message Edited by En-Sabah-Nur on 05-26-2004 05:11 PM

So, let's say we giveDearic, Talusa 1.5 multiplier to all XP. All that means is that everyone goes to Dearic, and Coronet is dead.

Point is, what is "out of the way" one day may be tomorrow's hub. Somehow, such a system would have to dynamically award multipliers based on current population by profession.

They simply need to get rid of the hologrinding trash.

THEN they need to find a way to make more than 11 people actually want to play entertainer.

>I'm not sure I understand the /find thing... People can already look on the map and see where people >are registered already.. That's better than /find which only searches nearby. Of course, that assumes >the registration system wasn't horribly broken. People USED to use /find to find entertainers by title, >but nobody bothers anymore. My first day playing I got a tell from someone who needed an entertainer. >These days, a lot of people just can't be bothered to look. I've been in an outpost before (You know, >the thing it takes 10 seconds to run across) in the cantina and heard people /shout for someone to heal >their BF instead of taking a few seconds to run to the cantina/tavern/whatever and notice there are >people. I've also tried starting an entertainer channel on Kettemoor, but it never got used, so I >stopped bothering.

My concept for the /find was something like /find registered_entertainer (shorter would be much better) so it points to the nearer location with somebody in it.


>I've thought about the idea of rewarding smaller groups, but people would see that as penalizing larger >groups, and that would create some animosity, especially towards masters who "don't need the xp" and >are just "taking xp from the group". This is something that has happened before; a master is kicked >from a group or not invited because they will steal xp from the group. And that was with it not being >true, I can only see it worse with it being true..


I'm not actually 'stealing' or even lessening xp for a group. in the xp heirarchy, a full group in busy place gets exactly the same xp they did, moving the same group to an out-of-the-way place rewards them, but that's the only time somebody gets MORE xp.

In all cases, people get a bonus for being in out of way area, with the current XP rewards being the same for a 'crowded' location, this never decreases xp rewards for people that flock to Theed, etc.



While people in 'uncommon' areas will at first have a harder time getting healing xp, the combination of having more performers in the field, and making it easier to find them, should get more injured people to go to a local cantina, than assuming they need to head to Theed to get fixxed up. After people start going to local cantinas, the devs/we could consider addopting the same bonus system for healing xp, if it is warrented.

I will say this that there are more people that liked entertainer but stopped playing them because of the AFK'ers. If the grinders left Theed or Coronet you would still have Masters and the like in there just to socialize and have fun. There are more than just the few of us that post on the boards.