Musician Archive
Thread: do you guys see it this way too?
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alligatorboogaloo
Wed Oct 20, 2004 6:47 pm
#2
bah, here it is:
To Naritus:
I have been in the cantina since the day after launch, through the hologrind, AFKers and even now the buffbots and it has continually degraded my experience. As of late I am playing in Theed Cantina and have started to experiment with the "patrons." My first experiment was to greet everyone that came in and to my suprise 8/10 people would either stand there and say nothing or run away to the foyer and see the buffbot. Then I stopped greeting people when I was the only ATK entertainer and nobody would leave. This is greatly disturbing. I have come to the conclusion that either everyone is totally antisocial or they are too scared to talk. I've talked to other entertainers and they are finding it to be the same way. Everyone seems to prefer zombies to real people and that to me is extremely sad when one becomes so closed and selfabsorbed as to not even say "hello" in response to a greeting.I must be the must uber player with my Master Musician/Master Entertainer/Master Pistoleer template to scare everyone to the point they can't say anything, completely petrified. I know that isn't the case. More to the point,has everyone lost any sense of decencyand humanity?
And for those of you who tell me that I am a waste of Skill Points for being an entertainer, get lost I have enjoyedbeing a musician until recently when nobody seems to know how to say hello, thank you, or have a nice day.
Sincerely,
Neeno 
Master Musician since Sept. 1, 2003
Darkesong
Wed Oct 20, 2004 7:48 pm
#3
Sadly it is sometimes like this I'm afraid 
I won't say every patron runs in and out without responding to greetings or questions, but a larger and larger percentage are drifting that way. It seems like a reluctance to interact with or be polite toanyone to be honest....not just entertainers. My tailor will be in her shop, a customer will come in, and I will greet them, and say something to the effect of "welcome, if i can help you with anything, please let me know". About 70% of the time, the person will say nothing at all, not even a /nod, will buy several things from my vendor, and will leave without ever have acknowledged my prescence at all. That is just sad...I hate to sound like the thread's old fart, but....what is this game/world coming to?? 
I won't say every patron runs in and out without responding to greetings or questions, but a larger and larger percentage are drifting that way. It seems like a reluctance to interact with or be polite toanyone to be honest....not just entertainers. My tailor will be in her shop, a customer will come in, and I will greet them, and say something to the effect of "welcome, if i can help you with anything, please let me know". About 70% of the time, the person will say nothing at all, not even a /nod, will buy several things from my vendor, and will leave without ever have acknowledged my prescence at all. That is just sad...I hate to sound like the thread's old fart, but....what is this game/world coming to??
Tralmek
Wed Oct 20, 2004 9:51 pm
#4
It was nice when almost everyone who came into cantinas would interact with the Entertainment, but now they're so used to us just being NPC's, they've been trained that we don't talk. I've found that laughing at people and asking them if they're scared of the instrument will get a good 50% of them to turn around and say something at least. (heheh it's usually somewhat positive too...or at least inquisitive.) And that little opening can lead to a nice little conversation, healing xp, and perhaps a tip. 
Anyway, yes, I do see a lot of people just run right through me to the buffbots, and it's pretty disheartening sometimes. My only solace is in /whapping or :smacks %NT 'ing them when they go over and start spamming for an invite. It's a small comfort, but it does make me feel slightly better--and it's led to a few conversations about the virtues of live Entertainment over AFK macrotainment.
alligatorboogaloo
Wed Oct 20, 2004 11:28 pm
#5
cool, nice to know that i'm not the only one. its so disheartening sometimes, only other entertainers make being in the industry feel rewarding, and we should feel that way about the patrons too. C'est la vie, je pense.
its so disheartening sometimes, only other entertainers make being in the industry feel rewarding, and we should feel that way about the patrons too. C'est la vie, je pense.Neeno
Master Musician since Sept. 1, 2003 and now Western certified!
Trikertwo
Thu Oct 21, 2004 8:05 am
#6
I applaud all of you entertainers that actually *GASP* play your entertainer. I have never once intentionally left without acknowledging an entertainer. My problem seems to be quite the opposite. As a patron, I rarely get any entertainers that are there to speak with me. I do try and be a genleman, and at times have thought of becoming the jerk I see all too often getting all the kind words. Oh well, I will not change. I will always be nice to yhe entertainment, be they whatever race, class, creed, color or sex. It's a hard job and I salute you all!
fett3041
Thu Oct 21, 2004 8:45 am
#7
I've been seeing much the same. Of course, there are a few others like Trikertwo who can appreciate a live Performer. However, as it's been said, this new generation of players has been brought up to expect us to be AFK bots.
I can't tell you how many times folks have been suprised when I actually started interracting with them. At first they think my greeting is a clever macro. Then they get the feeling that something is different, almost scary. When they find out that some folks actually enjoy playing an Entertainer, and get to understand that what they've seen isn't the way it's supposed to be, it's a glorious thing. Like a light coming on.
Cudayn
Thu Oct 21, 2004 10:03 am
#8
Yeah,
Anyone who is an entertainer is basicly a glorified NPC, IMHO. I suppose the ability to fix the problem, namely the rampant AFKing of our classes, is a more difficult fix than the developers had imagined. I can not understand how they could continue to let our classes slip further and futher into the dung heap, unless that is truely the case. I do not even want to think that its just because the developers don't like the entertainer classes and could really care less for the professions.
The behaviors of our peers have been adjusted all due to game mechanics. Sure some people truely are shy, or maybe the person/s in question is just having a bad day and doesn't want to be social, but before the ever loving Holo-grind began, more people than not, would happlily chat away with you.
I could continue on, but I don't want to sound like a burnt out/whiney/ranty entertainer, even though I am 
The developers started to take a few steps towards the removal of the recursive macro, but thanks to what I believe was a lot of uninformed and overacting rants and flames about the issue, they stepped back away from it for the time being.
I am hoping, upon hoping that as soon as JTL ships and the dust settles down a bit ( maybe late November?) that they will aggressively approach removing the abilities to AFK anything, period.
Durney
Master Entertainer / Master Musician / Master Image Designer
Warryyr
Thu Oct 21, 2004 11:23 am
#9
It's absolutely amazing what a couple of months of complete and total neglect towards the majority of the playerbase can do. Pretty dumb move on the Devs' part. This whole thing is horribly mismanaged. They need twice, at least, of a Dev team and designers than they currently have on staff. We'll soon have pretty glowing lightsabers everywhere, we'll have nice starships, and we'll have players running macros and destroying what used to be a few wildly fun professions. We'll also have 100s quit because of the sorry state of this game - and they could care less about new buggy code that demands MORE Dev time.
This whole thing is fallin apart, plain and simple folks.
We needed the Devs to step in. They failed us. They made new little shippies for the kiddies to play in, and ohhhh their concerns were so very important. MUST help the kiddies! So polite to the free Beta players - hail Jump to Lightspeed! Forget everything else! Oh ho ho, what fun in my TIE fighter - tee hee hee! You like that, too? Isn't this fun and grand! I'm never leaving space!
Meanwhile - back in the land of the paying customers:
Buffbots flourish. AFK'ing runs even more rampant through the game.
Neglected professions (smuggler) fell further into neglect (pushing that stupid, stupid, stupid 'no pulling clamps from crates' thing to Live after their 3rd attempt, even though they said they wouldn't).Dancers' new reward is known to be broken, but put in Live anyways. Nothing can distract from glorious JTL. Nothing. To the point where any valid and timely discussion with the Dancer Correspondent to her profession is muzzled by the Devs. Pathetic.
Jedis roam the land with impunity, and destroy any value that was left in PvP.
Storage continues to run out, since we now have tons of junk to hold on to. Loot kits stuff, Aurillian loot, and more on the way.
Solo groups rule the land of Combat. Combat Revamp design started. Maybe. No news to the paying players. No solid plans for anything that anyone's seen. Players will have input on the Revamp - more time. Don't expect this thing for at least 6 months. One person can kill 100's of Rancors for a couple hours. Luke had trouble killing just one and had to use a hydraulic door to do it. Yet it's all pushed aside to add more broken stuff in the game, so people can float around in space.
DEVS SAID NOT ONE WORD TO ENTERTAINERS WHILE "DEVELOPING" THE ENTS' NEW CONTENT - everything else was too important, and they tooka big crap on us and left us (never forgiving them).
And to top itall off, we have our wonderful cantina patrons who now rarely talk to anyone, aside from barking commands at us like we're trained seals. I treasure those who are polite in cantinas, and those who are conversive. I too have noticed how quiet cantinas have gotten. It's now buffbot/AFK'er spam or Entertainers' random emotes to each other.
THIS GAME NEEDS HELP.
And, it has for months now. This neglect is pissing a lot of people off. Stupid move, Devs.
My advice:
Ignore the rude people. They'll be in space doing everything by themselves soon enough. Let them sit in the cold vacuum of space alone where they belong and deserve to be.
Pray for any kind of improvement to our professions - fixing AFK play, buffbots, and the like. That's about all you can do is pray for better days. But, don't expect those days to come anytime soon. There's still Jedi fixes, JTL fixes, our Holy Mother Combat, and everything else that's always prioritized before us, so we eventually just disappear off the radar.
But keep your chin up, and keep on dreaming of better days, because they'll have to come eventually. Eventually, some wonderful sunshiney day, the Devs will say - we have nothing else on our plate, on to the Entertainers! And, hopefully with some communication from them, we can get these professions back to how fun they used to be, make more cantina patrons smile, get people REALLY clapping when they listen to us or watch us, and we'll feel like a valuable part of the game's community again. Until then, we're our own little community, and we'll have to be our own little support group while we wait.
May the Maker help us all.
Beery
Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:28 am
#11
"We needed the Devs to step in. They failed us. They made new little shippies for the kiddies to play in, and ohhhh their concerns were so very important. MUST help the kiddies! So polite to the free Beta players - hail Jump to Lightspeed! Forget everything else!"
Well Warryyr, the JTL beta testdoes have its non-combat advocates, and I'm not the only one. But I fear that getting in on the beta test wasn't enough to actuallyget anything positive donefor us non-combat oriented types. I can advocate until my typing fingers are sore for non-combat content to be added, but I don't think it will do much more good than will such lobbying outside of the beta test. The die was cast in the smoky boardrooms of Sony/Lucasarts and they decided thatJTLwould havelittle orno non-combat content, as we were told a few weeks ago by the developers. Until the suits decide that this game will have non-combat content I'm afraid all we can do is eitherhope fornon-combat-oriented playersto be considered with the merit our numbers dictate, or elsefinally throw in the towel.
Note that JTLdoes not appear to worklike the regular game. I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying that you can't advance at all as a pilotunless you actually shoot stuff (that is just reflecting what the devs have said in other posts). In the regular game I've managed to get half-way through the Jabba's Palace quest without killing anything (if your target gets killed by others, you get the credit), but JTL advancement seems to be 100%tied to your actual personal combat accomplishments. As the devs have also said, there is no transport or mining content as yet. In fact I think they havesaid outright that there would be no such content upon release. I remain hopeful that such content will come within the next year or two, witha 'pilot revamp'.
In short, I thinkJTL is a case of"deja vu" for us folks. Look for JTL to bring us only promises ofa whole new set of space fixes and content additionsthat push musicianfixes well out beyond 2005, if we ever get them.
Warryyr
Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:28 am
#12
Seakla wrote:
Amen, Warryyr.
- Seakla
Keep the faith.
Power to the Entertainers! The meek shall inherit Naboo! 
Banthabutcher
Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:33 am
#13
/comfort Neeno
Actually, yes. They're afraid, especially after being weened on buffbots. Same reason why some players opt to grind up crafting professions for just one piece of armor and then drop it (I'm being serious, people do this) rather than going and finding an Armorsmith.
On a related note, I also did an experiment.
There's a buffbot at the front of the Theed cantina (you should know Neeno). I went up there and stood right next to her... as in 1m away. As people came in, I advertised that I was giving out buffs as a Live entertainer and how when you get buffs from me you don't have to wait for the buffbot to restart to get the full buff.
Surprise surprise, everyone who came in went straight to the buffbot. Eventually I started asking people why they were using the bot when I'm right here giving away the same buffs or the same price.
"Because she's always here."
But I'm here right now.
"Because she never fails a buff session."
Neither do I, buddy.
In fact, all of your reasons for using one are gone. Convenience? I'm right here in the same convenient spot. No Live buffers? Right here and there's 3 more back in the main area. Always there? I'm here right now. So why do you opt for the worse choice when the better is right here?
Their response?
"Piss off I'll do what I want."
/sigh
I'm telling you, just make the "unattended gameplay" section of the EULA include using the in-game macros. That way all buffbots and AFK grinders now breach the TOS and can be suspended/banned. Yeah, it's nearly impossible to enforce in player cities, but frankly that isn't an issue for me. It's the large public cantinas.
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