Musician Archive

Aside from the problems of income, forced song drops to accomodate lower skilled musicians and lack of variety in instruments, the biggest problem I have is the fact that we have so little ability to actually perform as a band!

My proposal then is to merge the two healing disciplines of Musician (really, TWO healing disciplines is nothing but filler!) and in the now vacated slot, bring in Composition. Give us a Composition Tool at Novice Musician, and a Composition ability that boosts for each level up Composition.

When we fire up the Composition, we're presented with an interface to create compositions, which would be stored in our Data Pads (hi, Droid Engineers!). A composition would consist of a sequence of frames; each frame would be four, six or eight rows of flourishes to be performed, per instrument type -- so about 6 columns, eight rows, you select the flourish that should be performed at that point, with options for "silence" and "none" for not playing at all, and for not specifying a flourish. And of course, a composition would be for a given song.

Playing a composition should then be the equivalent of a macro to do /startband, /bandflourish, /bandflourish, ..., /stopband, but without the broken /pause that seems to have a funny and inconstant idea of what one second means. I'm not sure what exp it should give, probably composition XP to the band leader, and EHXP as appropriate. I'd like it to give MXP to the performers as well, but given /bandflourish doesn't, I wouldn't expect it.

This would give us musicians a way to precompose and perform full scores, rather than trying to use the horrible mishmash of bandflourish and macros and such we have to rely on now. It would give us something to look forward to post-Master Musician, it would give us something to distinguish the good bands from the mediocre, and it would give us meaning beyond "You're here to heal the fighters, don't get any funny ideas, just shut up and play."

This is really a great post, indeed..

If this ever should become something ingame, i would love for it to be so you could compose with the diff instruments you know and have access to, so you don't have to have 3-4 bandmembers by your side just to hear it out. But you should be able to hear it from your composition list.

I think it's what you also wanted but wasn't sure.. But again great post, we need something instead of the alias macro hell we are doing right now..

I also agree that this is a great idea. I was just talking with some friends about ways that the game could make band leading more manageable and this sounds right on.

Wow...so when does SOE hire you? Because I mean, why couldn't they think of such a simple and yet wonderful (simplest things always are aren't they) idea. I'm tempted to say that this is the best idea I've ever heard for musicains and would break up some of the monotony in the E.Healing ponits .

(of which I have an addtional 310k now even though I'm at IV of both while dancers around me only need an additional 15K to master dance. (I think we should be able to sell experience as a means of training like But all of that is beside the piont.)

Anyway just wow, I was wondernig yesterday after sitting in the cantina all day with noob AFK musicians not flourishing why couldn't I just make the slitherhorn flourish so as not to drive myself and the custoemrs crazy with the constat da da da....da da da....da da da....da da da....da da da....da da da....da da da.... . I didn't even think of something like this (just started /b 2 /b 6 )

Great idea!! I've thought about having "composing" in the game, too, so I completely agree with you! But, to anyone reading this - We can "compose" using aliases by making a text file in the SWG directory. Basically, it's just a macro out of the game that's easier to edit. There's a thread explaining it on the dancer forum - it's really helpful. Anyway, the problem is that it's tricky to use and your idea for a composing skill would make it much easier. I think that they should also have a "choreographing" skill for the dancers - just like the composing, but using dance flourishes instead!

Dead freakin' on. Devs, if you're listening, take note. A composition ability would make for some seriously awesome performances.

2 Credits more: More variety in musical instruments.

In my day we didn't have macros... we had to write our compositions out by hand and then perform them manually when we played music! hehe

Seriously though, how hard is it to setup some bandflourish keys and then perform a song manually? Everyone is becoming so dependent on macros I'm wondering how everyone played games before macroing existed... ;P

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Kronx wrote:

There's nothing stopping you right now from experimenting with the instruments and e-mailing the macros to each musician.

You can start everyone's playing at the same timeas a group, so all you really have to do is make sure each one hits their macro at roughly the same time.

In other words, you can already compose as long as folks are willing to go along. Why waste dev power on something you can already do?

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because of AFK musicians going da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da...da da da... etcetera...

The same riff, over...and over again drives people mad and I notice that less people stay the longer it goes. And the way you're speaking bands already do (bands of friends). /pause for however long during the song so that as soon as the song starts, everyone hits their flourish of 5 minutes long and it works easily. And I usually have tells to myself to tell me when mine ends, but I just thought of perhaps having tells in the macro to tell your friend to start, or when your'e finished .

But composition would be a much more fun line than a 2nd healing line...which is useless for 2 reasons. E. Healing can stay as one line the entire way, double the xp in one lineif you want it would still getto IVbefore your other skills . And it'redundant.

Wouldn't it be fun to have a composer so that it wouldn't involve someone new to the class & game having to figure out all the little quirks of commands. I know it takes a day to get people using /flourish correctly (i can't help butchuckle when I tell them to /flo 3 and they just sit there typing flo 3 or jsut flo for more than the first macro and over and over...and yes I'm telling them to make sure they / before it and I email instructions with ; too. really wish i could type one of those in game).

It seems to me like it would be similar to a squad leader who can command each person in his group to attack acertain way, etc. It's letting someone else play the game for you. FOr it to even be considered there could be no XP gained from it, which means most wouldn't want to do it (At least not until they hit master)

Bands aren't made up of one person controlling everything. They're individual musicians trying to stay on time and work together to make a good song. Just like RL, if you want to sound good, you have to practice. SWG requires you to practice and gain some skill. And the minute you let one person control everyone, you take away the need to play at all.

Hijo,

Seriously though, how hard is it to setup some bandflourish keys and
then perform a song manually? Everyone is becoming so dependent on
macros I'm wondering how everyone played games before macroing
existed... ;P

First, if you take a song to be about 4 and a half minutes long, and take each flourish as lasting approximately 5 seconds, that's 54 flourishes for a (short) song. It's doable, yes, but it's awkward. Second, you can't use macros for any serious duration of music, because the duration of "/pause 1" is not constant! Tried playing along with a drummer who speeds up and slows down at random?

Kronx,

There's nothing stopping you right now from experimenting with the
instruments and e-mailing the macros to each musician.

You're right, there's absolutely nothing stopping that. There's also nothing stopping people from advancing through combat by going just outside of town and killing the easiest critters they can find for 1xp a pop, but that level of pain is not really /fun/ now is it?

Bands aren't made up of one person controlling everything. They're
individual musicians trying to stay on time and work together to make
a good song. Just like RL, if you want to sound good, you have to
practice. SWG requires you to practice and gain some skill. And the
minute you let one person control everyone, you take away the need to
play at all.

The music Mozart wrote controls an entire orchestra's performance. Someone conducting that orchestra controls the timing of the whole shebang. In pop music, the song is prewritten, often by one or two band members, sometimes by external parties entirely, with room given to the performing musicians to add their own touches to the sound.

The only thing I've seen in SWG is people jamming together. The game does not easily facilitate either a precomposed score or a prewritten guide. You CAN use macros to get there, but it is awkward and painful.

So, my suggestion does two key things:

• Provide high end content for musicians, and
  
• Reduce the emphasis on "healing" and increase the emphasis on "music"
  

I don't mind if the end result is each player is shown which flourishes they should be playing next, rather than have them played automatically, or if it works just like a whole set of bandflourishes. What I want is to make it significantly easier for bands to get pieces of music prepared and performed well.

I love this idea. Or even just have the ability to be a conductor, and instruct different musicians in different flourishes.

The conductor Idea would be great to add to the "Master Entertainer". Give them the ability to control the flourishes of everyone Musicans and Dancers in thier Band. This would be a nice benifit to learning Master Entertainer as it would make for a unique bonus to learn it and it doesn't hinder people who just want to Dance or play Music from reaching all of there instraments and dance steps.

The composer line should defenitly be part of the Musican line! It could start at novice musican where you can only compose to "StarWars1",then as you earn "Composition XP" and move to "Comp 1" you could write compasitions to "Rock" and so on up the "Composition" line. To earnCompasition XP everytime one of the flourishes in your composition went off you would earn not only Musician XP (earned based on normal rules forsolo play)but composition XP. You would earn more compasition XP based on the number of musicians in the band. This adds player skill as if you add to many flurishes to fast your song will be to hard for some to play and they will need to drop out of your song to rest, but if you make it to easy to play you don't get as much xp.

There's nothing stopping you right now from experimenting with the instruments and e-mailing the macros to each musician.

You can start everyone's playing at the same timeas a group, so all you really have to do is make sure each one hits their macro at roughly the same time.

In other words, you can already compose as long as folks are willing to go along. Why waste dev power on something you can already do?