Musician Archive

Well, controversial post here.

Worked my way up the music tree from day 1 on, as many other fellow musicians did.

Because we are nice to each other, we always grouped new musicians so they can participate from our group exp and we always accepted to go back to SW1 or Rock (oh how I hate the boring rock theme and the slitherhorn wawawawawa that is louder than any other instrument).

Well, after 2 weeks of entertaining well, most of the muscian fellows are on Knowledge III and higher, some playing nargalons and so on. We have a great choice of songs (Ballad with a nargalon, how nice!), the audience loves this songs, and its a pleasure to listen too.

The last days, more and more master creature handlers, artisans, medics, brawlers and stuff walking in and show up as SW1 slitherhorn players that want in group - mostly because they wanna heal their own battle fatigue I heard.

Well, back to SW with wawawawa slitherhorn, turning sound off - or try to form higher entertainer groups and not allow cross professions to get in group?

Its really hard to choose, but I am so fed up of playing SW1 and Rock, and I don't wanna play it for the next 5 months because there will always be people that wanna take a peek into musician profession.

How do you handle this problem?

Rock is the worst song in game. Period. Just my opinion.

AFK players, no matter what lvl they are. If they stay AFK for to long. Boot them. Unless theystop playing and go sit somewhere. Nothing isworse in a band that has a musician in the center of it all and is just playing with AFK over their head.

Also, macro people who just leave their account going with looping macros. Booted! I also wish we could move these people out of the way also.

As for the newer musicians its a tough decision.If I know a person is trying to actually learn music and plan to advance in it, I have no problem lowering the song for them. Its the people who just take it as a hobby and don't plan to do anything but play here and there. I don't like to go from ballad to SW1 to accomodate them, especially when it is so hard to get the people that can play it all in one group. So, I would ask them to just play by themselves. But most of the time we all just bring our song down to SW1.

Well, another problem I have seen very clearly today in Bestine Cantina:

First a 3 man band with Master Musician and 2 advanced guys, we played Ballad, and the nargalon of the master produced awesome caribean sounds.

Another master joined in, 2 nargalon big band, tuned down to Folk because of some newbies that wanted into band.

Then more newbies joined. SW1 all the way. 1st master left, 2nd master left, 2 advanced musicians left, and after 1 hr, Bestine cantina had a band of noobs playing SW1.

I think devs need to find a way to solve this problem, because not only the musicians, but also the customers get bored by the same tunes day in and day out.

been wondering about this myself. I think i'm decided that part-time musicians can play on their own time, not mine. I don't mind stepping down to sw1 or (shudder, rock) for noob MUSICIANS, but I'm not going to do it anymore for part-timers.

My bigger concern though is the entertainer-bots. NO OTHER PROFESSION can be turned into a BOT quite so easilly as musician.... The Coronet cantina is a disgusting collection of basically BOTs that people have running while they are at work. There's going to be no demand for entertainers if every PA just has spare accounts floating around with entertainer BOTS ready to go. I don't know really what could be done though to address this....

I'm looking forward to master musician so I can up and leave the cantinas alltogether. I'd like to find a real band to join, but solo shows can be a lot of fun too. Nothing like blowing away someone who thought sw1 and slitherhorn was all that musicianship offered. (Ok here's a little secret: get master entertainer so you can do the SW1 guitar solo - that seems to be one of the best ways to get somebody to respect you as a musician, lol.)

Now all we need is for the hotels to add mezzanines so that when an act comes to town they can get their name up in lights and draw some crouds.

Ok, first of all you need to distinguish between those who just want to heal themselves and those who really want to be musicians. For those who really want to be musicians, play lower for them. They'll get up there quick enough, and it's always good to help out fellow entertainers.

However, for those who just want to heal themselves, give them the facts. Make sure they understand that if they play, their healing ability is all that is working on them and they get no benefit from listening to the rest of you. Once they realize that they'll actually heal faster by just sitting and listening to the rest of you, they usually will. I have nothing against people who pick up entertainer to heal themselves when another is not around, sometimes they just need a little education so that they will only use it when no entertainers are around. And, if someone is excessively stubborn about healing themselves, it is ok to politely ask them to do so elsewhere.

Apologies Marrnos... the taking it down to sw1 was probably my fault because I assume that people want to be musicians and want to help them progress. It never really occurrs to me until it is spelled out (thinks of one person in particular) that they are only doing it to help themselves in the field.

Having said that... I agree that we should encourage those committed to the profession, the rest can go form their own group in another room

Personally I love going off and playing the hotel and theatre for a break. Sometimes even sw1 can be a welcome relief from 15 mins of non-stop ballad

I like to mix things up and am not so bothered about the xp... which is why I am not master everything yet *grins*

I never mind playing SW1, cause I like to train up new peeps and I like everyone who wants to play to be able to.

But on the same note, if you're afk, and still playing, you can be booted from the group because you're not contributing. As long as you're at the keyboard you can play in the band SW1 all night long.

I solo'd my way through Star Wars I because even as a newb I understood that most better musicians despise it. (It is by far the worst song in the game, much worse than Rock, which actually can be kind of fun if played well, and is always fun on drums.) I would hope that new musicians would take into consideration the feelings of more skilled musicians; respect and accommodation should be a two-way street. If you're new, solo your way to Rock, then join up.

K'vera, I pointed yesterday out as an example for an overall problem, not specific to our band setups and behaviours on Eclipse. And you might not be master in the hard coded game skills, but your songs are true mastership )

I liked the answer of NewJedi, because I for myself would act like he do. Seeing a band with only masters in it and hearing them playing Ceremonial and Jazz and seeing the audience in the cantina enjoying it, I would never dare to force this group playing a lesser song.

There are players that see this problem and going to solo exp or doing other stuff like dancing, and there are players who ignore the completesituation and repeat "I can't play this song" 10 times, forcing the whole group down to SW1 and, in worst case, going afk playing that annoying wawawa chord on slitherhorn all time.

I think that's a problem that can't be solved 100% by the playerbase, maybe it needs some change from the developer side ... i.e. lower players can join into a higher song at a lower exp rate, while they can't play the song solo, or something like that. Musicians are the only class that is clearly restricted in what they do when they group a lower member - imagine a hunting group with some master pistoleers and a novice marksman in it, and because of the novice player, the masters get a message "You cannot attack this Uber_Mob_03, because one of your members lack the skill to shoot it", and they would be forced to kill green butterflies at the town borders

Well, /peace out and see you rocking in the game )

i think part of the issue too is location and time of day. like saturday night in a tatooine cantina, sw2 minimum. heck, last night it was sw2 all night long with eight billion people in the band.

monday morning in kor vella ... youre soloing anyway so play what you want, hehe.

i guess there are different reasons for playing at different times. sometimes you want to jam, meaning group up a lot of players and just have fun with minimal organization and accomplishment. sometimes you want to perform, which takes more organization and limits who can be in the band but the results can be amazing. it depends on who's there at the time and what they feel like doing, the players and customers.

so if youre playing ballad and loving it and ppl are going, ooo nice song, then i think its ok to keep playing even if everyone cant join.

but then if ppl start throwing beer bottles and yelling, cantina song! then it might be time to group everyone up and jam : )

I think a good player solution would be for the experienced players to play at the Hotel or Theater regularly. This way, players will start going by the theater and hotel to see if the more experienced bands and dancers are there.

The Cantina is a great place to experience, in my opinion. It's not a great place to show off your skills.

There's a group of us forming a band just so we can help other people experience the joys and variety that advanced and talented levels of Music and Dance have to offer.

When I'm in the Cantina, I fully expect to play nothing higher than SW2. I think once I hit Master though I'm going to move permanently to the Theater or Hotel and do /shouts in the zone announcing that master musicians can be heardthere. People will come and I will have no problemasking low level musicians, if they want to exp grind or level up, please go to the Cantina.

Most important the theater or hotel will be for performinga variety of songs during the night. If a lower level musician was to come along and was willing to sit out during particular songs, that's going to show to everyone he's serious about the profession.

None of your customers like to hear the same song for half an hour, regardless of whether it is StarWars1 or Virtuoso. And to be honest, the rest of the members in the jam session probably doesn't either.

So play songs with a beginning and an end, and change it up.

Bunch ofnew players want StarWars1? Fine, play StarWars1 for 10 minutes. Then /stopband. If someone was playing and AFK they are done then. Then tell the youngsters you are going to play Ballad for 10 minutes, and stick to that time. Then maybe StarWars2, then Jazz, then Rock. Let the band know when you will be changing songs, new folks will get to skill up some, Masters will get to strut their stuff some. Fair and easy.

Tell the newer entertainers that they can /startdance Basic1 and stand and sway side to side, still getting the Entertainment Healing exp while you are playing higher level songs.

I've had great times doing this in Jam Sessions(pickup groups).

~Gaunt Voodoo: Entertainer, Musician, Pistoleer in the Making.

i agree this is a playerbased fix on our server our band left the cantina for our performances and just say hi in the cantina and you know what happened? ... the cantina emptied.... you just need to train you audience if all they care about is healing (which usually are the non-tippers anyway) then they can listen to wawawaw in the cantina with afk noobs but if they want entertainment they need to go to your cantina or to the hotel. People do learn and do switch but be ready for a slim week or two as they do learn... habits die hard so don't expect a huge turnout at first. The main thing is to stick to it don't play at the cantina for too long or the people will just figure they can find you there. Also i love the sit out idea we do that and it does show those who are serious about the profession, they understand and don't mind because they care about the show being good

cheers,

famousFATWOOKIE

Ahazi server, bestine/ xcorp city