Musician Archive
Thread: How many of you ATK musicians use text or emotes in your recursive or nonrecursive macros?
It would impact all players who barked to sell stuff, not just Entertainers with song macros.
I personally don't have any text in my Ent macros, but I have stood around and barked to sell stuff before, because standing around and pasting something into the chat box every couple minutes gets old pretty fast.
I think attempting to remove any kind of abilities in macros would just become a huge tangle of issues for a lot of different people.
Warryyr wrote:It would impact all players who barked to sell stuff, not just Entertainers with song macros.
Yes, that is exactly who is responsible for 90% of all spatial chat pollution and exactly who we are aiming this fix at.
Barker droids would still retain their functionality and would be perfect for this giving the merchant and droid engineer professions a shot in the arm.
What I am looking for specifically is the number of people who play ATK entertainers that rely on text in macro such as the poster above me.
Quinton_McTish wrote:I certainly put text in my song macros. Removing that ability would... well, suck. That's how I make my livin' in game.
So the only way for you to generate credits from the music skill is via text in a macro? Could you please show me a sample of one of your macros?
This is an RP profession now. Songs are a way of life in the RP community. Forget about touching macros. There is no longer any need to destroy macros in any way. You give thesepeople any ideas and they will totally destroy it, not fix it. Hasn't history taught you anything? If you don't like the noise in city cantinas, stay out of them. There is little reason to go into them anyways... There has been enough nails in this professions coffin, don't dream up new ones.
Loniki Lee
Message Edited by Mariki on 08-01-2005 08:14 AM
Personally, I use alias files in place of the in-game macros, but the mechanicisbasically the same.I have about 6-7 performances that I have written that incorporate text, specific flourishes, and special effects/holoemote activation within the alias/macro.
A quick example of what they are made of:
ExampleSong:/bandflourish 1;/bandflourish 2;/bandflourish 3;/sing This is the first line of my song, la, la, la.;/pause 5;/firejet 1;/sing This is the second line of my song, la, la, la.;/pause 5;
etc.
The band that I perform in has elaborate set-up's for macros (introduction of band members, dancers, as well as intros to the various songs) all programmed into macros so that we can hit a button rather than type all of it out every time.
Removing the ability to have text in a macro is a poor solution to the deeper problem, much like removing NPC actors is a poor solution to the problem of a few people using the actors for griefing purposes.
If the devs were to remove the ability to put text in macros, they would also be removing the revenue generated by my accounts. 
Steve_12_08 wrote:
Personally, I use alias files in place of the in-game macros, but the mechanicisbasically the same.I have about 6-7 performances that I have written that incorporate text, specific flourishes, and special effects/holoemote activation within the alias/macro.
A quick example of what they are made of:
ExampleSong:/bandflourish 1;/bandflourish 2;/bandflourish 3;/sing This is the first line of my song, la, la, la.;/pause 5;/firejet 1;/sing This is the second line of my song, la, la, la.;/pause 5;
etc.
The band that I perform in has elaborate set-up's for macros (introduction of band members, dancers, as well as intros to the various songs) all programmed into macros so that we can hit a button rather than type all of it out every time.
Removing the ability to have text in a macro is a poor solution to the deeper problem, much like removing NPC actors is a poor solution to the problem of a few people using the actors for griefing purposes.
If the devs were to remove the ability to put text in macros, they would also be removing the revenue generated by my accounts.
I'm in much the same boat (well, apart from the fact that my aliases only contain my song texts, I usuallytype inany announcements by hand).
Removing the ability to generate spatial text in macros and aliases would end my career with my band Nebula, and remove the last and only reason to keep playing my musician and consequently the game. I do have a 2nd account, but as soon as my primary account goes, so will the other one.
Reachwind wrote:
Quinton_McTish wrote:
I certainly put text in my song macros. Removing that ability would... well, suck. That's how I make my livin' in game.
So the only way for you to generate credits from the music skill is via text in a macro? Could you please show me a sample of one of your macros?
[edit]
The biggest issue with unattended players in our play area is unattended players. I don't care if they are talking or silent they are stealing content from the people actually trying to play what little is left of this game.
Message Edited by LyteFoot on 08-01-2005 03:24 PM
Reachwind wrote:
Warryyr wrote:
It would impact all players who barked to sell stuff, not just Entertainers with song macros.
Yes, that is exactly who is responsible for 90% of all spatial chat pollution and exactly who we are aiming this fix at.
Barker droids would still retain their functionality and would be perfect for this giving the merchant and droid engineer professions a shot in the arm.
What I am looking for specifically is the number of people who play ATK entertainers that rely on text in macro such as the poster above me.
If this is "exactly who we are aiming this fix at" then why do you NOT mention starport barkers or people selling things through text at all, in the original post?
You mention nothing of "spatial chat pollution" in your original post, but rather you discuss problems "in our play area." This generally insinuates cantinas, and I don't see a load of people barking in cantinas trying to sell things, i see a lot of, "Tips are appreciated!" and "If I'm not in a group, invite me kthx!"
Thus, your post insinuated that this change would benefit our play areas (cantinas) and I wanted to throw in that this would also impact others who use text in their macros, mainly barkers.
Message Edited by Warryyr on 08-01-2005 03:31 PM
Reachwind wrote:
Many of us feel that asking the developers to remove the ability to generate text via a macro would clean up most of the problems we have with unattended players in our play area. The number one complaint about this idea is that everyone's songs would be ruined. So my question to all of you is, who all really uses this and would it ruin your game play to not have the ability to add text to your macro?
In addition, who is the "many of us," exactly?
I don't think this will do anything but tick off a bunch of people who will see it as Entertainers ruining other people's gameplay, which I think is exactly why the removal of recursive macros got shelved.
Esharra's post in the Dancer forums said:
"Spam created by unattended avatars and NPC storm troopers leave the NPC cantinas an undesirable environment for the social playstyle."
Your text removal idea came out of that, and it'd be okay, except that it would impact a LOT of players from various professions.
I don't think the answer is to monkey with macros. Leave macros as they are. The answer is to reward people who play ATK, and to NOT reward people who play AFK. This is a difficult thing to achieve - how do you make the game know someone is AFK, despite their efforts (drinky-drinky bird or otherwise) to convince you that they're not AFK?
A reliable way to stop the cantina spamming, without relying on lack of input from a keyboard/mouse or hampering other people's gameplay, is:
1) Get rid of the spam on the Stormtroopers. Nice idea, but it's just nothing but destructive to our game experience. It's far too frequent, and it's even worse when a camper decides to park in the cantina, blasting away with particle effects. Not fun. Get rid of the Stormtroopers' spam, or make them only say something when attacked.
2) Make Entertainer a more interactive process, with xp as the reward.
If you can't profit from AFK'ing, people will be less inclined to do so. AFK'ing after mastering will not be resolved until the Devs change their perspective on AFK play. Until then, AFK Entertainers will continue to provide Inspiration buffs and hamper the efforts of ATK Entertainers.
Less AFK while grinding means less "Tips are appreciated!" and less "Invite me if I'm not in a group!" or "Listen to me, I need xp!" which will benefit the cantina in general.
Then we just need to get a unique and marketable skill to sell to the game community as Master Danceror Musician,and we might actually be in decent shape.
Message Edited by Warryyr on 08-01-2005 03:55 PM
As I have said over and over again, it is not macroing that is the problem, but the ability to infinitely loop it, go AFK, and gain rewards (experience, being the main one) that is the problem. Taking text out of macros does nothing to affect the actual problem.
As to the original question, I use aliases, not macros, but I have many long songs that I use aliases for, and taking my ability to output text via the /sing command in a macro would be unacceptable to me.
C