Musician Archive

Maybe the combat characters who think buffbots are completely justified given the $15 argument will change their tune if the caves get flooded with afk killstealbots.
I'm not suggesting we actually do this (I'm not one to be confrontational when the chance exists to be educational), but combat characters should think of what this would do to their game. Your lack of an ability to get that uber loot is our lack of an ability to get a measly 5000 credits.

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Aleyo wrote:
Maybe the combat characters who think buffbots are completely justified given the $15 argument will change their tune if the caves get flooded with afk killstealbots.
I'm not suggesting we actually do this (I'm not one to be confrontational when the chance exists to be educational), but combat characters should think of what this would do to their game. Your lack of an ability to get that uber loot is our lack of an ability to get a measly 5000 credits.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't kill stealing considered griefing? And, haven't the devs come out strongly against this kind of thing? And, isn't one of the reasons that the Corvette was instanced because of this? And, haven't people been warned and banned over this?

So, why is it that the combat form of gameplay is heavily protected by the devs but our form of kill stealing is not? After all, that is what it is. The buffbots are stealing our kills. They're stealing our method of making money. It's the same exact thing. It should, by all rights, be considered griefing and ended, immediately.

In addressing these points, I'd like to first try to make it clear that my intent is not to flame here. I think that Straker has been very reasonable in presenting his views in his various posts on this forum, and open to hearing our perspectives as well.

I don't normally do the line by line response thing, but the format of this post lends itself too well to it.

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Straker_Atrella wrote:

Because there are far more combatants then "live" Entertainers.

Because making changes to the macro system would affect many aspects of the game.

Because if all AFK entertaining was removed, there would be times where you would be unable to find an Entertainer, or it may be difficult. This would make the game unfun for many people.

I actually understand your point though, and to be honest if you were performing somewhere giving buffs, and some jerk moved in and set up his buffbot right next to you, I WOULD consider that griefing.

Not everybody who runs a buffbot is out to make money or to grief real Entertainers. Some are simply trying ot help their friends and guildies.

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Xyrdre wrote:

In addressing these points, I'd like to first try to make it clear that my intent is not to flame here. I think that Straker has been very reasonable in presenting his views in his various posts on this forum, and open to hearing our perspectives as well.

I don't normally do the line by line response thing, but the format of this post lends itself too well to it.

Good points, I'll line for line here as well, easier for me to focus, 6AM here, been up all night. Which may also explain my perspective, I play quite often until shutdown, so know people can be scarce then.

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Straker_Atrella wrote:

Because there are far more combatants then "live" Entertainers.

This is irrelevant. The Social Playstyle is an advertised part of this game (remember, the entertainer is an exciting new type of profession in MMO gaming, et.al.), and that advertised part of this game attracted many subscribers. My SWG box says "Follow your own path with a skill-based advancement system, which accomodates your style of play, whether you become a bounty hunter or a dancer or a merchant or even a Jedi". There is no mention of, "unless your play style is not a majority". The social playstyle deserves to be protected, just as the other playstyles do.

Note: I have yet to hear a logical argument that AFKing in any form is a "playstyle", as it is by it's own definition not playing, but automating game functionsso that the owner of that account does not have to play.

Hmmm, yea I probably didn't say what I meant very well. I agree every playstyle is valid and important, none should outweigh the other, in principle. Yet, when your making rules, you need to focus on the more common issues first. In theterms of service, griefing is not allowed. Pretty early on and often, combat kill stealing and griefing came up and wascalled an offense.Yet, this is still something very hard to prove and enforce. Now with AFK performing, this is much harder to classify. The person is using in game tools, and doing nothing against the TOS. If they step up and call it griefing, then they need to address the entire AFK macro system, which coudl have a vary wide effect. That is no easy matter.

So to clarify my origional staement in the easiest manner, I meant to say. Rules are easy to make when they affect a majority in a positive way. Rules are hard to make when they affect a minority in a positive way but could have vast far reaching effects on a majority "possibly" negatively.

Because making changes to the macro system would affect many aspects of the game.

So will the Combat Balance and JTL.

Right, but the CB is "suppossed" to affect everybody. Professions will be more balanced, the game will be more fun for all. I don't consider JTL on the same level, that isn't a balance thing, that is an expansion or upgrade. You can't put balance into JTL, because not everybody will buy it. While making vast changes to the macro system will make Entertainers happy, it would make many others unhappy, in ways totally unrelated to Entertaining. From the Noobie looping his Berserk macro as he kills Quenkers, to me with my looped shuttle board macro that uses my ticket while I'm getting a soda so I don't miss my flight.

If your going to make a large portion of your playerbase unhappy to please a small portion, then it had better be the ONLY way.

Because if all AFK entertaining was removed, there would be times where you would be unable to find an Entertainer, or it may be difficult. This would make the game unfun for many people.

I've really been meaning to address this point for some time now... it's come up so many times. This is not directed solely at the referenced poster, but is more of a general reply to this line of thinking.

It is "unfun" sitting in a med center waiting around for wounds to healbecause there wasn't a doc hanging around in the remote location I happened to choose to go to play that late night either. Nor do I like sitting around in the Coronet med center waiting for those wounds to heal because there aren't docs staffing it at any andalltimes. Or even whenbuffing docs don't heal my wounds because, well, they didn't bring wound packs with them... just buff packs.I don't blame the doctor profession's lack of unattended macro automationfor not having totalconvenience at my whim. If I can find a doc who will help me heal those wounds faster, I appreciate that assistance, and I tip them. I tip them well.

I sit and heal if I have to. And you can too. Sitting in an empty cantina will heal your BF slowly, just as sitting in an empty med center will heal your wounds. I'm sorry if sometimes this might be less than the epitome of fun, but sometimes those are the breaks.

What percentage of the population has Novice Medic? A very large portion. With novice Medic you can heal your own wounds. Tendwounds even lets you do it without a woundpack. Many people pick up some TKA, simply so they can heal their wounds, yes even mind wounds. You can even say to hell with the wounds, and get buffed and head back out. After all, what is 300 wounds in a world of 2500 buffs? My point is there are many available options to sitting in a med center to heal your wounds.

How do you heal BF? Only from an Entertainer, and by sitting in a Cantina, which you admit is very slow, and if I'm not mistaken doesn't work in player cantinas (could be wrong.) It's not like I can even train Novice Entertainer and heal my own BF.

How long would it take to heal 500 BF by just sitting in a Cantina? I doubt that is how many people wantto spend their night of playing, many would log and hope to find an Entertainer tomorrow.

You say buffs are a right, not a privledge, I agree. WIthout buffs, I can still play the game to some extent, perhaps I can't do everything I want, but I can fight some, what I do is my choice. I consider BF different however, battle fatigue is FORCED on players, they have no choice. With high BF, you simply cannot fight, you will probably die, then you get more BF. In my opinion BF is a bad idea overall, it is forced on people with no guaranteed way to remove it. I consider getting BF healed a "right," you need it done to function.

AFKing is what has caused this lack of respect and lack oftipping for services. No one expects doctors to be available 24/7 in every med center in the galaxy, because that is an unreasonable request to make of another living being (player). Yet it is this very thing that is constantly demanded of entertainers. It is now somehow expected as the norm that there will be a robot NPC (AFK macrotainer) anywhere for the whims of other players at all times of day or night. Living beings who play these PC professions are seen as lazy, worthless, or ineffectivebecause we do not fulfill the previously noted unrealistic expectations.These expectations would not exist had there never been a way to totally automate an entire set of professions.

Maybe this is a server thing. Whenever I am out and about and do give public buffs, I always get tipped. Hell if I sold buffs the same amount of time I spent making droid, I'm pretty sure I would make more money.

Again I guess it's a server thing, sure we have afk buffbots in Coronet, Theed, and many Player Cantinas such as ours. However, many places such as the Dant Imp outpost, Dath outposts, and many other popular hunting spots are often quite empty. An actual live Entertainer could easily setup shop there and get plenty of tips. Yet a large majority of the time nobody does.

I agree not many people tip AFK performers, why should they? Not like they are using resources like a Doc. However, I tend to think most people are decent. If you talk to them, are friendly, you will probably get more tips then not.

Total removal of the ability to fully automate all functions of entire professions is the only way that the damage might one day be undone, even if the current playerbase spoiled by the luxury of total convenience must "suffer" for awhile adjusting back to what is a reasonable environment. Permitting total automation to continue in any form prolongs the unrealistic expectations, and will therefore never be healed.

Well as you can guess, I totally disagree with you here. The main reason is that there are better options. Make attended performers more desireable. Never Nerf when you can love.

Yet let's look at something else. Even if you got everything you wanted, AFK macros would still exist. People wonder why the macro system was put into the game to begin with. It's because the Devs are smart, they learned from other games. It was put in for a "if you can't beat them join them," reason.

Many games are plauged by 3rd party applications, the programs are virtually undetectable by the server, a keystroke is a keystroke, a mouseclick and mouseclick. These programs give an edge to those who use them over those who do not. Catching and proving that these people are actually not at their keyboard leads to enforcement and manpower issues.

So SWG did it right. They made is possible for everybody to be even. Cheaters don't get an edge, the tools are right in the game for everybody. That is part of what I like about it, I was never a cheater, it's nice to be fair.

If they took the macro system out of the game, you could still AFK buffbot. People would simply do it with an external program. Would take maybe 30 minutes to setup, if that. I'm not saying this would be right, but people would do it.

So why change the macro system, when it wont fix the problem. Make Entertainers better.

I actually understand your point though, and to be honest if you were performing somewhere giving buffs, and some jerk moved in and set up his buffbot right next to you, I WOULD consider that griefing.

And we do.

Not everybody who runs a buffbot is out to make money or to grief real Entertainers. Some are simply trying ot help their friends and guildies.

This one is one of those that sort of goes both ways. I can understand the perspective of taking care of friends, but it is also hurting an entire playstyle's professions from functioning as intended. No need to look further than these forums to see the endless ways that this has occured. I still think this falls under the "altruistic" buffbot excuse, but the truth is that it damages an entire playstyle's ability to function; knowingly doing that is hardy being altruistic. Refer to the many threads in the dancer forums of guilds that set up buffbots despite having entertainer players as guild members, and the effects of that. Add to that the truth that anytime something is given away for free, it is money not changing hands to fuel the economy as it is intended to.

I'll say it again, the day we have a Live Entertainer in our city who wants to take over my job, it is theirs. Hell, even one within 5k (5 minutes travel.) The problem is, that there isn't so the niche needs filled.

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Man, I am long winded, the wife is going to kill me if I don't go to bed soon.

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Just to clear up Straker's misconseptions.

Yes, you can sit in a Player Cantina and heal BF slowly without an entertainer present just like a NPC Cantina.

Yes, you can pick up Novice Entertainer and heal your own BF that way. You do not, however, get healing experierce for heaing your own BF. The game considers you always 'watching/listening' to yourself. So you heal your BF up, just like I can administer a stim on myself if I have Novice Medic.

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Straker_Atrella wrote:

What percentage of the population has Novice Medic? A very large portion. With novice Medic you can heal your own wounds. Tendwounds even lets you do it without a woundpack. Many people pick up some TKA, simply so they can heal their wounds, yes even mind wounds. You can even say to hell with the wounds, and get buffed and head back out. After all, what is 300 wounds in a world of 2500 buffs? My point is there are many available options to sitting in a med center to heal your wounds.

I realize I'm only taking bits and pieces of your argument and trying to refute them. Otherwise I think this post would get way too long. And, besides, I think I and others have answered many of the other issues elsewhere. But, anyway, you're right a large portion of the population has novice medic or TK. I have TK, but even before that, I never had any novice medic. I like playing TK for other reasons, even though I admit the healing properties make that profession rock. But, had I chosen a different elite combat profession to play, I would not have picked up Novice Medic because ultimately I enjoy the interdependence that SWG has to offer. I'm one of those silly people that actually likes having to seek out and make contacts.

However, I still think you greatly underestimate the availability of ATK entertainers. What you have to realize is that at this point the reason you're seeing so few is because the hologrind made us leave in droves. Many don't go into Cantinas anymore because they're such miserable places to be precisely because of afk entertainers and the spamming and everything else that goes on there. There are people that dropped the profession, not because it was boring, but because they were no longer appreciated, there was nobody to interact with because everyone was afk, and because they couldn't make a living anymore. When the hologrind is over, and afk'ers are greatly reduced, I think you'll find people returning to the Cantinas.

Case in point. I've been going to Mos Eisley quite a lot recently because the new entertainers there aren't tainted by everything else that goes on in the galaxy. The majority of them are ATK and enjoy entertaining. I have fun in the groups there again because there are people to talk to. This is how it was, and I believe this is how it would get again if afk were entirely removed. Mos Eisley is a great case study for how things used to work because for the most part, it is still working there. It's very rare, at least on my servers, that you go to Mos Eisley and don't find a live ATK entertainer. This is how it was in the good old days in Theed, Coronet, and even some of the lesser cities like Tyrena or Moenia. Never was there not an ATK performer, just like Mos Eisley right now.

There are also other options. If people are that willing to give up 15 whole points to get Novice Medic, then what's the difference in giving up 15 whole points to get Novice Entertainer? It's the same thing. Yet again, entertainers are being held to a different standard than other professions. And, I don't understand why that is. If you still insist that you wouldn't be able to find one entertainer in the entire galaxy, then I'm just going to have to respectfully disagree. Because, from all the evidence that I have seen, that is unequivocally false.

Yet let's look at something else. Even if you got everything you wanted, AFK macros would still exist. People wonder why the macro system was put into the game to begin with. It's because the Devs are smart, they learned from other games. It was put in for a "if you can't beat them join them," reason.

That's debatable. I think the devs made a huge huge mistake by implementing this afk macro system. I have played other games before. And, yes, third party programs are problems. But, to use an example that others have used, just because there's a risk of someone stealing stuff in your house, that doesn't mean you should always leave your door unocked. Now, I am firmly entrenched in this game. I love this game, and I got too entrenched in this game before I realized it had such a system and how damaging it was. I'll be honest. There's no way I'm leaving this game any time soon. However, I will say this, as an avid MMORPG gamer, every single game that I buy from now on, I will be doing my research. I'll be visiting message boards and official websites. If there is any kind of afk macro system remotely as complex as in SWG, I will *never* buy that game. And, I would assume there are probably many others who feel the same way. This macro system has caused an inordinate amount of damage to a game that could be so much better. I will, never...do you hear me, NEVER, buy another game that has such a system in place. Because if I did, it would just cause me more aggravation and frustration. It's a horrible, horrible system, and I refuse to get involved and pay my money, in the future, to a game that supports this. It's too bad that I already love this game too much to just give up on it right now.

/cheer!

And I think lots of people have supported that idea too.

I appologise if this has been said already, I'll read the entire thread (and the other one) during my lunch break:

Back when we first started it was possible to afk all the time and never get booted. What people would do is afk sampleresources all night. There weren't that many harvesters then, and not much money so paying maitenance was a pain. Put your character on overnight and you could sample5k. Then you sold it on the bazaar. I thought this was harmless... but it wasn't. It hurt the profession who were actually trying to make money, either by selling harvesters or using them and selling the resources. Afk harvest macroing was considered an exploit and they put that little pop-up box in to prevent it.

A box wouldn't work for entertainers. In the middle of your routine you would get a box that would stop you from doing whatever it is you were doing and click. Yuck. But the concept is still the same. Barely anyone afk hand samples anymore, but not because of the pop-up box which can be circumvented. They don't hand sample because harvester have become so much better.

So what is being suggested is basically make live buffing so much better than afk buffing that no one would bother with the buff bots. This sounds great. And if everyone in the Entertainer community decides this is how they want to go I will support it.

But personally I still want the afk zombies gone. They ruin the ambience, take up prime dancing spots, and well, generally just pi.. make me mad. And I still see afk buff bots as a game breaking exploit. Similar to loot camping. There is no difference in my mind between loot-camping, craft-exploiting, and buff exploiting. Combat professions, Crafting professions and Entertaining professions are all equally important.

Message Edited by Beery on 07-23-2004 09:07 AM