Musician Archive

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TheOtherSaintly wrote:

ATTN: Devs -- you left in the original name of the 'entertainment district' in your advanced guide to player cities. =)

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Well, the simple answer is approach the problem to make entertaining more interesting...

Not removing functionality (like /ui action toolbarSlot, which btw is used by almost every profession there is) or adding complexity.

No one is going to change their views on this it seems. Either you AFK or you don't,you macro or you don't, AFK'ers annoy you or they don't.

How about wego backto how to make entertaining more entertaining rather than beating this dead horse more?

Look, as near as I can tell, most people do not care about and AFKer gaining experience, they care about losing tips and all around making the gameplay less enjoyable.

Get them out of the cantinas.

The reason they are there are to get healing exp, cause they can get music experience anywhere.

Make the cantina grant healing exp sometimes, and the hotel other times. No third party software or any macro will pick that up. It will take a human to notice that. It is way less intrusive than a popup. In most cities, the band will have to cross the street. Then the afker can play where no one is listening. Because healing does not work.

My game is less fun because others stand in the middle of a cantina shouting tip me, and providing services to someone, that does not feel obligated to tip them when they are AFK.

This should indeed be fixed, as much as any other form of griefing.

I go to many cantinas that are not very populated and may or may not have an entertainer there. It's angers me to go to a cantina and see no one there. I am actually glad to see an entertainer there, and most times it is only one entertainer there and they are AFK. For myself and others we are glad that someone is there and we don't have to travel to another city or planet when we are figthing or hunting in a certain region.

Don't get me wrong, if I walk into a cantina and see a AFK musican playing and a live musician playing, I am going to tip the live musician. Because that's my choice, plus I know alot of other players who will do the same.

If you take away the xp from AFK'ers, then I can see your numbers dwindle. Which is bad for me. That would make it hassle to go find an entertainer to heal my mind wounds and battle fatigue. I don't want my experience to be frustrating, especially if I am giving credits to your profession.

The way I see it, if entertainers are having fun entertaining and socializing and making tips while doing it, how are the AFK'ers impacting your profession?

I just don't want your numbers to dwindle, or else alot of players(combat) will want the devs to give them alternative to heal the mind wounds and battle fatigue, which will kill your profession.

IMHO, I could be wrong. I just wanted show a different perspective on the issue.

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You might actually have to go to a more populated planet or cityto find an entertainer? (gasps) I have to go to another planet to get entertainment healing experience. The same AFKmaster musician (with auto AFK turned off) isparked in the cantina of my favorite city 24/7. She doesn't flourish and doesn't need the exp because she's already at master. However, the burn is that people come into the cantina and watch her instead of me and I do need the exp to advance in my profession.

So is she impacting my profession?

YES!

I've had the occasional player walk in and ask 'Who isn't AFK?' so they can watch and tip the people who are really there but by far most people don't care if the entertainer they're watching is AFK as long as they're getting healed. A few people have even been polite enough to say 'I love AFK entertainers because I don't have to tip them'. They don't have to tip me either, I support myself by running artisan missions so I don't need their money, but I do need the exp from healing their mind wounds and battle fatigue. I apologize for ranting about something that hasalready been covered in a few hundered other posts but the notion that AFK performers aren't causing any damage to the profession makes me want to throw up.

I'd like to see the ability to toggle auto AFKremoved and a timer set to automatically log someone after 30 minutes of no key strokes. If you go to the bathroom and you're not back in 30 minutes then obviously you have some problems to deal with and don't need to be playing the game at the moment.

Also, to encourage those people who are at their keyboards and interested in being an entertainer, not a healing bot, how about some random missions on the artisan terminalsthat would giveplayers the opportunity to learn new songs, dances, flourishes, and instruments? Even people who had mastered their chosen entertainment profession would have a reason to play then.

Forgive me for not reading all the way through this thread and seeing if this had already been suggested/addressed.

Stopping all exp gain on afk just invites people to turn off the auto-afk option, or to use an external program that makes sure they appear to be active. In addition, it's out of keeping with other things in the game, like sampling.

Instead, Two suggestions:

1) Staying at the keyboard should be more rewarding and interactive experience-wise, not just socially Pop-up messages of requests from the audience where players can get significantly more experience would keep people at their keyboards and watching would keep people at their keyboards when earning experience.

2) Tweaking of experience/flourish ratios. For example, if I flourish my heart out playing waltz to no audience, then sit and let my action regen, then stand and flourish some more, I average about 2.1xp/sec. If I flourish twice, wait 90 seconds, and then flourish again, I can continue indefinately, and I make about 2.8xp/sec. If that doesn't encourage idling (with the sound off, preferably) I don't know what does.

There is, in my opinion, a simple fix...

1. Remove the option to /echo, /tell and /say from the macros.

2. Remove the turn off auto afk option.

3. Make it so that if you are AFK for 15 minutes you will get disconnected.

I think that would solve it for the most part, but I never AFK'd so maybe there are other ways to prevent the AFK flag to turn up besides the /say, /tell and /echo commands.

I have been learning musician from the first day I started SWG. I am still not a master. That does not bother me I have been having lots of fun. Being able to use macros while playing I agree frees you up to talk with others and emote to customers and such. But to be fair a real musician playing a wind instrument would not be able to chat with the audiance while playing a riff. Also I think most people would be offended if my friend, who plays professionally in the symphony, would hold a conversation with me while playing in the band up on stage.She would be looking for a new employerto be certain. So its not that entertainers in the game talk that bothers most its that spam tip begging and the like from AFK macro performers that is irratating. If some one AFK macros there way up the musician path (or dancer) I guess I do not care IF it does not interfere with my play.

I do not want NPC muscian/dancer healers. But there are cities that seldom see entertainer healers. Providers of a service (entertainers) want a large customer base to increase social interaction and possibility of tips ( which is a nice bonus ). Yet people needing the service may be in out of the way cities where they have less competiton for their profession (miner hunter trapper etc.) I can see how they do not want AFK entertainment healing to go away so they can get healed up and get back to doing what they find most fun. I do notice many AFK people receiving healing. Should we likewise try to end AFK people from getting their Battle fatigue and mind wounds healed? I bet most would say no because this time we entertainers are on the benefiting end of a person being AFK.

If someone AFKed entertainment in the middle of a swamp with no one around I do not think most entertainers would care. Because it does not effect them. The new master musician cantinas should help since the owner if I understand it can boot the AFK macro musician from their shop and can put them on a ban list.

The issue is AFKers taking up prime realestate in the non player cities entertainment sites. Perhaps a nice work around would be if a highly skilled musician/dancer could take up temporary manager rites something like the register command. So in no active musician is around and AFK entertaineer is healing people who needs it, who cares let them be. But along comes some active entertainers and they find the AFKbot in center doorway of cantina spamming 'tip me plz' the high level musician/dancer could use command to be Manager of cantina (a temporary state on a timer 5 min duration maybe 20 minute recycleso an AFK musician/dancer could not monopolize the theater/cantina/hotel) to boot the AFKer out on to the street.

For me its not so much the destination its the journey.

if you kill experience for people who are AFK, they'll just go away, which will have the end result of making it very difficult to find an entertainer during off hours. And trust me - it sucks playing odd hours and not being able to find anyone to heal you 500 BF.

I'm from Germany and play a combat character on Ahazi, which makes me a prime candidate for this off-hours healing. I have not once accumulated anything close to 500BF. Granted, if you walk into a cantina once a week, Murphy's Law dictates that this is the hour not a single entertainer is online. But if you make the cantina and med center the last thing you visit before you log off, you don't have problems. I didn't have any problems finding entertainment when Macrotainers were unknownand I don't have trouble now. I would like to see AFKers go for good.

One more thing: making people get disconnected after 15 minutes if they go AFK will just cause a lot of them to use 3rd party macro programs to simulate mouse clicks or movements, so that's not a valid solution.

Maybe not. For one it's some work to get it done. More than stupid ingame macroing. Plus, no matter how they twist and turn, 3rd party software gameplay is an instant ban EULA violation.

I'm from Germany and play a combat character on Ahazi, which makes me a prime candidate for this off-hours healing. I have not once accumulated anything close to 500BF. Granted, if you walk into a cantina once a week, Murphy's Law dictates that this is the hour not a single entertainer is online. But if you make the cantina and med center the last thing you visit before you log off, you don't have problems. I didn't have any problems finding entertainment when Macrotainers were unknownand I don't have trouble now. I would like to see AFKers go for good.

The fact that you've never accumulated that much battle fatigue isn't really relevant. I have. I've also been unable to find a musician or dancer to heal it without travelling to another planet, which cost me 1300 credits. Finally, the musician that I did find was AFK. I was thankful he was thoughtful enough to leave his character running at night. We both benefitted from his being an AFK entertainer.

I guess my question is - is your desire to have AFK musicians and entertainers more valid than my desire to have them available at off hours? I don't think my desire to have them available is more important than your desire to have them gone, but I don't really see an easy solution, unless you want SOE to implement NPC dancers and musicians at times when the server population is low. And I'm guessing that would upset those few who DO play at those off hours.

Maybe not. For one it's some work to get it done. More than stupid ingame macroing. Plus, no matter how they twist and turn, 3rd party software gameplay is an instant ban EULA violation.

True, and that would keep me and many others from doing it. But not everyone. Again, you'll still have them out there, so making AFK penalties doesn't accomplish your goal.