Musician Archive

KurtBaine: On tip messages, there is one thing you can do to make them stand out more. Use the Chat Color interface to colorize every "tips you" or "successfully received" (i.e., received credits by bank transfer) message. Go to CTL O; Chat Color; type a phrase; assign a color to phrase; say highlight whole sentence containing those words; click done. Voila! All tip messages in, say, bright red! Works beautifully!

I do the same with "heals you" messages, but I put those in purple.

Having read through pages and pages of posts, I just have to voice my top issues.

1) Balance out our exp earning somehow! Dancers are able to dance their best exp earning dance while we are mired in the low level songs out of courtesy for level after slowly grinding level. There must be a way to work this out. Here is one suggestion: allow us to mute our actual volume and let the /stopband /startband commands apply only to unmuted players. This should not be too hard to code. And for those who aren't aware, playing a high level song versus the low level songs that are constantly played can mean more than double the exp! This is a heavy price that we are all paying for no good reason.

2) I think the arguments have been pretty well made that involuntary tip splitting is a bad idea. I have good customers that come to tip me. They have been nurtured and favored for a long time, and I simply do not think anyone would want to split their tip with an AFK dancer. And the point of using /tip to pay for items is also quite valid.On the other hand, acommand like /bandtip that allows the tipper to split out the tip to the whole band is an excellent idea.

3) The value of the top level of the class needs to be enhanced or the lower level devalued. This is clear. A master of any skill should be capable of important services that the initiate cannot perform. I also think that the best solution is to add more value to a master musician's value in the field. Or, possibly make certain venues places where only the higher levels can play with effect. This would create situations where players would know that certain services were more likely to be found in, say, the theater than the cantina.

4) Finally, do something about balancing out our exp earning. Or did I say that already?

Dalan,

Your #1 concern was already fixed. As long as you use your best instrument, you can play SW1 all day long in a group with others and make the same xp as if you were playing jazz. It used to be one of the biggest, if not "the" biggest concern we all had, since a lot of us "pioneers" were getting rather sick of not making xp in groups. So do some testing, and if you do see a difference, then /bug it, because this has been fixed for quite a while now.

On another note....Welcome to the boards

Durney Kova - Master Entertainer / Master Musician - Lowca

Hello everyone :smiles warmly

Is it possible ricky to chat with the developers and ask them to place a *Community Board* in an area where people go. Like a cantina. To have a board to post *Player events* or concerts or what have you. How this could work is someone would write on the board for that day what is happening an event or something they are hosting. After this day, the board would say *refresh* itself and be wiped clean for the next day. This allowing bands and others to post what they wish to host. The board could be based as a bazaar type thing. Allowing players from all over the galaxies to see what is happening on that day. My husband and I have thought long and hard about, we came up with this idea. Which we think would be a great addition to this game.

Any thoughts please on this?

Yours truly

Srabe and Ariba

The following are the issues that affect musicians that I feel need to be addressed. Most of these have been mentioned by at least a few other people.

The major issues and bugs concern the following:

1. Implement a /tipgroup command that a customer can use to split a tip among all of the group members. Keep the /tip command so people can tip a single entertainer if they prefer. This option is preferable to a /tipsplit command.

2. More songs and flourishes. There should be several songs available on every skill level, even those that currently do not have a song on them. There should also be more flourishes with 12 being a generally well-accepted number.

3.Adjust the duplicate sounds of instruments. The bass and drum parts of the Ommni Box and Bandfill could be split into two parts. The horns could each have different octaves with one being soprano, tenor and bass if not a more individual timbre.

4.There needs to be more content for gig missions, especially for higher-level musicians. A mission meter like our skill meters would be a welcome addition so we would know the status of our progress. Also fix the musician mission that seems to be more related to dance than music, as well as changing the mission picture from a Bothan in his shorts to something more appropriate.

5.AFK entertainers should not receive XP or tips. If not completely then they should receive them at a substantially reduced rate. This could possibly begin after being AFK for 5, 10 or 15 minutes, which, with a 15 minute AFK timer would still give the entertainer up to 30 minutes before it would reduce or stop their advancement.

6.Fix the Ommni box and Nalargon so that you can target other people, speak and do emotes. Also remove the ability for them to be moved or stolen.

7.Bandflourishes should give everybody in the group XP, not just the one who runs them. This was stopped because of AFK players, but could be re-instated if #5 above is addressed.

The minor issues and bugs are:

1.A co-leader status for groups. Allow a group leader to pick 1 or 2 other players to be a leader. Sometimes in a crowded cantina it is hard for one person to keep up with everyone trying to enter the group. There are also times when a leader crashes or goes AFK for a minute. This would help in those times.

2.Only the group leader(s) should be able to use /stopband. This would eliminate having to many people trying to change songs in a group.

3.Give the group leader control over the tempo and dynamics of the band. There could be greater variety in the songs with control over the speed and volume of the songs. There could also be the ability to change the key of the song.

4.Include new special effects and increase their duration, even if it is only for a few seconds. Or allow effects to be toggled on and off for extended periods of time, until you run out of action.

5.Instrument crafting should add more to the profession. Allow customization of instruments as well as the creation of power-ups such as mutes and reeds. These items could have a limited lifespan (like 100 to 500 flourishes). Also allow instruments to decay or need “tuning”.

6.Make it so that we can play while moving (at least with portable instruments) so we can have “marching bands”. At least allow us to move a few steps before we stop playing instead of stopping us if we move by accident. Sometimes we are just trying to get back in line with the rest of the group.

7.Give members, or at least group leaders, a deny services or “bounce” option. If some jerk comes in and harasses the members or just drops a rancor down on top of somebody on the dance floor and leaves we should be able to remove the person (or beast) for at least a limited amount of time. So this feature is not abused by anyone maybe the group could vote to remove them from the building.

Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone elseis interested inthe addition ofexperimentation points for making instruments? Might add a new demension to the musician track.There could beadditional xp for playing a well crafted instrument. Possibly a way to customize more than the name, i.e. new colors, etc. just thoughts, please let me know what you think.

Respectfully,

Snowy

Naritus

Snowy: I certainly would like to see a more robust crafting system, in general, for instruments. That would include the features you described -- experimentation, instrument quality -- and things like item decay and maybe even variants in appearance. A number of people have voiced similar concerns, though not quite often enough yet to make itinto our "top five" issues for musicians. (See my first two Reports as Correspondent, in separate threads on this forum.)

Dalan: Good points. I especially agree that there should be more content for the master musician. Our current top-five list does include a call for better high-end content; I expect we'll refine and expand that suggestion as the devs start to address our other concerns.

Ariba:Nice to see you here. Didn't we just jam in Anchorhead, on Chilastra, a day or two ago? Anyway, I love your idea for an in-gameannouncement or message boardin the cantinas. Heck, I'd like to see "advertising billboards" outside theaters; I have ambitions of putting on a musical or opera some day. FWIW, the devs are apparently in the process of giving us more content in cantinas -- e.g., casino gaming tables. So I think they recognize that much more could be done to add life and interest to the bar scene. Also, a number of other posters here have suggested related ideas for enhancing cantinas: cantina owners, bouncers,more support for mixology, etc.Our top-five list already contains a rather general call formore content; as I said to Dalan above, I hope and expect we'll refineit asthe devs "cross off" otheritems from our list.

-NewJedi (a/k/a Ricky Starwalker, Master Musician/MasterEntertainer, Chilastra)

Snowy and NewJedi,

Put me down as someone else in favor of instrument customization and experimentation And omni boxes that look like drumsets, not a box of generic doughnuts.

0. First of I would just comment the whole Master Entertainer Mando/Ceremonial issue. There are a lot people who a pro and a lot of people who a against it being moved. I'm one of those who thinks that the unique sound and song for the Master Entertainer is well worth the trip, and changing it cause people want more skillpoints is just saying they don't want the uniqueness of the song and instrument bad enough. I would rather see that the dancers and image designers get some extra for the Master Entertainer.

Now on to some of the general things.

1. Would really like to see some kinda of composing unit, where you would be able to compose songs. There have been some other that talked about it, but it sounded like they wanted whole new kinda songs, that i don't think will be implemented. My idea on the composing unit is as follows.
a. You need to be Novice Musician to be able to compose your own music.
b. You can only compose the songs you know how to play.
c. You can only compose with the different instruments you know how to play on.
The way you would compose where in general just a way to write macros ingame, but you would be able to hear all the instruments at the same time, instead of you on your own only can play one instrument and then try to figure out what sounds good when played together.
What would be good if they designed an UI with a timer and a tick meter, where you would be able to put in flourishes for each instrument in the different ticks, and then play it when you want to listen to how it sounds. Then afterwards, it should generate a macro with the /bandflo commands, or you could do that on your own, but if it generated /bandflo macro it would be really nice.

2. Different sounds to the different horns would also be nice, pitching them could be a viable method of doing this .

3. Constructing instruments with different kind of materials should alter the sound of the instrument, even making experiments to alter the sound. Here i would rather see the different pitchings of the sound being used, than just for different sounding horns. see 2.

4. Instrument volume, would be nice to also have the power to alter the volume of the different instruments, either as a part of a /bandflo # (instrument type) (Volume) or just for the leader to be able to designate a solist, so that persons instrument type would stand more out than the others. This would give us band performers some more things to do in the highlevel, when we are turing the country side playing at gigs.

5. Moving around while playing. Well it would take some more animations to make it so it looks good moving with a instrument while playing, but when i saw someone post the idea, i really liked it.. I think if it is possible to designate a band area, and inside that, the band whos area it is, can play while moving inside it. When leaving that area you will auto stop playing. This will hinder the use of instruments while running in the outside, and you will only be able to walk while you play. Though this doesn't give the marching band thing, but at least you will be able to move a little around while you performer.

Ofcause there is a lot of other things as well, but this is the 5 things i would like to see get in there.

Harlius and Ztiletto, thanks. And Hamsterfett, this made me laugh: "And omni boxes that look like drumsets, not a box of generic doughnuts." Well said.

My # 1 issue would be to make the instruments sound different. A traz would be worth much more to me if it did not sound so similar to the slitherhorn. I love the idea of different pitches for different instruments of the same family.

Allright, this is an interesting concept and one that i've NEVER seen suggested, so i'm going to post it both here and in its own separate thread. But the point of posting it here is that NewJedi, this is for you to pass on to the devs ASAP. Here goes...

Ya know how dancers sometimes fall? It happens a lot at lower levels, and i've even seen a few nearmaster dancers fall every now and then. Yet there is absolutely no equivalent for musicians. Some of your brains may be catching on at this point but i'm going to continue to explain for those who haven't quite picked up my line of thinking. A lot of the problems that plague musicians is SW1 on the slither. Hold that thought...:uke::...okay, where was I? ahh yes. The main problem is that newbies only have ONE song and ONE instrument. Well, here's my suggestion. Hows about one or two songs and EVERY instrument. Sound crazy? Not with the amazing new invention created loudly by first year trumpet players everywhere: WRONG NOTES.

Still confused? Here's how it would break down: When playing, an instrumentalist would go through the song. /flo 1; /flo 6; /flo WHAT NOTE WAS THAT?!?! In the middle of a lick (especially flourishes) the musician would hit a wrong note. An out of tune of mistimed or hideously loud or blatty note. Or a playre would drop his/her instrument and have to stop and pick it up (this would cause damage to the instrument of course, making it play wrong notes more often). Or an amp would feedback, or a player would start the wrong song/flourish at the wrong time.You get the picture. Newbies would play wrong notes more often, and harder instruments would also cause more screw-ups. If a first day newb, for example, asked to tinker with a master's narlagon, not a single note would be right. If a master played that same newb's slither, it would sound perfect, every note exactly as it is written. Then of course as you progress you'll become proficient at more instruments and will be able to do more things on them well. You would have one "good" song and one "learning" song so that you could have more variety in cantinas. The learning song would have more screw-ups and the good would be near perfect. Furthermore, instruments that are crafted better, in addition to giving OTHER bonuses that they so badly deserve, would make less mistakes. (maybe, though, because they are professional quality instruments they would make more, but with bonuses? I don't know, different topic entirely)

This brings up another good point. How do we get to Carnegie Hall? Why, the same way that the devs saw fit to let artisans level up faster: PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. You could just sit in your house, or somewhere hopefully private, and type /practicemusic starwars1 or some other song that you want to practice song. You would get a slight bonus to XP, at the cost of no (or reduced for higher lev) healing powers, and added mistakes. You could also have private teachers. A teacher would be grouped with you and would type /teachmusic starwars1. Then you would get an even larger bonus to XP. For the teachers, it would be a source of income (say, 100cr per 30min lesson or something), and a way to realy get a personal bond withnewer characters. Maybe you could also get apprentice points, just REEAAAAALLLLY SLOWLY. You could teach one on one or in huge classes, but there would only be one teacher per group who would would affect the XP bonus of the student in direct relation to their skill as a musician. In fact, that could be a new skill branch for musician: Teaching. It would differentiate entertainers and musicians, and would eliminate the uneeded two healing columns. If composition is ever implemented, that could be taught as well.

One last point: to implement the new system of mistakes, different types of skill bonuses and XPwould be needed to make one better at a particular kind of instrument. For instance: every time you get 6 musicXP for playing your slither on SW1, you wouldalso get something like 4 XP of "High Wind Proficiency". Playing a Fizz would give "Low Wind Proficiency", the bandfill/omni would give percussion or whatever, ETC ETC. Maybe it wouldn't work like normal XP, but more like the more you have, the less mistakes you make. OR you could get "general instrument proficiency", and could specialize later (so that EVERYONE isn't the master at EVERY instrument at master musician). Furthermore, it could lead to different specialized professions: High Wind Instrumentalist, Percussionist, etc.

That's my 2 billion credits, sorry that its so long but it had to be said.

Wiggin Justwiggin - Ahazi

DNA42/Wiggin, I've actually had the same thought from time to time. In fact I routinely tease dancers about their mistakes when I play, and I point out to them that I *never* play wrong notes. That makes for a nice role-playing bit, but I agree with you that a few missed notes might make us musicians more interesting, at least at lower levels -- the more polished performers would stand out more.

Anyway, thanks for your post. I'll follow your other thread on this subject as well.