Musician Archive
Thread: AFK Entertainers, Musicians and Dancers. Just who does it hurt?
Well I'll present something...
AFK entertaining is viral in nature. People might well have fun entertaining. I didn't truly appreciate how much fun I could have until I had dancing IV. When I was dancing, AFK entertainers were almost unheard of. They were certainly the exception not the rule. Part of the fun for me was the interaction with the other dancers and the customers. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
But under other circumstances, if the norm when I was learning was AFK people, I might have given up because I never found the fun, or I might have just joined them to get the skills. Probably the former, as I don't so much care for game mechanics. I'm sure I'm not alone in this either.
If there are no AFK entertainers, people like me (No, I'm not claiming everyone is like me) have fun and stick with the profession. However, with AFK entertainers around, people are likely to see "Wow you can do that?" and since they never found the fun, they get sent a macro, run it, and that's it. Setting up a macro is the easy way to the profession, and if they found the easy way, why try anything else? Weather or not something is good or bad, people tend to be drawn towards something new to them.
For an illustration of this point... I was sitting at a starport playing my Ommnibox. I do this all the time with no problem. However, someone got curious and decided to click the play instrument option. The box of course moves to them. I don't fault them that, they didn't know, and were just seeing what the option did. However, now my Ommnibox was being passed around everyone at the starport because they wanted to try it for themselves. These people that if they hadn't known about that bug would have just happily listened to me while waiting for the shuttle now won't let me play without stealing my Ommnibox. At this point I put the thing away because it wasn't fun anymore.
Now when I used the term viral, perhaps it did provide a negative connotation. Good things can spread in a viral manner. However, anyone who has been around here awhile aught to know my views of AFK macros. Now since this is about who does it hurt... Given above, it hurts me personally. There are a lot of people who if they didn't know about running a macro AFK would quite happily be entertainers and enjoy the class. They would be fun to perform with, and may end up being quite impressive entertainers. But because they learned the easy way, they never bothered to go further. (No I'm not saying everyone again) Now they run a macro just like everyone else before they go and do something else. And you know what? I generally don't have as much fun interacting with their macro as I would have with them. So it has hurt my fun of the game. Again, I'm sure I'm not alone.
It hurts the profession. AFK entertainers are nothing more than NPCs. Only they are non permanent NPCs. If our profession has NPCs to perform the action, what is the point of playing the profession? (Another lead in to the viral nature) This was slightly addressed with targetted mind buffs (Mind buffs were always there, just weren't targetted before and weren't anything to write home about) but on the whole, there is still not much point to playing the profession, since NPCs can do it. Would you play a medic if people could just get droids that auto-heal them? Would you play a weaponsmithif players could just buy top of the line weapons from an NPC? Would you play a slicer if there was a slicing terminal to do your weapons and armor? And I'm not talking about NPCs that do it but not as good as a player.. As far as game mechanics are concerned, AFK entertainers are as good as ATK, so it wouldn't be a fair comparison.
And it hurts the people who need entertainers. I've noticed a cycle developing in cantinas as the AFK phenomenon spread. The population will grow, primarily ATK entertainers. As it grows, more and more of them become AFK entertainers. Soon you have a crowded cantina that is almost entirely AFK. This goes on for a few weeks, then everyone leaves as the AFK people reach their goals and stop and no new people have really started because of theextra cost of entry to the profession. (More on that next) I've seen a cantina that used to be a swinging lively place turn into a zombie city, then a ghost town. It really hit home when I went to Theed at prime time and saw only a small handful of entertainers, nothing like the times I remember when the group had to be split up because there were so many people.
It hurts the new entertainer who starts a character and dances for a bit then can't get training when they need it without paying an NPC trainer because people are AFK. If there were even half the number of people but they were ATK this wouldn't be a problem. I started a musician on one of the euro servers when the rest of the servers were down. I was toting my slitherhorn wailing out tunes. There were a few other refugees also on slitherhorns, and a few people who had better. However, when I got music 2, and asked for training, nobody responded. There were people there that could have trained be, but they were AFK. I ended up running a few missions so I could earn the money to pay for the training and buy a fizzz off the bazaar. If I were a new player I would certainly have liked it more if someone had been there to explain the ins and outs of music to me and train me and make an instrument for me.
Having just recently taken up musician as an alternate char on wanderhome ive taken an interest the whole afk debate and was horrified when I read the suggestions on how to keep entertainers at there comp on another thread. At least 90% of the responses involved punishing people for being afk with restrictions to xp, tips and the like.
And btw, I know for a FACT that most of these people are not themselves entertainers because if they were they would know just how easy it was to leave the computer for hours without the afk flag ever going up!
Any attempt to punish afk entertainers is doomed to fail simply because the computer is too easy to fool.
Cant we come up with any positive things to give entertainers a reason to stay at the computer? Cuz I guarentee its going to be a dead class if we dont. Here are mine:
Give entertainers the ability to heal mind out in the field.
Give entertainers the ability to heal battle fatigue in camps.
Give entertainers the ability to give state effects and debuffs on opponents.
In otherwords give entertainers something to do other than stand there and chat all day.
Just my 2cr.
I started about 2 months ago on Tatooine, on my first night I ended up in Mos Eisley where I met some nice people so I stayed there. Over the course of 3 weeks I met many Live entertainers and we were even discussing making a entertainer community there. That's when the AFK dilemma found Mos Eisley and, as some people suggested to me, I left Mos Eisley because the higher AFK musicians were only there when they needed teaching, when I needed teaching everyone was AFK and that cost me about 60k worth of dance and music skills. After I left Mos Eisley and joined the Birdcage theatre most other live entertainers in Mos Eisley also left, some just stopped playing completely. Now I go back to Mos Eisley every few days and it's a Ghost town. No entertainers and just a handfull of players left in the area. That's the same Mos Eisley as where we used to entertain with upto 5 musicians and 4 dancers doing the sync dance thing and made upto 20k a night in tips.
I left my new regular cantina everytime a new AFK bot parked himself there and usually they would be gone the next day when I got back and people would be glad that I came back but now the same thing is happening to the guild I joined, I encountered atleast 4 of them AFK spamming and begging for tips, shouting about doing mind buffs for tips while being AFK and I think I'll soon leave the Birdcage theatre as well, I joined that guild to get away from the Macrobots, I felt very sad bumping into guildmembers that wouldn't respond for hours. Even more since atleast one of them joined a guild discussion about AFK taining and said she was against it.
So when you ask me who does it hurt, I will reply that it hurts the entire community, because that is who it hurts.
It's not just entertainers who are bothered by the unattended Macroërs, I've spoken to alot of customers the past 2 month and some are even so disgusted with the entertainer profession that they want us replaced with NPC's entirely and sometimes I think they should too so it stops us from dealing with those who are never there. I'm now very close to Master Musician and I'm considering dropping my dancing skills and taking up combat after the last non AFK Musician I came to know the past months also leaves this game.
It turns out that, in my case atleast, player cantinas will not solve the AFK problem as was suggested by one of the entertainer correspondents. Time to go wander around again.
It's only going to get worse.
First of all, I'd wager all the people that made jedi used macros for skills. Heck, Sony makes this very easy to do with all the commands available. There are very few professions that can't use macros for advancement. I think maybe squad leader is about it. In short...EVERYONE is doing it....just not everyone is hoping for tips.
Secondly, entertainer experience has always been amongst the slowest and it just got worse. There was a point when the healing went pretty fast...but after the recent patch....good luck. I was watching my wife dance this weekend, and there is just nobody outthere looking for healing anymore. The decay combined with combat medics new ability makes ent healing very difficult these days.
Sony, you guys need to fix entertainer healing, and fast. Either make the gains MUCH faster, or turn back the clock a little so either people aren't afraid to die, or mind wounds can only be healed by entertainers. Sure...let combat medics heal mind damage....but leave the wounds to the entertainers.
I have spoken to Denisa on this subject briefly and now that I have dabbled in the musician skill tree, I can say that AFK entertaining has its benefits and downsides. Let me start with the benefits.
I enjoy entertaining. I never ask for tips. I dont have any shout macros running. I just like to OCCASIONALLY, when I leave to go to work, leave SWG running and a short flourish macro running so I can gain some entertainer xp so I can do more stuff with the skill. I enjoy entertaining sometimes and once we have the city dedication for Jaxian Bay, I will really appreciate the fact that I took this profession so I can play with all the other entertainers at the party.
The downside is this. As a combat player I never found it hard to find someone to train me in skills whenever I needed them. However, I can stand in a cantina for hours asking for someone to train me in musician 3 and NO ONE responds. Why? Because I smell? Doubtful. It is because they ARE ALL AFK!!! This is annoying, but I will accept that I am responsible for this too, when I go AFK while I am at work. I however do not ask for tips. I merely entertain and provide a service to those who need their fatigue healed. When I get home from work, I am back at the keyboard entertaining.
So that having been said, I say that we all stop complaining about it. Because, the truth is, I dont think there is anything that can be done about it. Other thangive those who are non AFK some perks (I dont know what they might be) there isnt much that can be done to discourage AFK entertaining. I understand how frustrating it can be, but is it really that big a deal?
In conclusion, I want to invite all those interested in entertaining at the Jaxian Bay city dedication to contact me and let me know what your level of interest is. We are planning on having the event around December 4th. EVERYONE IS INVITED. That means you Denisa. I know there were some hard feelings between yourself and members of IO. I dont know if that was all resolved and to be honest I dont care. I want you to know that what is in the past is in the past. You like to entertain and I appreciate that. You have my personal invite to entertain all those in attendance at the event to the best of your abilites. Please be there. That goes for all those entertainers who are passionate about what you do. Hope to see you in Jaxian Bay!!!
Reyune Edredis
Intergalactic Outfitters
Reyune that sounds like fun, but like most events on Tempest it will probably take place when I'm fast asleep and since it's on a Thursday I think I'll have to pass 
*sighs* the downside of being a entertainer from Europe on a non-European server.
actually i had my dates confused. the dedication looks like it will be on December 6th which is saturday. and the time we plan on doing it is around 3 or 4pm EST. I hope you can make that Denisa. I would be willing to pay your travel expenses to get to Jaxian Bay which is north west of Theed. I would really like it if you would be able to attend. Hope to see you there!
Reyune Edredis
It hurts us all. You can't AFK craft, fight (cept for campingthugspawns, and the XP people get from that is negligible), heal, tame, etc. You can AFK dance yourself to MM or MD; I've seen people brag about it.
It hasn't occurred to anyone else that this might be part of the reason entertainers get no respect?
I don't tip or group people who AFK macro so deliberately that they put in greetings or emotes. Some of them are dear friends of mine, and I can't criticise them; it's really no worse than "grinding" crafting or combat. But entertainers get treated like a whole separate, inferior class of player by many non-ents, and I feel certain that this is much of why. How should we expect people to respect us as players if half the time we're not actually playing?
Look, I know you will probably take this the wrong way, but I will say it regardless. The reason the entertainers get no respect (in your mind) is, IMHO, because almost all of you complain till you are blue in the face about AFK. We have all heard it! How many times can you hear someone complain about something till you get sick and tired of hearing about it?! Just let it go and move on. This is obviously not a bug that can be fixed. Quit complaining to or about other players and take it to the source. The Devs. Complain to them until they do something to fix it, but do it in a way that is constructive. Don't just whine like a little child. Offer a creative means of fixing this situation. If you dont have a solution to fix this, then shut up. If you dont like being an entertainer then DONT BE AN ENTERTAINER. That is the beauty of this game. You are not limited to doing any one profession. If all you do is entertain, then maybe you should expand your horizons. I am sorry if what I said offends anyone. It was not meant to and you are all entitled to rip me a new one. I just ask you to consider what good that will do. You want things fixed in your profession. Then start being creative and use your head instead of just complaining all the time.
Reyune Edridis
Just some remarks:
The reason the entertainers get no respect (in your mind) is, IMHO, because almost all of you complain till you are blue in the face about AFK. We have all heard it!
If you see it this way, DE, BE, Chefs, Merchants, Riflemen, Pikemen, Fencers, Squadleaders and whatnot deserve/get no respect too because they whine and complain since week one as well? They are more vocal on the boards I might add. They complain about broken skills making their class no fun to play and we complain about macrotainers making our class no fun to play. But they get respect and we don't?
I think you missed an important point - players entering any given cantina see usually 3/4 afk entertainers. Of course they think 'What a bunch of lame, lazy folks, I had to earn my titles the hard way!' and the respect is gone, and I can't blame them. It is the impression they get in game, not our whining on the boards.
The Devs. Complain to them until they do something to fix it, but do it in a way that is constructive. Don't just whine like a little child. Offer a creative means of fixing this situation. If you dont have a solution to fix this, then shut up.
Sigh.. Read a bit here on this board, read the correspondent notes. There are more (constructive) solutions posted than necessary. But, in the first place, it is NOT OUR JOB to find solutions. Guess that is what devs are for, no?
If you dont like being an entertainer then DONT BE AN ENTERTAINER. That is the beauty of this game. You are not limited to doing any one profession. If all you do is entertain, then maybe you should expand your horizons.
Well, the problem is - we like to be entertainers, we just dislike the path the class went.
For many of us with some RPG background, picking up another profession with our *entertainer chars* is no option. We just create an alt somewhere else, many did (architect, rifleman, weaponsmith for me). Thinking about this, I am a bit offended by your 'horizons' remark.
Salome
If you dont like being an entertainer then DONT BE AN ENTERTAINER. That is the beauty of this game. You are not limited to doing any one profession. If all you do is entertain, then maybe you should expand your horizons.
If chef is bugged... well, you know, this is the beauty of the game, you can be something else. Really not the kind of logic I want to have fun with... I like entertainer. I will suggest options to remove exploitive gameplay ruining the class as long as it exists. We complain about AFK in the entertainer boards. If other classes are sick of it, don't read it 
AFK is not just an ent. thing other classes can do it as well.