Musician Archive

NewJedi, Going to throw in some specifically targeted opinions on the 'Top 5'.

Reguarding tips and /split: Two approaches cover this. The Tipper gives someone in the group a /tip and they fix the /group split $$$ command. Add a variable to the /tip command (like bank) called group to work like /tip (target) $$$ (group) (bank), if used in full detail.

Reguarding all songs to lower level players: In a word, no. Do the time, get the dime. If the profession trees are supposed to represent 'talent' and 'depth' of skill of the profession, then the higher you go on the tree, the more depth you have as a musician. As it is, if I play in a group of people learning musicians, and I often do, its to inspire them to move on up the skill tree to get the better instruments and to get the range of songs I have. I'm not even sure why this is in the top five in the first place. Are there really that many Master Musicians wanting this?

If I think of anything else that I am having a strong reaction to, I'll be sure to post.

Weibacca
Master Musician and Entertainer
Kaadara, Naboo, Bria

I personally disagree with point 5. I don't see what the problem is with newbie musicians myself. Sure playing the same song after awhile gets boring... but if you play waltz for 20 mins straight you'll welcome the change At least that is my personal feeling. I don't like to play any song for too long and mix it up.

Regarding the instruments... I don't think we need completely new sounds, but rather as someone suggested to have different tones. e.g. The slitherhorn to fanfar relationship to be like the oboe to cor anglais. They are after all the same family of intruments This would also open up opportunities to instead of just having a band, have an orchestra

I agree that the customer should have an option to /tipgroup - I don't think this should be up to the group leader as another post suggests it should.

((Lunch break over so have to post other forms later))

With regards to theme park missions:

I have never tried this so im not sure if it already exists, but....

Is there a part of the Jabba's Palace Theme Park that includes musicians or dancers?

This seems to me to be the logical place to go, but the entrance missions are very difficult (in fact impossible) for a character (like mine) with no weapon skills.

As musician/dancer is a class devoid of any combat skills perhaps an alternate entrance method for JPTP would be an idea.

Apologies if this has already been suggested.

One peeve I have is that a single flourish will overwrite the experience of a previous double flourish, and you get less experience than you would if you didn't flourish at all. I sometimes like to alternate between a single flourish and the base tune several times to set up a theme, and there is an experience penalty for this that I don't believe is deserved.

I suggest that instead of rewarding more for a double flourish that they should just let flourishes add up to a max amount.

This isn't an issue for masters, but I'm not a master yet. I probably will be before this issue is fixed, however.

Also, why don't they change the default number of sounds to 64. You wouldn't believe how many times I've had to tell people to increase their sound voices so they can hear the music.

Bener

I think it's a good list, though I'm interested in hearing if there's something more to what Ravenmist hinted

Just a few pet peeves of my own:

• You can't "Teach" someone when playing. I teach skills. Alot. You can't unless you stop playing.


• You can't "Trade" really. Any flourish comes along, manual or band, cancels the Trade.


• You can't /ignore listeners or watchers. Some people are jerks and some people would like to be able to not help their Battle Fatigue and Mind Wounds. We seem to be the only profession that has no choice in the matter.


• If you're playing a long flourish sequence, say, a composition you or your band wrote, just try to write an email The cursor keeps getting bump back to the text entry bar.


• We are impossible savants! We never ever skip a note and never ever sing off key. I feel bad for all of the two-left-foot dancers out there

I also don't have a problem with "scaling down" the band for a newbie. When I would join bands playing higher songs, I'd revel in the sound of that song for a bit. It's a goal, a more complex sound one becomes capable of producing as they grow in their skill. Then I'd meekly mention I can't play it and the band would gladly scale down for me.

Also, I've changed my stance on the /TipSplit command (as I'm sure you're all breathing a sigh of relief hehe ). I think it should include commands for the Band Leader, but it shouldn't only be for them. I agree that front-end Listener based commands are a good complementary solution.

But this is band specific too. Random Pickup Bands in, say, Theed are likely to have a few AFKers others may not feel are "worthy" On the flipside, dedicated for-hire Troupes are going to expect honour, fairness and honesty from eachother, by virtue of having come together at all.

Finally though, I'm very interested in their stance on AFK Macroers. I still don't have a problem with it, but it is a growing concern. For me, and I'm sure others, the game continues well beyond Master whatever, as they then have access to the most creative tools they can get to start composing. But I imagine at this point our profession is rivaling Surveyors for the ease and wide-spread use of AFKing

Thanks for your note, Ravenmist.

Fellow musicians, I'd heard from one or two people that the devs want us to hold off on further reports until we've had a chance to discuss our first reports, but I haven't heard anything on this point from the devs directly, and our initial instructions called for weekly reports. So I played it safe and submitted a second report -- essentially a recap of my first report. I know a couple of other Correspondents have also submitted two reports so far. I'll try to get in touch with the devs to clear up when they want my next Report.

NewJedi,

In regards to "2. More songs and flourishes. "

It would be great if as your music skill developed, you learned new flourishes for the same old songs. So let's say someone with music IV was playing with a music 1 fellow. They are both playing star wars 1 but the music IV player has completely new flourishes for that song. This way as you gain skill you won't curse the older songs that you've heard time and again. Instead of only playing the newest and freshest song you know, you can go back and re-experience the lower skill songs.

I'd also like to see the Kloo Horn sound significantly better than the Slitherhorn. Right now they sound pretty simillar unless I'm doing something wrong.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks

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IIscandar wrote:

NewJedi,

In regards to "2. More songs and flourishes. "

It would be great if as your music skill developed, you learned new flourishes for the same old songs. So let's say someone with music IV was playing with a music 1 fellow. They are both playing star wars 1 but the music IV player has completely new flourishes for that song. This way as you gain skill you won't curse the older songs that you've heard time and again. Instead of only playing the newest and freshest song you know, you can go back and re-experience the lower skill songs.

I'd also like to see the Kloo Horn sound significantly better than the Slitherhorn. Right now they sound pretty simillar unless I'm doing something wrong.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks

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I actually expected it to be like this when I first started playing in game. I was very surprised to A) have 8 flourishes available my first second of slitherhorn playing and B) have no more available after skilling up.

You don't have any new flourishes, but you do have new instruments that sound different. I mean, how many people bring back SW1 with their mandovial? Or a bandfill for rock? They do sound different! And a Fizzz is like repayment for having to play the slitherhorn for newbies. You switch from something that just sounds bad to something that sounds decent, even on the same songs.

Look on the bright side, at least you are not dancers who get 8 flourishes perdance ever, if they are lucky. Most have 3-4, some only 2. And the best dancer still falls on basic.

If it was made to where each instrument played a unique melody then there would be something else added like you can only play certain songs with specific instruments. In a band of 6 musicians, each playing a different melody with 8 different flourishes that's like upteenmillion combinations of flourishes, none being the same. I don't know if you can have 100 different flourishes that sound good together in any combination and in any number, without the song being extremely boring.

I'm still lobbying (lazily) for the /changekey command, which switches to a specified key (the whole band, of course) on the next flourish. It would add variety without adding a possibility for ugly songs... No matter what key you are in you are still playing the same melodies...and the keys could be limited to the ones close enough to the original so that too much sound distortion doesn't come about through digitally changing the key.

I like the idea about the different instruments having different octaves. They do sort of need to have a small amount of melodies because of the size of some bands and variety in instrument types, but if each instrument played a different octave or harmony they wouldn't be EXACTLY the same. Good idea, that.

MikeSty