Musician Archive
Thread: My report to TH on our April 2004 Top Issues
#1: MORE SONGS -- We definitely need more. There are plenty of places to put them in other skill boxes that don't have them, too...
#2: In accordance to the #1, more songs that have the Nargalon sounding like a piano, or the Mandoviol sounding like a guitar. The steel drum sound is nice, but not on practically every song ^^;
#3: EXTRA FLOURISHES -- Here's the way I see it... as your learn Musical Technique, you get an additional flourish with each one, 9-12. These can be applied to any song.
#4: Make the stage effects have some use... like maybe, the more you use them during a buff, the less time you need for the buff.
#5: Did I mention more songs? Yeah, I thought so... but still, that should be number one priority here, IMHO.
#2 More song selection (I'd love to see 2 songs at each box).
#3 Indication that buff is complete.
#4 Band improvements (band flourishes give xp, maybe different songs that require x number of people playing)
#5 In cantinas, get rid of the NPC bands. I'm sick and tired of playing a song and hearing the NPCs playing their own song and all the clashing going on. Should have my nice sounding songs clash with the NPC bands.
1. I liked the mind heal idea but would refine it for musicians. A recording holo. Its not technically a stimpack but would cause a faster regen of mind when played. Wether we want to craft like a artisan or actually play for so many minutes while cubes/tapes are on would be upto whats easier I guess. Possible get devices from artisan level.
2. Definately different sounds for the instruments, each instrument should have its own unique sound not repeat a noob instrument
3. Being able to target while using omnibox/narlargon w/o stopping play
4. Buff finished indicator, would be nice to stop having to use stopwatch or game alarm
5. Effects being a tad more useful, like spotlight shining a beam of light on player rather than just some sparklies overhead
And while this is not a top issue I would love to see instruments actually sounding different depending on how made so that a well crafted one would sound better than one slapped together.
#2. Heal BF in camps is another good one. I like the droid idea too. Don't worry SOE about it pulling the musicians and dancers out of the cantinas. The "real" dancers and musicians left a long time ago. If you're not going to fix the AFK issue, why do I have a reason to visit a non player cantina?
#3. New sounds for the different instruments. I've been playing FOREVER and now when I do buffs I just turn down the volume I'm almost so tired of listening to the same sound
#4. Goes with #3, new songs! Sheesh. I've heard these same songs at least a thousand times. lol. You suffer through it while you make your way up musician then you make master and it's more of the same. I guess the AFKers don't have that problem
#5. Give us a reason to play, make us useful in groups, out hunting, around town. Something. I don't get that many buff requests anymore because people don't want to sit around for that long and that's understandable.
1) Cantinas/Theaters: More utility and customizability.
Right now, the ONLY perk to being an Elite-mastered Entertainer profession is to be able to own your own cantina or theater. I'll focus on cantinas, because that's my bag. However, that's got some severe limitations, because we can't do much to give them their own unique feel. The cantinas in the various Star Wars movies each had a different character to them - I'd like to be able to do that with mine.
Starting with lighting intensity and color. The developers can do a lot of interesting things with lighting already, why not let us choose what kind of lighting intensity and colors we want in our cantinas? If I want to make a bright place or a dank biker-bar hole, I should be able to choose. Also, it'd be nice if we could drop a few casual NPCs into them, just to give them a slight sense of life, even if the NPCs don't do anything but idle motions occasionally. So many things could be done here - but we at least need something more than the ability to set a sign name and drop some furniture - that can be done in any player-owned structure.
2) The ability of a band to perform complex music with different flourishes depending on instruments.
Right now we have bandflourish, which really needs to be fixed for XP, but it's not much good for making complex music unless everyone is playing similar instruments. So the only way for true bands to play complex music is for everyone to start their macros at the same time - which just doesn't happen easily. The delays can get up to a second in size without people realizing it, and the result is discordancy even for well-coordinated groups.
We should get a new command to allow us to set flourishes by instrument, like so:
/bandmusicflourish 1 0 0 3 4 2 0
Where the band members with nalargons do flourish 1, trazzes and bandfills do nothing, kloo horns do flourish 3, fanfars flourish 4, fizzes flourish 2, and slitherhorns do nothing. This should be relatively easy to implement(just some string parsing and conditionals, really), but would generate a much better tool for real musicians to do band arrangements. It'd also be good if we could have certain instruments stop playing for specific sequences, and come back on without the delays we get right now - start and stop are both a little finicky if you're trying to merge instruments in and out.
3) Holo-recordings.
There's a big problem with my cantina - I can't get entertainers there 24/7, because there simply aren't too many of them out there. I'd like to be able to set it up so that if there are people in my cantina, and there are no other entertainers playing, I can run a holo-recording of myself(shouldn't be too hard) or a band(lots harder) playing. If it gave only a fraction of the healing rate of a live performance, I'd be happy with that - just a motivation for people to come in and sit. This could be set up like a schematic for a factory - the holo-recording could only play so many times before it broke, and then I'd have to replace it with a new one(just have a recording slot). The holo would appear on the cantina stage.
I don't like the idea of us selling recordings for field use, unless they're very limited. Possibly I'd accept the idea of allowing a droid to play just the music, for 10% of a live performance's battle fatigue regeneration rate, single charge per recording - when in camp. And possibly allow Ranger camps to play such recordings as well without a droid. This'd toss some bones to the badly beleaguered Ranger and Droid Engineer professions as well. But it'd help with how short we are on money a little...
But absolute minimum, I should be able to play recordings of myself in my own cantina...
4) More instruments, with unique sounds.
We need woodwinds like flutes(can't even do the fricking Star Wars transitions without them). Maybe a meatier brass instrument. Percussion could use a touch more, something more like a bongo drum tapping sound. Definitely we need strings - violin sound, guitar sound, harp sound, and I'd really love a dulcimer with which to accompany Ballad. Other than that, not many ideas offhand...
5) More music. Lord, these songs are getting old, and there's only so much you can do with them. Start pillaging the entire set of Star Wars music, all the soundtracks from all the movies, or something like that. Let us play the Ewok party song, or the actual fricking Star Wars theme, or a favorite of all Imperials - the Imperial March!
OK, so I have 3 more, just in case those aren't enough.
6) Let us get NPC vocalists and accompaniment. Stormtroopers used to talk, so I see no reason why we can't get that warty chick from the original 3 up there belting out some lyrics. No experience from them, no edge to the quality of buffs and heals - just a nice thing to put a little more meat into our tunes when we're the only players present. It'd liven things up anyway...
7) Right now on the Entertainer forum there's a Fame concept that's being hashed out, similar to Jedi visibility. Add some Fame perks, and that gives us a major edge over the AFK and non-serious performers. You know - Musicians rewarded for being Musicians rather than just steps to a force sensitive character or to cantina ownership. Completely novel concept, I know...
8) Better advertising tools. Ways to tell audiences where we are, and to push them our way. If we're in the cantina playing, have the NPCs in town talk about us instead of bitching about connections to servers in Coruscant. Let us mark our presence on the maps and things like that...
1. More songs and flourishes
2. Distinct sounds for every instrument.
3. Reporting system for buffs.
4. Ability to self buff.
5. Time to buff.
6. Some sort of money making opportunity for the cantina owner, other than tips.
7. Ommni and Nalargon target issue.
8. Content.
1. Instrument Quality
Please make instrument quality matter in some way! You could go positive as in having a well made horn heal faster or you could go negative as in having poorly made instruments 'break' and become useless or heal slower OR MAKE HORRIBLE SQUEALING NOISES! 
2. Gambling Terminals In Cantina
You know I want this; )
I don't care ifthe losses and winnings are taken out and added to maintenance... just please let me place them so I can increase my traffic!
3. Self Buff
It is totally not fair that musicians and dancers cannot self buff while doctors can.
4. Entertainer Missions
These currently are a joke. 100 credits to travel 10k is not at all a good job. I would very much love if the entertainer mission terminal in front of our city hall started giving missions to play in random player city cantinas (I.E. mine )
EVEN IF THE PAYOUT WAS VERY LITTLE, IT WOULD HELP!!!!
5. The Theater
Mind wound healing does not work while entertaining on the stage. Items cannot be place on the stage or in the 'house' of the theater. Do-baders cannot be banned from the theater audience section (the house).
My 5 things.
1- IfI cant have the mando with out doing hair and nails, and wasting 40 skill points, then I want a stringed instrument for the master musician. For those that master both ent and musician they get 2 of them.
2- More songs, I have wrote and rewrote macro's to keep from being monotonousousousous.
3-Better buff system or at least look at improving it.
4- We have to be able to buff ourselves, who ever heard of a deaf musician. LOL
5- I want to emphasize the mando thing again. I never planned to master entertainer, just like I wont ever master marksmen to be a rifleman. So more instruments is in order. A master musician should be able to play anything in the game.
>We should get a new command to allow us to set flourishes by instrument, like so:
Though I never tried, I think we have. Put the instrument name after the /bandx command and only those will start/stop/flourish.
#1: Unattended Gameplay aka AFKers
This has to go. Unattended gameplay is bad for any game and the developers know this or else the EULA refering to 3rd party software would make no sense. Please note that actually, I would gladly accept this fix as the only fix for the next 6 months. This is my number #1 through #5 priority.
#6: More songs.
Make Imperials play Imperial March and RebelsLeias Theme as faction perks ( and please keep the FP requirements reasonable, I cannot run 2000 faction delivery missions. Maybe grant1-5 FP when buffing a faction member of your own side overt ?
. There is nothing more starwarsy than the Imperial March. I don't want a random SW4. I want STAR WARS !
#7: Better buff interface
Self explanatory. We need a buff UI, the current system is a joke. I have no way at all to verify if my customer has been buffed and I have to believe him if he says he's not been because SOE bugs are so rampant that I wouldn't wonder if my buff created a pink elephant on Dantooine instead.
#8: Shorter time for buffs
Noone wants to wait 20 minutes to be buffed on three blue bars, when getting buffs for the six others is a matter of minutes. Make it so that the time is ok to chat with the buffer, but not enough time for the buffee to go out and grab a pizza because listening to the same tune for 10 minutes is boring. 4 minutes would be ok I think.
#9: Did I mention unattended gameplay ?
invayder wrote:
...who ever heard of a deaf musician. LOL
Please, god, tell me you're joking. Please.
Anyway, onto my Top 5: ((please, someone tell me he's joking..))
#1: Master Level Content:
I'll have to agree with everyone here when I say that the Master Musicians (and Dancers/Entertainers, too) need something to do! Most of the Masters do not hang around the NPC cantinas anymore, and everyone here knows why. We need something to do! How about some Epic Quests? Or theme parks, maybe? Perhaps different paths to the old theme parks, as many have said. Regardless of -what- it is, it needs to be added. And soon. 
#2 Macrotainers
I don't mind ATK Musicians who macro, I really don't. It's those macrotainers who log on after server reset, and AFK Macro the entire day away. I've seen a few do this-- I logged on after a reset once, wrote down the names of the 'tainers in the Theed cantina, logged out and went out with my girlfriend for the day.. I logged in again around 1am, and the same players were there. I checked back as the server reset warning were blaring in my character's ears, and the same players were there... Something really should be done about this.You can refer to my post in the thread Is Musician a mockery now?
#3 New Songs/Sounds/Instruments/Flourishes
Well, we've been promised at least some of these things, but more would be better. I remember the first time I ground my way up the Musician Tree (only to drop it months later, and am now picking it up again), and I was sorely disappointed that my new hard-earned instrument sounded just like my first Slitherhorn. I can't imagine hiring a few Musicians to record some new instruments would be all that difficult and expensive, but I could be wrong.
#4 Buffing
Well, the issues are out there, solutions have been proposed.. What else needs to be said? (And yes, self-buffing should be possible, just like a doctor.)
#5 Invayder
Please, tell me he's just joking...
1) Having to keep the Nalargon and the Ommni Box selected to play music... Master musician get's penalized when they get there? Half the point of being an entertainer is the social aspect of the game... How am I supposed to view peoples bio's? Examine their outfits?
2) Music is to repetitive with out the flourishs, and even then it's still too much... I'd like to hear longer stretches of the music... its great music after all.
3) Buff messages... the whole buffing system is too unclear.. How long to they need to watch? Do I have to flourish? How much do I have to flourish? Do lighting effects help?
4) Can't buff myself and they take too long. A Doc can buff him self and it's instant.
5) People complaining about AFKers and expecting the Devs to deal with it instead of dealing with it in-game.
1. Content: New songs, instruments and flourishes. Something special for the Masters would be nice too.
2. Missions: Better missions that actually work and payout basked on skill level and location. Being added to Theme Parks would be great as long as the quest work. Again, something special for the Masters would be nice.
3. Crafting: Let us do something with experiment points for crafting instruments. Maybe to give new flourishes or more xp when played. Even better healingor adifferent sound (I know that will never happen esp. seeing SOE track record with failed promises).
4. Buffing: We need some way of knowing whats going on when we are buffing people. When its failed, when its working, when its done. I am very pleased with everything else concerned with Buffing. I just wanna know whats going on.
5. Cantina/ Theaters: I cant place anything in my theater.
I like the cantina but except for my furniture it looks like every other one on Naboo (The Misty Haze in the city of Amity, come by and check it out).
Just my 2 notes,
Brog
#1 afktainers/ holotainers........ call it what you will any unattended playing in public places must go... my other thread suggested a method for it ... this is the worst thing to happen to our profession and i think if it doesnt get fixed, all the others wont matter since there will be none of us left
#2 Content: ......we need more songs and better gig missions yes those are both content... I know there working on them but if they only roll out a few songs each year that will suck if there waiting till the expansion then we should have at least 25 new songs i would say as for the gig missions i think that should be roled into content with the other professions as i put in my other post
#3 Band control:.... We need better methods to write band macro's ie a previewing system for macro's that are /band 3 traz; /band 6 nalargon ect ect (i have also found that these sometimes error the pauses when adding too many instraments to that pause chain) and... a way to make band tech effects both in and out of the macro and dont forget /pause 4 traz... we need that as well
#4: crafting: .... It would be nice if we could make the instraments have different affects from experimentation and different colors when we craft there is otherwise nothing to distingquish ourselves as crafters except the in game fame. Im for crafting buff things or healing things if it was hevily weighted towards masters
#5: Gig support......... This is what i mean by this... I need an in game calender that supports adding events and adding people to events my email box is so full idk what half of them say yet its the only way to control who is signed up for which event in game and i would prefer to keep it all in game
A....also if we could craft and set up speakers so people wouldnt have to /listen to us it would be nice... sometimes there are just too many there to even see the entertainers