Musician Archive
Thread: Why so little XP?
(An open statement to the small percentage of loud anti-AFKers)
Rather than blaming others for wanting to speed up the dropping of the pellets, you should be blaming the Developers that provided the necessary tools to do so.
And then wonder why you're not taking advantage of them.
And if this sounds like I'm defining how others should be spending their $14.95 a month? Mr Pot meet Mr Kettle.
(now a reply directly to DJSlutmagnet)
This post is all I'll ever say on the subject. The horse has been beaten to some barely recognizable vaguely genetically comparable former version of itself. Until the Devs remove the tools (which I see as entirely possible and which I won't miss when they go), there will be people who take advantage of it.
Just so ya understand, the automation of these types of games is almost as old as the games themselves. Holocron has known the reality of how gamers will game for just about as long as there have been MMOGs.
This is an excellent link:
http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/index.html
I post it because I once felt that how others gamed was intimately tied to my own place in massive online worlds. I've learned in the last four years that the reality is that it really only matters when I make it matter. If someone else hits MM before me, so? If someone hits it on day 1, so? If someone plays one flourish a day and it takes them 5 years to hit it, so?
The most important, the only important part of this whole discussion, and the only element you have any hope of affecting, is why it matters to you.
Hmmm AFK... dishonorable... Not sure if it's dishonorable. I've never done it and I won't do it, but that's just me. Also if your character is in a group and you go AFK doing a macro, you could just as easily stop if a /stopband command is placed out. And if their is a huge band, people aren't gonna listen to your character to give you higher exp. So do as you wish, and get their however you can. Personally the power consumption to leave my computer on isn't worth it LOL. I've been working on Master Musician for 4 weeks now, and I have Knowledge II, Fatigue II, and Wound II. Eventually I'll hit master, but I'm also working on Rifleman as well, which is going well! Worx out because I'll find groups out int he field that need mind healing, and they tip very very well! Well just my 2 cents, see ya's in the Galaxies!
My biggest problems with afk are:
1. The antisocial nature of it. I am not talking about using macros here, but the person dead set in the middle of the cantina with an "afk" over there head. It really degrades the whole interactivity of the cantina. To see a zombie performing the same routine over and over, then spewing out a "tip your entertainer" message is not courteous to the people playing live. If you are going to go afk for an entire shift at work, at least take it to a corner or one of the side rooms.
2. The glut of master musicians that it has created. I think that with the game only having been out for a little over a month that masters should be a rare thing right now. There is so much complaining about having to play down to the new musician because of the rise of so many high level musician so quickly. This wouldn't happen ifpeople were leveling at a more even rate. This would also make the title a little more special.
My own opinions on the subject are, and I have stated this before, that people have become too impatient. No one seems to value working towards anything anymore. This is not a judgement on any one person, just my view of society in general.
i'm a non-afk-master musician and i'm proud of it! i just think it's funny when i see afk-macroers (24/7) who really don't ever play live are still novice musician and far from master, while i, as a live-player, am master already. sure, friends, our band, and a week of vacation has helped a lot, but i still have fun being a musician, even though i heard all the songs for hours and hours and hours. i wonder how those afk-macroers imagine their "life" as a master musician, because for me, the way to become it is the most fun about it.
so, in which way does the master musician help me in the game? in no way but to have fun. i can't make a fortune with it and i can't kill mobs with my nalargon. all i can do is touring with the band, playing on pa-parties and so on. but to get into a band you first have to make musician and dancer friends, who you get to know where? right, non-afk levelling in the cantina 
DJSlutmagnet wrote:
i just have to say that when i see a post that tries to justify it with a reason like 'it is a tool for people who have a life,' i find that insulting because we all have lives.
Oh, I meant to say I definitely agreed with that 
Just as I don't look to define other people's gaming, I don't expect to be guided on what "having a life" means 
"life" is far too individualistic. "Life" is what you make of it. If you choose to spend every waking moment in an MMOG, how is your life have any less "worth" than someone who plays 2 hours a week?
That's entirely rhetorical! Please nobody answer, for that ways lies entropy
The truth is that there is no difference. I spend all of my free time, such as it is, in SWG currently, as I've done in many MMOGs over the years. But that free time begins when the baby and wife are asleep and the house is in order, after working all day as a management shill . I choose to spend that time flourishing in a cantina in Coronet, and have been for awhile. I'm sure people come in and see me there nightly, sometimes even leading the band, never see me anywhere else and wonder what sort of "life" I have.
Let them wonder. I am having the time of my life. My wife laughs because when she does stay up later and is on the computer next to mine, all she sees is me playing musical notes She likes the music, but only Ballad comes close to her taste.
dukdodgers wrote:
2. The glut of master musicians that it has created. I think that with the game only having been out for a little over a month that masters should be a rare thing right now. There is so much complaining about having to play down to the new musician because of the rise of so many high level musician so quickly. This wouldn't happen ifpeople were leveling at a more even rate. This would also make the title a little more special.
That's where things get tricky
The great thing about SWG, and Ultima Online before it, is that title really means more subjectively than it does in terms of meaning any sort of raw power. I wear my title with pride, and as with others, change it depending on what I'm doing (sometimes Engineer, sometimes Homemaker, sometimes Novice Marksman, sometimes Surveyor, etc.). How I got the title is the only thing that matters to me.
Time definitely has its place in the valuation of titles. If it takes me 20 minutes to hit "Master" something, that has potentially less emotional "value" than having it take a month.
I think it's great that some have hit Master already. All power to them! Regardless of how they got there, they can play a Nalargon now, and I'm jealous for it Someday maybe they'll quit. Someday maybe they'll turn off the line on their way to CH/DE or some other template they'd rather do.
The point is that we are all free to explore, re-explore and un-explore skills any time we want. Macroing to Master lets you explore something faster. You gauge the benefits and penalties and decide how they fit in your life. That's why I love skills-based games over class ones.
But I prefer to explore along the way. I never thought I'd enjoy living in a cantina. Hehe, at Musicianship II, I decided what skills to drop to ensure I can do so at the pinnacle of my profession.