Musician Archive
Thread: inportan poll for Musicians
If this is implemented, I have an advantage over 50% of the players. I'm not trying to brag, just go with me on this one.
I have a degree in music.
Q: If "make your own songs" starts up, who are the patrons going to listen to?
A: The guy with the best song/best lyrics.
Conclusion:
If this is implemented, it is no longer conducive to roleplaying for a significant portion of the players. If you're Joe Lawyer and know zilch about music, you will be run out of business by Joe "can-barely-pay-for-the-game-with-a-music-degree" Me.
I don't know the accurate numbers, and a lot of the people I meet in the profession are musicians in real life. I have yet to meet anyone with a higher level degree in music than me in the game. I'm not bragging, I'm saying there are an awefull lot of people that are role playing the role of entertainer. And in the current setup, everyone starts with an even footing despite my years of training or their amazing creativity.
In the current system, someone who has never picked up an instrument in real life can be so much better in this game as to put me out of a job.
Maybe I'm over-simplifying it here? I equate a completly user writen music system to a twitch based PvP. It's no longer role play.
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Just a concern of mine.
I am for player written songs, great idea and I want to use some of my creativity.
This won't even be an issue I believe untill we hear something about copywrites and/or programming issues for implementation.
After reading several posts, (not only in this thread) I have to make a few additional comments.
1. If I hear Stairway to Heaven, I probly won't quit, but that person will never be invited into the band if I'm the leader. This game was set "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." So, they did not have any of the songs that we have ever had here on earth, ever. I've seen somebody name his character Richerd Simmons (or some similar spelling) on Sunrunner, so people are already violating the naming rules. I imagine it will be a while before a GM catches up with people and forces them to change their names. But, Im certain that they will catch up with them sooner or later.
2. The copyright laws exist in this country, so we have to adhere to them wether we like it or not. Someone playing Stairway to Heaven is in violation of a copyright. I'm sure there would be people who would write original songs, but there will also be people who won't. As far as loops are concerned, we already have some. They were renamed to "flourishes" and we can paste them together in any order we want. I think we need more flourishes first of all. Second, I think we need to have 2 different sets of flourishes. One set wild and crazy like what we have now, and one set that has the *exact* same sounds but toned down for some of the calmer songs like ceremonial. Im sorry, but it would be really wierd to go to a classical music concert IRL (not that I would) and see the violinists play their violin with their teeth and the pianist or xylaphonist kick and jump up and down on the piano or xylaphone.
3. The instruments that we have up till musical knowledge 2 are making my ears bleed. We do need to have each instrument providea unique sound. Even if we don't get any new songs, this will drastically change the way our existing songs sound. Additional flourishes alone won't make much of a difference but this (imho) will. It certainly would be nice if the devs would adhere to their description af a MM and allow them to play every instrument and every song (more on MM and ME in #4). It would also be nice to have missions that would give us new songs and instruments too, but thats just icing on the cake.
4. MM and ME....... I'm sure everyone already knows the unresolved conflict concerning the two. In my humble opinion, when SOE states in the description of a MM that they know every song and instrument, then they should know every song and instrument. If you want to give something unique to ME and make it worth someone getting it, thendo this... Take away the pretty lights from the dancers and musicians and give them to ME. Make the pretty lights do something like increase healing rate. Give the ME the ability todo flourishes that cost fewer action points to perform. Give the ME the ability to play a known instrument in a different way. For example, the mando could be played like a rock guitar, or the Floo like a jazz saxaphone or the nala like an electronic keyboard. (They already do an altered verson of a dance that all dancers already have, why not do the same for musicians?) Why not give onlythe ME's the ability to do band flourishes and give us bonus exp for performing them? (see also my comments on band flourishes in #6)
5. Newbies should not have to determine the song being played by the band. They should be able to play any song that someone else in the band is playing. They should not be able to play those songs without being grouped with someone who can play the song. They should gain the same amount of exp as they would if they were playing their highest level song on their highest level instrument (provided they even have their highest level instrument and are actually using to play that song).
6. Band flourishes are a headache. Honestly, what is the difference between writing a macrothen walking away and walking away while someone else does band flourishes? Nothing, except one doesn't give you any exp. This is fine and dandy for anyone who already has MM and doesn't need the exp, but when the band can play together, it sounds so much better. Why discourage us musicians from sounding good by denying us the exp? If you want to prevent us from abusing the band flourishes, why not put a limit on how many we can do in a minute.
7. More songs! I work hard every level to get something new from the MM line. It takes forever for a casual player to gain the levels in musc knowledge and we don't even get a new song every level..... If you ask me, once we start working towards MM, we should get at least 1 new song for every level of music knowledge we get. I would love to see the opportunity to quest for an additional song every level too. Give us some incentive to actually do the gig missions. I do imperial delevery missions when I need money, not the gigs cause they just don't pay enough for the time they require. If we had to build faction with the nobles in the theater in order to get the missions for new songs, I wouldn't care, I'd still do them for the songs. (see also gigs in #8)
8. I think gigs are pretty much a waste of my time at the moment. The payoffs are not enough incentive for me. They are rarely in the same city, so I have to dish out my money for a shuttle ride or spend 20 minutes running to my destination and run the risk of being attacked along the way. (I have done this before, when I couldn't afford a shuttle ticket. It sucks!) If you wanna give us missions in a different city, fine, but give us the ticket to get there too. It would be nice to know how long we have to play there before the gig is finished. It would also be nice to have some additional experience given to us for actually completing the mission. I want to do gigs, but not if they are gonna waste my time with negligable rewards or benefits. Its already hard enough as it is to make tips cause some people don't feel the need to pay. (see #9 for more on my opinion on tips)
9. Tips.... Do I really have to explain this? /grouptip is an option, although /doorcharge is one that I like. The band leader gets a command that sets a price to be divided among all the band members that people have to pay before they can watch or listen to the band. It could work in much the same way that a home owner can charge an entry fee to enter their homes. It could be an optional command that only the band leader could turn on or off as well as set a dollar amount. (A band of 10 dancers/musicians could make 100 credits an hour if 10 customers watch/listen with a door charge of 100 credits.) /setdoorcharge 0 turns it off and /setdoorcharge 100 turns it on and sets the price. Don't take the /tip player option away, just in case someone feels the need to throw a few extra credits their favorite entertainer's way. I doubt people would abuse this cause if the price is too high people will go somewhere else and wouldcause the band to make lose customers andmoney. This would also move us away from cheapskates that feel that us gaining exp is reward enough and that they are entitled to a free performace because of all the time they spent killing yard trash. Once the door charge is payed, they can listen for as long as they want. (I don't think the band has the right to deny someone from listening to them as long as they pay a door charge.)
10. I know this doesn't bother some people, and its not really very high on my list either, but I'll mention it anyway because I find it annoying. Bar fights... Rancors in the cantinas... Can't they make the cantinas no fight zones? Can't they put a size restriction on them so that we don't end up with a rancor busting holes in the ceiling? Maybe I'm the only one, but it does annoy me.
Anyway, I didn't mean to rant, honest. But now that its all typed up and out of my system, I'm not gonna delete it. If you like my ideas, thats great. If you like them but not the way I stated them, say so. If you think you have another idea to build on mine, tell me. If you absouletly hate me and my stupid ideas because you think Im a %^(&!#@ idiot, tell me honestly why you don't like them and what you would prefer instead. I mean no offense to anyone, we can talk about these ideas in an adultlike manner with open minds towards other people's ideas without telling people that they are stupid and so are their ideas and that only your ideas and opinions count or theat only you know what everyone's opinion is. So, keep your flames to yourself. All other comments are welcome, I do take constructive criticism seriously and I do have an open mind that can be changed if you have a good idea or a valid and convincing argument.
(maybe I should start a new post, but Im too tired and its arealdy here so.....)
I like HamsterFett's ideas. Having it so people could create their own music from scratch would put people who don't have music training in real life at a great disadvantage. Their are a lot of real life musicians playing musicians in game and they would have a very huge advantage. This is a role playing game, making it so people could create their own songs would ruin this profession for a lot of people who have no musical ability in real life.
Be very careful of what you wish and ask for. You may get it and end up not liking the results.
KoraJubali wrote:
I have a degree in music.
Q: If "make your own songs" starts up, who are the patrons going to listen to?
A: The guy with the best song/best lyrics.
Conclusion:
If this is implemented, it is no longer conducive to roleplaying for a significant portion of the players. If you're Joe Lawyer and know zilch about music, you will be run out of business by Joe "can-barely-pay-for-the-game-with-a-music-degree" Me.
With a program like Acid you don't need to be a musician, per se, to create songs. That is, you don't need to read music or understand music theory to write songs. Basically the only skill you need is to determine what sounds good together and what doesn't as you are cutting and pasting clips together, clips are automatically put into the correct key, etc. (you need to use clips specifically formatted for Acid).
The simplified version which I would envision them using for a game like SWG would group the clips such that it would be virtually impossible to make something that sounded bad. /shrug We'll see what happens - I'm still not holding my breath on this as, at best, it is a long way off. 
fisrt off people who are good at making there own music will do so and sell it to us who dont (im one of them)
second you can easly do a web serch and find thousands of song sheet music now its true that some songs would sound totaly stupid in the SWG universe but since we dont haev to listen who cares
if someone is playing the thiem to barney I wont listen to them and who cares then?
if someone is playing enya carabien blue I will stare in wounder and throw money at them
I dont know if its legal to allow us to play copyrighted material I can see a large debate over this that realy only lawers can argue and even then the susprem court is still working on it
the best solution is give us the tools and the power to chouse
rather than say only a few will be able to use the mix or the full song making let it happen and see waht we can do
I think everyone would be surprised adn a totaly new economy will open up selling origianl songs!
I am so SICK of the songs we have. Please let us crate our own!
I choose number 2 as my first choice would be for a greater range of different instruments even if it means dropping two horns I mean we have enough to choose from already.
Kora, I hear your concern about accomplished musicians having an advantage in composition. Even with a user-friendly tool like Acid, a musical person will have some advantage. (With a not-so-friendly tool like Sonar, the advantage is even greater!) But one solution might be to treat player-created songs differently from normal schematics, so that rather than being bought and sold, they'd be uploaded into a SWG jukebox or some such, then downloaded freely. The jukebox could track how many times a particular song has been downloaded, just as websites do now. Word-of-mouth (or boards like this) would influence how often particular songs were downloaded. Trouble is, the jukebox would eventually become enormous -- another database headache for the devs. Maybe the least-popular songs would have to be deleted after a time? Dunno. A jukebox would also allow the devs to police for copyright violations -- a role I'm quite certain they don't want.
Speaking of copyright, I'm home now, so I'll start looking into those issues for us. Can't hurt to learn more.