Musician Archive
Thread: Feedback needed Jukebox Player Event Perk
Aleyo wrote:
Were you able to get someone else with admin to control it? Pappi gave me temp admin on her cantina on TC, and I dropped the jukebox and was the only one who could control it. Pappi and someone else with admin could not.
Anyways, thanks for the feedback thus far folks. I'll be bringing this up with the devs now.
Master Entertainer, Master Musician
Founding Member - Frag's Puppies
President and CEO - Fragpuppie Enterprises and Uber Instruments
Coronet, Corellia, Chilastra
This is disasterous, nothing short of it. There will be no need for house bands, no need to hire bands for special events, no incentive to hire us because the jukebox is more reliable and cheaper. Combine this with the proposal to merge our skills with other non-combat skills and split buffing from performing that is being discussed in the dancer forum and you end up with buff bot "relaxation specialists" and juke boxes. No where in this scenario is there room for a live musician to entertain. Personally I'm not interested in keeping musician to craft. It sounds like I need to work on my scouting skills again.
LyteFoot wrote:
Our feedback is irrelevant, its in test and very highly received. It isn't going away now. It might change to a crafted semi-permanent item but to me that will be even worse. I'm not a crafter, I hate crafting, and as a musician it wasn't my intent to craft. I'm an entertainer, I'm not even in this to make money, I do but not nearly what I did harvesting. I gave up harvesting, my main source of income and the skill that got me so many credits I don't worry about income anymore, just so I could entertain. I enjoy buffing but again there are player made NPC's that do most of that. Entertaining for the sake of entertaining is what I have left and now that will be gone.
This is disasterous, nothing short of it. There will be no need for house bands, no need to hire bands for special events, no incentive to hire us because the jukebox is more reliable and cheaper. Combine this with the proposal to merge our skills with other non-combat skills and split buffing from performing that is being discussed in the dancer forum and you end up with buff bot "relaxation specialists" and juke boxes. No where in this scenario is there room for a live musician to entertain. Personally I'm not interested in keeping musician to craft. It sounds like I need to work on my scouting skills again.
Hmm...ok, I understand the crafting part (I myself am a crafter, but I know how a lot of Ents don't dig crafting, which is totally understandable).
As has been mentioned, I think Architects should be able to build the "skin" of the jukebox, in several models to match different decor. We should be able to contribute a datadisk full of music - a la the Image Designer "generated" holoemotes (NO crafting involved, just *poof* you have a music datadisk, perhaps only generated while performing). These would be used by an Architect to do the final combine - similar to our part in crafting droids using our playback modules. But no crafting involved.
The benefits of this will be two-fold. First, Architects and Musiciansget a new renewable source of income (Jukeboxes should run out in say....30 days, like candles - but unlike candles they should REALLY burn out and need replacing). Second, there will be no blurring of possession of content between our profession and a terminal. That's a problem. It's akin to a Scouting Terminal that spits out Meat, Bone and Hide, or a Dancer NPC (which costs the low, low price of 25k) that can do a LOT more dance moves than any player Dancer is capable of doing - and with a lot more grace. Music is our domain, and we should play a part in any addition to music in the game - in particular, music that players can request at any time and anywhere. I realize this is background music, which is different than player music and strikingly better than player music, but that's the problem - these terminals are better musicians than I am.
NOW -
I went onto TC-Gorath late last night and played with these things. Ya know, "know your enemy" and all of that. I must say, the Jukebox is VERY cool. It really is. If you haven't checked 'em out yet, get on TC-Gorath and just hop to Theed, Naboo and go in the hotel, and to the back room to the right (off the semi-circle recessed area). Buy one, buy 5, for 25k each. Don't forget to grab a house from the blue frog! Go find yourself a place to call home, drop your house, and plunk down your jukebox. Don't forget to turn up your background music volume, either - if you've turned it down/off!
The song selection is truly remarkable - the kind of diversity I've craved in player music forever. Lots of different moods, different sounds, and songs that are distinctly Star Wars. Some quiet and ambient, some loud and intense, some dark and scary as hell. In other words, everything that music in this game should have been in the first place. There are a lot of your favorites in there, and finally I could hear the Max Rebo band's songs without them layered over each other and playing at the same time (if you don't know what I mean, visit Jabba's Throne Room).
Upon listening to the first few songs I instantly imagined Musicians playing away on-stage, with one of these ambient music makers in the same room/cantina, and people walking into the room to hear us "playing" away. That is COOL. It really will be, folks. It'll be neat to have people able to walk into a cantina and instantly hear the Modal Nodes' song from the Eisley cantina. Very Star Wars, and we'll look like we're playing it! That is, until people try to /listen to us, then they'll hear all sorts of garbled junk and turn off their player music volume in favor of the Jukebox music. Pity that.
The ever present question is - will people WANT us playing on stage in addition to the jukebox, or will they just not hire Musicians because they have a Jukebox? I'm leaning towards the latter and not the former - given enough time. Sure, we'll probably get some event gigs when the atmosphere needs a band around, but essentially we'll be playing second fiddle to a terminal. Pun very much intended.
I REALLY like the Jukebox. There's music in there that I've hoped to have in-game for a long time. I really don't like our music getting replaced by a terminal. Nobody wants to hear Ballad for the 14,755th time when they have 30 new songs, soundtrack quality, to choose from in a Jukebox. It will do wonders for atmosphere in shops and houses, and add character to RP events - but most likely to the detriment of Musicians.
*How it Works*
Using it in a small Naboo house, I put it at the end of the entrance hallway.
There were two rooms to either side of me, with doors. Start the music by selecting the Use option on the Radial, then the Start Music submenu option under Use. Please note: if you just double-click the Jukebox, nothing happens - no message like "use a submenu option" just nothing. I'll bet this will confuse people.
Anyhow, I could hear the Jukebox upon entering the hallway, with no fading in/out of the volume as I got closer or further away. Entering the siderooms made the music stop almost immediately. It seems the only area you can hear the music is in that particular room. I proceeded to drop 2 more jukeboxes in the side rooms, set em all to the same song, then walked between rooms - and the track continually started up again and again in each room. Sort of annoying, but probably a code/spatial limitation. Setting all 3 to different songs was fun, too - sounded kinda crazy hopping between rooms. Try dropping two Jukeboxes in one room, with both Max Rebo songs playing at the same time- and your place can sound just like Jabba's Throne Room!
I was not able to test in medium or large houses, or in a player cantina. That will be tonight's effort most likely. I want to see how the sound travels in various structures. Anyone who wishes to help is welcome to say hey on TC-Gorath (provided it's up) and my name is Warryyr (original, I know).
*Final Thoughts*
It's doubtful anything will change with these. They will probably go into the game as they currently exist. The work's been done, the effort is over. They should be put in-game anyways, because people have already been introduced to them, everyone wants better music in SWG (which is why we've championed needing new songs for ohhhh....our entire existence in-game pretty much). It will add atmosphere and make music an important part of SWG, just as it was an important part of the Star Wars movies. Music is finally (really) coming to SWG. Unfortunately, it was not through us as Musicians, but rather a terminal.
Positives:
My opinion is that they'll be a great addition to any cantina or shop, as it adds a lot of atmosphere to structures, and it grants access to a lot of cool Star Wars music we've been missing in-game. Having Musicians onstage and playing away, with these ambient things churning out music, makes us look and sound like real Musicians finally. Could be very cool. Like how the Biths in Eisley cantina play away, and look and sound like a real band.
Negatives:
Debatable whether Musicians will be in as much demand for gigs after this, except as decorations to "pretend" we're playing the Jukebox songs. Bummer. I suspect the Player Music Volume option will be turning off for a lot of players very soon. Even Musicians. As an additional concern, Musicians will be "playing" these songs without the need for people to /listen to us, hence folks will probably start forgetting to /listen to us, thus Entertainer healing xp could drop (dunno, just a thought).
After spending only 10 minutes with the thing, I felt jealous of a terminal. So help me, I felt jealous of a terminal, people. Let's see - 29 songs vs. my 10 or 11, far greater diversity in musical compositions (not so horn-laden or whimsical, actual dark moody stuff and more Star-Warsy songs - actually more STAR WARS songs not "sort of the Eisley cantina music" or "very close to the Imperial march" or "Western which sort of fits in Star Wars but notreally and has each measure sounding very repetitive"but REAL Star Wars music), not to mention the ability to start and stop music without waiting 15 seconds or whatever. Pretty much everything I've wanted as a Musician in this game, for the bargain price of 25k, in one handy little terminal. It really is a better Musician than me, so I pretty much felt not only jealous but put in my place by it. Our mechanics are too limited to ever achieve what this little machine has. Soundtrack quality music, and everyone's favorites.
My advice is to always know where the closest hotel is to you, wherever you go, so that you can pick one of these up at a moment's notice. Whatever music you are playing will likely become inconsequential. People will prefer this music over ours. Just /startmusic whatever and have someone pick something nice on the Jukebox.
*Warryyr's Bottom Line*
THIS THING SHOULD BE OURS TO SELL (at least in part). If this music will be preferred over us, we should have the ability to make/sell these things. People will prefer to hear this music over our current selection of stuff. We're going to be pretending to play these songs, and our music that we're actually playing will seldom be listened to again. Thus, if this thing's going to negate our Musician skills aside from a "playing an instrument" animation, I want part of the cut. No Event Promoter NPC is gonna rip me off. Then again, yeah they probably will.
Regardless of what happens, these need to go in-game, because music is finally coming to SWG. Unfortunately, Musicians are playing no part in it.
However....
I played with one on TC extensively and here are some thoughts:
Its on TC and will be promoted to live.
It will be promoted as is and or only with very minor changes.
To manage the jukebox during a party there is only 1 person who can do it: the person who rented it.
If that person logs out the Juke stops and if they are logged out for log enough the juke disappears.
It can only play one track at a time and cannot be sequensed or even, taking a cue from Apple (life is random), shuffle play.
For something like a wedding, there would need to be a dedicated person to manage the juke as the principles would be doing other things.
For parties there are only a couple "dance" tracks, most are environmental or dark.
"Hard Rock" needs to be redone it sounds like !@#$.
It is impractical as is for shopkeepers as it will poof 3 times a day and, unless managed, play the same thing all day.
We will lose business, but not all as this will not work for everyone. The implementation is pretty clunky. I think as bandleaders we'll need to have admin rights to the performance venue and we'll have to pack them for shows for those tracks that may be requested. We'll end up as bandleader/DJ.
Fragpuppie Uber
Master Musician/Master Entertainer
Coronet, Corellia, Chilastra
MusicalDina wrote:
I have been trying to think what to say. What needs to be added to what has been said in previous posts.
I dont think this will kill us. I do think it will harm us.
My only concern is that because this wont kill us (there will always be some people left) what are the devs going to do next to ensure our demise?
What could they possibly do to make our profession less wanted?
you know, at this point I dont even care what specifically the devs have in store for us. If I could ask a dev a question this is what it would be right now:
What is your vision of the Entertainment professions?
I am not sure they have us in their vision of this game. They are slowly taking us out, if you havent noticed.
Hmm...well, they're not really taking us out. They are, however, systematically removing our content (whether knowingly or unknowingly).
Healing/buffing times drastically reduced = much less time in the cantina = no one to talk to but ourselves and the bots.
With the addition of jukeboxes, our music is likely to be completely unheard or listened to, in favor of Jukebox music. I mean really - you tell me - listen to Star Wars soundtrack music, or the 10 songs you've heard in-game for the past 2 years. Take a guess what people will go for. Those orchestral pieces sure are nice. It is my suggestion that any and all further musical additions to the game be added to the Jukebox, since anything we play pales in comparison. Our rolewill soon beto pretend to play Jukebox songs when playing gigs. In NPC locations, obviously, we'll still have our old songs.
And we get an increase in Entertainer mission payouts, but no added content to missions, and the payouts still don't scale or really amount to a decent flow of credits for us.
We did get the theater quest, but the dance's base step is broken, and Western as a song is rather lacklustre and has repetitive measures of music. It's always pretty much "on the upswing" note-wise, if that makes sense. Like it's building up constantly, with no resolution, so it ends up falling flat...it leads you along but never takes you anywhere. The theater mission is basically a glorified Newbie droid mission - do the Newbie missions from the helper droid if you never have. Basically it amounts to "Do a flourish. Good. Now go entertain 8 people. Good job. You're done." Content-wise, it's a little thin. But at least it was something to do that was ours.
Message Edited by Warryyr on 02-22-2005 09:08 AM
Landlubber wrote:Scip, what was the purpose of this feedback thread? Since you as our Correspondent posted it, can we assume that you've been asked by the Devs to gauge our reactions to this?And to expand on that whole "What's our purpose anyway" sentiment (and sorry for going slightly OT here) - sure, we all know the CU is coming up, we won't get a revamp until that is done, yadda yadda... and yet, do you think there's a chance that we'll get some kind of "vision statement" anytime soon?
No, I wasn't asked by the devs to get feedback on the jukebox. I hopped onto TC to test out healing xp numbers and decided to try it out (I like music, after all). I worried as a player about what it would mean for us, but I wanted to make sure I knew what ya'll thought as a community about it so that I would have a consensus to present to the devs.
As for a vision statement, I think this sort of thing is imperative, and the other corrs and I have been requesting a document laying out their vision and plan for us.
I really wanted to be on the boards for ya'll last night, but my cable modem decided it didn't want to connect
. The cable guy should be calling me sometime between the hours of 8 AM and 9 PM today to come fix it though 
.
Fragpuppie wrote:
As I have said before, I do and don't like them. They are nice but they will kill more elements of our profession.
However....
I played with one on TC extensively and here are some thoughts:
Its on TC and will be promoted to live.
It will be promoted as is and or only with very minor changes.
To manage the jukebox during a party there is only 1 person who can do it: the person who rented it.
If that person logs out the Juke stops and if they are logged out for log enough the juke disappears.
It can only play one track at a time and cannot be sequensed or even, taking a cue from Apple (life is random), shuffle play.
For something like a wedding, there would need to be a dedicated person to manage the juke as the principles would be doing other things.
For parties there are only a couple "dance" tracks, most are environmental or dark.
"Hard Rock" needs to be redone it sounds like !@#$.
It is impractical as is for shopkeepers as it will poof 3 times a day and, unless managed, play the same thing all day.
We will lose business, but not all as this will not work for everyone. The implementation is pretty clunky. I think as bandleaders we'll need to have admin rights to the performance venue and we'll have to pack them for shows for those tracks that may be requested. We'll end up as bandleader/DJ.
Fragpuppie Uber
Master Musician/Master Entertainer
Coronet, Corellia, Chilastra
Hard Rock sounds hollow, like a bad mp3. On the other hand, it sort of sounded (to me) like background music for a cantina, without it being so "in your face." I hated the song in the redone ROTJ. On the jukebox, it sounded to melike something that would be playing in the background of a cantina. It sounded like a "jukebox" rather than a full scale orchestral symphony playing.
The problem is that the character of that song, in particular, is nothing like the other songs - they sound likea string section is sitting next to you, Hard Rock sounds like it's actually a track being played on an old Jukebox. I've no idea if this was intended, but if it wasn't - yeah that song needs a serious remix, it sounds like a subpar mp3, copied onto a casette, then rerecorded into my computer using a $10 microphone, then ripped into mp3 again. It's noticeably different in sound quality versus the other songs.
Aleyo wrote:
Landlubber wrote:
Scip, what was the purpose of this feedback thread? Since you as our Correspondent posted it, can we assume that you've been asked by the Devs to gauge our reactions to this?
And to expand on that whole "What's our purpose anyway" sentiment (and sorry for going slightly OT here) - sure, we all know the CU is coming up, we won't get a revamp until that is done, yadda yadda... and yet, do you think there's a chance that we'll get some kind of "vision statement" anytime soon?
No, I wasn't asked by the devs to get feedback on the jukebox. I hopped onto TC to test out healing xp numbers and decided to try it out (I like music, after all). I worried as a player about what it would mean for us, but I wanted to make sure I knew what ya'll thought as a community about it so that I would have a consensus to present to the devs.
As for a vision statement, I think this sort of thing is imperative, and the other corrs and I have been requesting a document laying out their vision and plan for us.
I really wanted to be on the boards for ya'll last night, but my cable modem decided it didn't want to connect
I don't really care if you have nothing to report regarding changes to the Jukebox, just to get that out of the way. All I'm asking is if you could let us know if a Dev even responds to any discussion regarding these. I'd just like to know if we're deserving of a response by a Dev before our profession gets diminished by these things. Thanks 
. I think she underlined the whole issue perfectly, as a dancer there are far more options for them to perform their routines using the juke box than there is with us playing for them. So given our dancers can find more possibilities with this what do you think the other players are going to do?I can tell you this, I won't be a crafter and I won't be set dressing for a jukebox. I think this device spells the death of the musician as an entertainer and artist. Dang it I mix flourishes to try and create new tunes, I recently started writing words to go with some of those, I group with other musicians to create a band. Here comes a small little device that I have not a prayer of competing with to make all these months of learning worthless.
I have basically been relegated to being the fastest healing bot in a cantina full of novices and nothing more. Thanks SOE.
Recently, they proposed putting up a galaxy wide vendor search. After the community brought up valid concerns about automatic delivery and the effect a global price war would have on the crafting and merchant professions, even though it would greatly benefit the general player in finding what they need at the best price, they wisely yanked it and are rethinking the idea.
This jukebox concept should likewise be yanked. It's going to have a directly negative impact on musicians, and perhaps even dancers, as fewer people will look to players to provide entertainment for parties. This was pretty much the last aspect of our professions we had where we could make money without a bot muscling in.
Meet the new bot, baby, and this time it's not the players abusing an in-game system...it's being introduced directly by the devs! Woo!