Musician Archive

Edit: I've tallied the results of this thread and am about to post a tentative summary in a separate thread. Please post comments there. I'll start polling for our "Fourth Quarter 2004top issues" in a few days.

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Dear fellow Musicians,

It's time for us to submit another quarterly "top-five" list to the developers. Please list your top issues, in descending order of priority, in this thread. Please number each issue so that I can "tally" your votes. Feel free to list more than five issues if you like; sometimes your number 7 issue is someone else's number 1 issue, and that information helps me tally the votes. Please try to keep explanations and arguments to a minimum; if you'd like to explain further, please do so in a separate thread.

Incidentally, while we didn't receive a formal reply to our last set of issues, andfor the most part our top five issues remain unresolved, there has been some progress on some of our issues. On our number 1 issue, new songs, we are getting one new song in Publish 10.2 Our number 2 issue, buffs, was addressed in an answer to a question we posed to TH; he said no self-buff now, but he didn't seem to rule it out for all time. Another top-five issue, AFKing, is also being addressed by the devs' plan to limit repeating macros. Yet another issue, better missions, is being partly addressed by the new entertainer quests on TC now. We really haven't had any response to our final set of issues, on targeting of nalargons and ommni boxes and on player theaters.

1. There needs to be a way into the village, and getting your FSCS open, without combat. Something specifically for people who don't wish to engage in combat, such as crafters, doctors, and entertainers.

2. Give us some more diverse missions. From what I've heard, the way to get the new song and the Xantha is just play for a few days in a theater...

3. Keep working on getting rid of buff bots.

4. Give players a reason to go to PC Cantinas.

5. More songs! We need more than just one new song to keep us entertained for a while! Although the Xantha does kind of add more songs, but not really, it just adds new sounds to the older songs...

X'ero Anarian
Elder Swordsman
Elder Pikeman
Spy Extraordinare

1. Give us some indication that our buffs worked - we should NOT have to rely on the honesty of our buff customers to know if our buff worked or not. We can't see secondary stats, no one can, and we NEED to in order to know if we buffed someone or not. This, to me, is the single greatest thing that needs to be fixed on Musician - pronto. Even a simple system message of "You enhance PlayerX's Focus and Willpower by 900" should suffice. Anything. It's too easy to steal Musician buffs. It saddens me deeply everytime I see a Master of a buffing profession ask, "Did the buff work?" That's just ridiculous.

3. Destruction of methods which allow Entertainers of any sort to be played 100% AFK, yet still providing the same buffs and healing services a dedicated, live Entertainer provides.

4. Something to make the experience of visiting a cantina more exciting/appealing. Something that compels cantina patrons to remain at the keyboard. As it stands, going to a cantina for many combat players is a chore - and they go AFK while they get their heals/buffs. It should be fun. One idea, implement Sabaac games that we can host (Master of any entertainment skill required). Maybe some other games of chance that we can provide. Master Merchants should be able to drop a player casino, and Entertainers should be used to staff it.

5. Fix the "You direct your performance to %TT" thing already - give us a name, for the love of God. Can we please get a more descriptive message as to who we're buffing? How long has this simple problem been around? Yeesh.

Thanks, NJ!

I don'tsay it enough, but you're awesome, and I really appreciate all the work you do for us.

Warryyr
Musician Jedi|Explorer|Interior Decorator|Wookiee Superhero

memories ... especially of the fans that make it all worthwhile.
Play live or logout!

Hmm hard to pick what with all the supposed changes coming. But as we don't have any of them I guess I'll go with what they currently are...

1. Unattended Gameplay 23/7

2. Bugs(REGISTRATION, buffing bugs, /changeb bugs, Omni and Nala targeting, Overt Faction +25% buffsect.)

3.Content (More songs, More instruments, Rare and sought after instruments, Quests, Missions, Cantinas need to be more alive returned to being a Hub of the interaction that it used to be)

4. Improve Registration options with signs and more info on the planetary map + let us Register in any place that we can heal and buff at.

5. We need help with our overall image of what we are and who we should be. The majority of our peers in this game treat us like crap. Or just barely tolerate us being in the game.

6. Some Bardish type abilities that would allow us to be of more use in the GCW... more use then just bf healing and buffs.(no idea how to really go about this.)

Oh-Orb Rizo Twi'lek
Just hanging out... watching with interest what changes do or don't happen.

I support the NDE. (New Drygo Experience)
Server Pop Snap-Shot Feb. 06 link

NJ, since you did list a few things that are already happening I will leave those off.....

(1) Credits, credits credits.........crank up the payout on entertainer missions. If I have to stand there for 10 - 15 minutes to get paid 150-200 credits, thats just sad. Why is it that we can not get good scaling (Novice thru Master) payout missions? This is probably the numer one thing that keeps me from playing Durney full time anymore. If I could make enough money without having to rely on tips, I would not care if 20 people in a row didn't tip me. And 1000, or even 2000 creds for a Master "gig" for 15 minutes would not tip the economy upside down and I bet you a million credits that if they just increased the payouts on entertainer missions, then more people would do them and actually be happy being entertainers ( Buffbots / AFKers aside) as they could afford to actually buy the things they like to have in game.Besides, why is it that entertainers are the poorest class anyhow? Thats crazy even in Star Wars.

(2) Get the register working correctly ASAP. This needs to be fixed badly.

(3) We need to get our buffs in line with Doc buffs, at least time wise. I think it is rather strange that a Doc can buff someone for over three hours but we are stuck at two. This can cause grief for us as well when the Combat players are "in need" of mind effecting buffs when they still have close to two hours left on a Doc buff. ( Maybe worked out on the sandbox?)

(4) Yes, please, allow Masters who own Cantinas to place gambling tables.

(5) This may be moot. Question first.....are Cantinas tied to cities? If they are, can we get Cantinas broke out of cities? How many movies have you seen where a wanderer comes across a few houses and a Saloon or two and thats all? Not only entertainers could benefit from this, but so could merchants (Really nice merchant changes -lots of vendors now) and Chefs. Chefs obviously, but if your place could become a little "hotspot" a town could actually grow up around it instead of a town getting to a certain level before you can place a cantina.

(6) I agree that we need some indicator of our buffs strength / duration.

(7) Ok I fibbed.......more songs and instruments!

Durney Kova

Master Entertainers / Master Musician / Master Image Designer / Novice Dancer

1) Nalagaron/Ommni box targeting issues

2) Buffs: duration needs to be increased to 3 hours, /setpeform needs correction, We need indication we buffed right

3) /register needs to be fixed

4) Buffs need to be disabled while afk, and players should not be aloud to disable afk notification

5) Increased mission payout

Hope i followed KISS well enough

-=-=-=-=-=-=Carpathia Darkrunner=-=-=-=-=-=-
Former Master Image Designer and head of the Bria Union
Master Musician, Master Entertainer, Tera Kasi Master
Slayer of Buffbots, Fourm Loudmouth, Greek God

Yes, I am primarily a dancer. But, I am also a Master Entertainer solely to be a Mandoviolist, and a 0 0 3 0 Musician and use it regularly, so I think I get to chime in my two credits here.

Unattended gameplay is in my opinion the number one problem with devaluing the Musician (and other entertainer) professions. Unattendedness has allowed for buffbots, has created an environment where Musicians are seen as unnecessary to actually play, and therefore of no value. Note the almost total cessation of tipping for entertainer healing as evidence of this lack of perceived value -if there's always some AFK thing skill animating that can and will do the same mechanic, there is no appreciation of the value in our abilities to heal or buff, nor of an appreciation that someone took the time to play the profession, and was there to help when needed.

I list this as the number two issue, as it seems that theother issuespale if there is little to no incentive for Musicians to remain Musicians once achieving Master.

Currently the only inherent content to the profession is acquisition of new songs, instruments, special effects, and buffing ability while leveling. More things to do, things to strive for, and ways to get involved with the immersiveness of SWG (and in turn, provide anadditional immersive experience for other players as a result) will be very important in Musician retention over the longer haul.In order to prevent massive turnover of Musician players, we need to have more things to do in SWG as Musicians than buff. Chatting and socializing is wonderful, but we don't need bandfill to do it. Many of us started this up with the dreams of becoming stars of stage and holoscreen within the Star Wars universe... and there is no game support for such aspirations, although there could be...

Clearly the core of the existing gameplay experience for the Musician is the songs and instruments that we can play. The variety of songs, sounds, and flourishes that can be combined differently to create new song variants are vitally needed to prevent endless repetition, not just for us as Musicians, but for our listeners as well.

Another long-standing problem that has led to the fears that Musicians (and entertainers in general) are not plentiful, or cannot be found, is that the tools used to locate other players of specific professions yield less than satisfactory results. If /register and the current in-game profession search functions cannot be improved to be more useful, some new method of allowing players to locate active showbands, and for Musicians to find where their services are needed or desired, must be implemented.

The game code for entertainer buffs appear to be very fragile, and needs to be stabilized for reliability. And as has been said so many times before, the Musician needs to have some indication of the progress of buffing in the process of doing so, and some form of system confirmation that the buff has indeed been applied. The number one "salable" of the Musician profession has no indication as to whether or not it has been applied, or at what quality - and is highlyprone to abuses by unscrupulous buff recipients.

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1: Buff Completion Notification.

2: More Instruments/Songs.

3: More Control Over Public Cantinas/Taverns. JoeSchmoeGriefer comes into the cantina and starts blasting the place up with launcher pistol, setting his rancors/grauls/kimogillaon top of the performers,spamming 'Ents suck', and /slapping performers. Granted, we can always put them on ignore. However, new patrons coming to the cantina are assaulted with this and leave, depriving us of healing/tips/interraction.

Perhaps a /bounce command would help. This would 'bounce' the griefer from the cantina for a period of 5 mins, much like a TEF works with private structures. To avoid griefing, it could require two or more entertainers to perform the 'bounce'. The group gets a system message, 'MusicianX wishes to bounce JoeSchmoeGriefer. Do you agree?'

I'd love to see two stormtroopers come along and forcibly remove the griefer, but I'd settle for just removing the trouble from the cantina.

4: Buff Balancing. Either boost the Music/Dance buffs to 3-4 hours, and quadruple the effectiveness, or bring Doc buffs down in line with the double stat/two hour limit.

5: A Path to Force Sensitivity for Those who are Dedicated to Peace. A Jedi uses his skill for defence and knowledge. Never to attack. Why must the path be dictated by aggression? Sounds like the path to the Dark Side, rather than to enlightenment.

Mo'Ste Elosk
Mo'Set Elosk
-----------------------------------------
May the Force grant us
the Wisdom to discover the Right,
the Will to choose it,
and the Strength to make it endure.

1. Content, be it songs, instruments, quests or missions.

The new entertainer quest is something, but we're only gonna do it once.

2.

______________________________
Captain Dal Staak
Master Musician / Master Entertainer / Teras Kasi Master
Master Pilot, Naboo Royal Security Forces

Live, ATK, and Manually Flourishing Master Musician Since 7/29/03

1) Better Quests / Missions ...Beaten to a Dead Horse ... and every time I've tried to load TC I crash out ... will try again ...

2) More songs ... We are getitng 1 new song in pub 10 ... Uh , this process is a process that is taking WAY to long as this was on the Top 5 back when Top 5 started. 1 Song is like a bare bone being thrown to us as we stay on the back burner ...

3) 24/7 Afk ... Being Worked on in some unknown mysterious way that has yet to be announced

4) Content Desirability ... Something to make it worth our While to actually perform Concerts with Multiple Musicians, and actually have people come and listen to us , instead of just being usefull for mind buffs ... AKA , I have Musician friends that I enjoy jamming with , but there is NO Content desirability for people to come and listen to us as a band ...

5) GCW usefullness ... This kinda of links into all of the Above , but I would like to See all Entertainers be viable in the GCW ... IE , Picking up Missions from NPC's or Player Cities that contain Coded information that are incorporated into our song / performances that other Players of same faction would be able to pickup on and take action on , allowing them to accomplish something positive for , or prevent something negative from happening to that faction ...

Djacktono

Ugh. I hate this forum.

2. Buffs. We need an interface, or at least improvements to the existing code. And NJ, please make sure to keep bugging %TT about the /setperform bug.

3. Force Sensitivity. The absolute lack of anything entertainer-relatedis yet another slapin our community's face.

4. Mission Payout. This is an absolute joke. Crank it way up. There's no reason we should get paid a couple hundred measly credits when combatants can easily rake in 25-30k in the same amount of time.

5.More work on defeating unattended performing. I'd rank this higher but it's supposedly being worked on.

______________________________
Captain Dal Staak
Master Musician / Master Entertainer / Teras Kasi Master
Master Pilot, Naboo Royal Security Forces

Live, ATK, and Manually Flourishing Master Musician Since 7/29/03

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