Musician Archive

I've tried to compile a breakdown of the different kinds of entertainers you'll find in the game, and how each in particular is harmed by the existence of buffbots.
I'm basing my information off of posts I have read, people I have talked to, and my own experiences, so please forgive me if my statements are somewhat inaccurate. Feel free to add information, and I'll be happy to stick it in this post.
The hope is that this may be informational enough to sticky, so that those who defend buffbots and don't feel they do any harm can be pointed here at least to be informed.
For ease of writing, I've used the masculine pronoun in this post. This obviously applies to both male and female characters.

Here is a list of the different kinds of entertainer character players, as I see them. As with all roles in life, it's likely that you lean mostly to one of these, but also have the characteristics of some of the others. For example, I'd label myself as mostly an Artist(Musician), with strong elements of a Social Entertainer (both Unwinder and Socialite).

• The Healing Entertainer:
  
  
  
  • The Supporter: This entertainer wishes to fulfill a supportive role in the combat of the galaxy. He is very likely factioned, or loyal to his city or guild, and wishes to help the players in his faction defeat their opponents by making them stronger. He most likely does not demand payment for his services, but will deny the service to his opponents. The entertainer professions are not likely to be his only professions.
    
    
    
    • The harm: Since this entertainer obviously cares about the fact that there is a war going on, he finds a lack of immersion in the fact that the service he provides for his faction is not a true benefit, since the other faction has the same benefit available 24/7 for free. He doesn't feel he will ever contribute to a strategical advantage in combat. In addition, since his own faction members can use the buffbot for free, he feels that he is useless in the game, and is not fulfilling the supportive role he wished to fill.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • The Merchant: This entertainer provides a useful service as a means of earning money. He knows that there is much demand for his service, and uses the demand as a way to determine the price for the buffs or healing. This entertainer likely also enjoys the time spent buffing/healing to some extent, as he is willing to spend his time and effort to make a profit by providing the service. He is also likely to seek out skill tape enhancements, as he wishes to be competitive in the entertainer market.
    
    
    
    • The harm: Perhaps the class of entertainer most directly affected by buffbots, this entertainer is unable to meet his goals because the market is being completely undersold. Since the buffbots are not being actively played, they have no need to be compensated for their time spent in the game, and offer their buffs completely free of charge. Those seeking buffs, when faced with the choice of a free buff and a buff that costs money, will obviously choose the free buff, and the entertainer is left without a product that is valued in the market. There is no longer any reason for this kind of entertainer to keep playing as an entertainer, because his goals are impossible to meet.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• The Social Entertainer:
  
  
  
  • The Socialite: This entertainer loves nothing more than interacting with other players in the game. This entertainer is familiar with most, if not all, emotes, and is always chatting with everyone willing to chat back. He makes friends with those who are regulars in the cantina, and enjoys the variety of people who come in and out every day. This entertainer likely has no interest in a combat or crafting profession, and is quite happy never exploring the wilderness of the galaxy.
    
    
    
    • The harm: This entertainer is especially harmed by buffbots that are placed in the static city cantinas. As the buffbot establishes itself as an available entity, fewer players actually say anything to any of the entertainers when they come to the cantina to get buffed. The players are likely to establish the custom of barely walking into the door of the cantina, activating the buffbot, and then leaving without saying a word. There are some players who don't interact with entertainers at all anyway, and these do not have an effect. However, there is a significant portion of players that are willing to talk to entertainers and enjoy the conversation if the entertainer initiates the conversation, even if that's not what they're looking for. The socialite loses this part of the player base as an opportunity to socialize, and has less fun. In addition, as his fellow entertainers start to quit the game from the harm the buffbots have done to them, the socialite loses even more friends, and eventually has an empty cantina with no one to talk to.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • The Unwinder: This entertainer likes the interaction and social aspect of being in the cantina, but it's not enough for him to be fully happy playing the game. This entertainer has another profession, and splits his time between the two. A typical situation would be to get buffed, hunt while the buff lasts, then spend an hour or two hanging out in the cantina and enjoying the company. This entertainer likely interacts with the regulars in the cantina (who know and recognize him), but is less likely to interact with the passers-by, since he is less likely to see them in the future.
    
    
    
    • The harm: The unwinder suffers from some of the same problems as the socialite, but is likely to drop the entertainer professions more quickly once the buffbots effects have taken place. Since the unwinder would come to the cantina for some relaxing social fun between his other professions' duties, he's not likely to stick around for long if the live entertainers have quit the area due to the buffbot. He doesn't mind quitting too much, since it's probably only a side profession for him, but sometimes after leaving he'll feel the pang of regret that he doesn't have a place like the cantina to hang out at anymore.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• The Artist:
  
  
  
  • The Musician: Likely a musician of some kind in real life, this entertainer spends a lot of time figuring out how to make the best sounds in the game. He is familiar with all the flourishes in all the songs, and knows how they sound on all the instruments. Almost invariably, this entertainer will have picked up Master Entertainer as well as Master Musician. This entertainer is likely to form a band, have a playback droid (or several), and put on organized performances of predetermined songs he composed using the flourishes available. THis entertainer is not very likely to be found in Theed or Coronet, or at least not in the main group.
    
    
    
    • The harm: The musician is likely to experience a bittersweet feeling when a character he knows to be very old on the server has no idea what the mandoviol is or is very impressed to hear, oh say, jazz (or anything other than virtuoso or starwars1). He'll realize that his art is going unappreciated by the masses, since many will no longer listen to anyone other than a buffbot. The musician is also likely to be confronted by players who demand to be buffed without so much as a greeting, and will suffer a barrage of insults when he refuses to do so. Since the existence of buffbots make buffing seem like a commodity, the player base as a whole will stop feeling like the entertainer professions can actually entertain, and he will see the attendance at his shows slowly dwindle. In addition, it will be harder to come by bandmates as the days go by, as fewer players will feel it's worth their time to keep making shows when no one cares.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • The Dancer: Very similar to the musician, except with dance instead of music. (Although probably not as likely to pick up Master Entertainer for footloose2.. maybe formal2 though). Outfits are also quite likely very important to this entertainer, as the visual appeal of the dance is enhanced by what he's wearing.
    
    
    
    • The harm: The dancer once again suffers much of the same harm as the musician. In addition, since entertaining becomes a valueless service with the existence of buffbots, players stop tipping the dancer, and the dancer finds it harder to afford new outfits to go with his dances.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Message Edited by Aleyo on 07-30-2004 01:41 PM

It's in a way sad... I wrote a post that said pretty much the same thing before I became correspondent. That was at the very beginning of the year, and nothing much has changed in the situation between then and now.

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Tiaga wrote:
It's in a way sad... I wrote a post that said pretty much the same thing before I became correspondent. That was at the very beginning of the year, and nothing much has changed in the situation between then and now.

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Wow, that was very similar. Very well spoken. I guess the one thing that's changed between then and now is the proliferation of buffbots (which my post was more directed at).
It's sad how long this problem has been around without any attempt to fix it. I still have hope, though I do find myself questioning my existence every now and again.

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Amythen wrote:

I would like to mention, that those types are not exclusive of each other. When I realized today, that everything I liked about my profession was truely gone, I decided it was over. I'm only slightly bitter about AFKing and buffbots. I'm even more bitter that the development team continues to prove that I make no difference to them since I do not fight anything.

My game is over, I tried my best to make a difference once again. Now, I see that nothing will ever get done to help us to make a difference, in fact they seem to condone the opposite, in writing, on the Holocron. Everything is done to help those that kill things. I just wish that I could have known that prior to paying to reactivate my account for three months.

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I'm sorry that you've decided it's over . The devs scored a little bit of points with me by introducing the in concept thread on supporting atk play, but I really believe they could heal a lot of damage just by posting in the entertainer forums, even just once, to tell us directly that they're sorry.
I did try to mention that the types of gameplay are not exclusive of each other, but I'll make it more clear. My introduction paragraph is a kind of wandering thing, so I'll fix that up a bit.

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DarkY0da wrote:

The only thing I can see that has changed is it's gotten worse. And now we have bots coming to the forums here to get help with their bots. And we have in fighting with ourselves on what our role/purpouse*sp* in this game is. Of course we don't know what that really is except what we make up from the attitudes of the DEVs and their cryptic ways. Ya know I think this might be it. Time to move on for a bit.... but to what...

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I can't believe the nerve of the bots who come in here asking for bot help. Especially when they introduce their posts with "I know you guys hate buffbots, but..." Pick another forum to ask that in at least, jeez.
Part of my purpose in the post (not the original purpose, but I found it tied in nicely) was to help explain that there are these varying types of entertainer roles. We don't have to fight to say which is the 'right' one. A lot of the time, we make some blanket statements such as "buffing really isn't part of an entertaining profession, they should just do away with it completely." Now, while that may be true to the person writing it (especially if that person joined the game before mind buffing existed), there may be players who chose this profession specifically because of its mind buffing capabilities (I'm talking players, not bots, here), and its not fair to say that one person's view of a way to play the profession is any better than another person's view on it (once again, play the profession, which is something bots don't do). Many buffbot proponents complain about the lack of atk buffing entertainers, but I do feel that that role would be filled as soon as there was a need to. With buffbots around, no one feels they'd be useful becoming a buffing entertainer, but it is certainly a role that a group of friends or a guild would want filled by one of their members. (On a side note, I've recently been doing the trial versions of a couple of other mmorpgs with some friends, and we get on the phone and discuss what roles we'll be so as to have a complete and powerful party. This is the exact conversation I imagine being discussed with people where someone says "oh, and we'll be doing a lot of pvp, so we'll need a doctor and an entertainer to keep us buffed up" "ah, I'll handle that for the group!").
I've rambled on, however. The point is, we're all different kinds of players within a class in the game. Yet we're all affected by the same problem.

I think you should add a little blurb about the different types of customers as well. My main character is a Ranger/Rifleman. I loved hanging out it the Dearic cantina whenever I came in from hunting and gathering. I kept Novice Entertainer for a long time just so I could join in the dancing. I never had very much money because I always tipped the entertainers 1k each (a lot back then).

Then the Cantina was empty. Eventually I learned to go to Theed or Coro to get an "insta-heal" from the monster afk groups there. The lag and spam were so bad I detested going there. On one notable occasion I let my BF make it up to 799 before finally getting healed. Instead of logging I would go afk in the empty NPC cantinas, hoping that my BF would heal slowly. I went to one Doc bot once and thought it the dumbest thing ever. The idea of a entertainer buff bot I laughed at, not thinking the concept could even be seriously viable. I mean, what is the point?

Then I was drawn onto the ID forum looking for wookieebraids, and from there I was drawn here. And I read about CCVI. And I said hmmmm... I have a Mon Cal on Bria who was going to be a stuffy architect... maybe I'll go check it out. And I did. The next day I created an RP dancer on Starsider and began visiting all three Ent forums everyday. My Bria and Wanderhome characters abandoned their templates and went Entertainer. My Ranger began hanging out in cantinas again once she knew where to look for the live Entertainers.

Even with my rediscovery of the joy of Entertaining and interacting with people in the cantina setting, I realized it wasnt the same as it was before. There are times on my combat main when I KNOW people are atk, but drawing them out of groupchat is like pulling teeth. Entertainers have become distrustful and bitter towards the rest of the playerbase, and that is a real loss for me as a customer and for the entire SWG community. New Ents, trained by the silent treatment by most customers, the Master Ents who train and chat with them in groupchat, and the impossibility to really see anything worthwhile through the spam, may even find the idea of chatting with a customer strange.

Buffbots have hurt my ability to level and make money on my Ent characters, but I still have fun interacting with the live Ents I've met. They've helped me with money, clothes, everything my heart desires. I love logging on my Entertainer, even if I know it will take months and months to get those last three boxes of healing xp between me and my mandivol. On Paks however, the cantinas are still a sad place. No longer is she welcomed by the faces of old friends who run over to give her special healing attention and hugs. No more comfortable teasing, hair-combing, or imaginary bows or flowers intertwined in my fur. Slowly I've started getting to know some newbies in the Mos Eisley cantina (10k tips make an impression), but it is always one or two people tentatively talking to me instead of the whole place alive with talk and laughter. In my mind my non-Entertainer character has lost a lot more than my Entertainers have.

I am just getting started with one of my characters along the Master Entertainer, musician line (unable to master it while a master merchant and artisan). And have to agree with that assessment above.

Though it is fun to suprise people while that long shuttle timer ticks down with an instant jam session. Just me, a bot, and a mandovoil... Its the perfect time to plug one of your gigs, and often people say they'll check it out.

With a bit more work, things don't have to seem so glum and drab. Shrug off those "Hey dummbaz, music dun work outside cantina" comments and just jam out some really good chords. I think a more positive thing is to work at chancing people's minds about entertainers. The ones who don't regard it more than a way to get buff and loose battle fatigue, you're not likely going to change thier minds. Though there are some that might find it interesting.