Musician Archive

I can’t see how it hurts anyone. There is not one logical argument you can make that AFKer’s hurt yours or anyone else’s game play. But I’d like to see where you AFK haters are coming from anyway. So go ahead speak you mind and convince me that AFKer’s are ruining the game and how.

Actually AFK-tainers don't hurt anybody when they're put in the corner of a cantina. The problem is when they are in the middle hogging up space for the entertainers who are actually working. A big problem I seem to have as a novice musician is finding AFK-tainers in the middle of a cantina who are actually higher level than me. Usually people listen to this person instead of me, leading to lots of frustration for my part.
So if you want to AFK-tain in some secluded area of the cantina, be my guest. But don't hog up the floorspace for musicians who really want to torture ourselves through the slow grin of musicianship and entertainment.

Here , here.... there are pleanty of cubicles and back rooms to grind in. Please leave front of house for those trying to earn a living...

thankyou

Well my only problem with them is if they are in the group with us and go AFK, then they hog space in the group. I think that afk is not that big a problem. I just boot afk'ers if there are lots of ppl wanting into the group. But them being ina corner or back room would help tremendoulsy for us who don't afk. I try to never afk because I enjoy hanging, RP'ing and having fun in the cantina. But some folks are holo-tainers and that's fine to afk for them.

My biggest problems the way some handle AFK are:

1. Most do take up the prime area of the floor in the cantina. This just makes things more difficult for the people that want to play at the keys.

2. The groups in the evening usually reach their size limit quickly. If the group is full and I see someone AFK for more than 10 mins, I send them a mail and let them know they were booted to let in people that were going to be at the keys.

3. It has hurt the ability for lower level entertainers to "sell" their services. There are alot of people that just come in and watch the AFK entertainer because they know they will get healed anyway. The master level entertainers (MD, MM) at least have a useful and marketable buff to sell.

4. It has been my experience that the AFK levelers dont use their skill after they attain master. Why did you take the profession up if you never intended to use or play it? I know there is the whole holocron or "holotainer" aspect in the game now, and I absolutely hate it. They take up room from the people who want to be entertainers.

5. Most of the AFK entertainers have a macro running. Macro's are fine, most use them. My problem here is two fold. (a) - Many of the AFK entertainers I see have an annoying /shout or other speak in their macro. The text get repetitive and annoying. (b) - Many AFK entertainers don't have a macro running (this happens alot, believe it or not). I hate listening to the base riff of SW1, or any song, for an hour at a time. wawa-wa-wawa-wa-wawa-wa-wawa <shoot me now>

Those are my top 5 AFK probs.

Great responses so far. You’ve all made great points. I can’t tell you how good it is to see such great feed back instead of the usual "you suck" posts.

So go ahead speak you mind and convince me that AFKer’s are ruining the game and how.

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I smell a rotting horse... go to Theed and have fun. Come back an tell us how much fun you had. Then I will tell you how much fun it is without the Macrotainers.

The economy would keel over if there were an amorsmith bot who'd give out armor for free. The entertainer economy is already down to it's knees.

Macrotaining is comparable to killstealing and ninja-looting.

It's against the EULA, even if not enforced by SOE.

It's egoistic to demand training, while unavailable to give it back to the community.

Need more points ? Besides illegal, immoral, egoistic cheating ?

Definately good points here. Of course, alot of your AFKers will also argue that if they go stand in the back room or something, then they can't get entertainment healing xp (which is true, no one goes in the back rooms to watch an afk person).

I for one AFK'd my music xp, but this was done in a back room. For the entertainment healing xp, I feel that I should actually be there entertaining...interacting with the folks coming in, chatting it up with the sexy dancer in the body wrap, etc. It makes it much more lively for those of us that are there, and those that come in to heal up.

My biggest annoyance is what was mentioned above...afk musicians who don't have a macro up and just play the base riff for hours on end. There are a couple of ways to solve this problem.

1> See what instrument everyone has, and /changeband to something you believe they can play, at least then you can change the afk riff for a while.

2> /changeband to anything you can play, and if they can't, well, they are afk and won't complain, and will just stop playing. Before you leave, just change it back, and the AFKers will just start up again. The dancers that are there working would actually prefer hearing a solo piece that is different than you joining in the same thing that they have gone numb with for the past few hours.

Anyway, those are two solutions that I have found most helpful when faced with a band full of AFK musicians.

Solid replies

I'm tired of whinin bout afk peops.

My take now is when I get a craving to hit a Cantina, I'll walk in usually get an invite I'll play for a few minutes and if noone is talking to me or no musicians rather no replies etc its simply bye

Move over to the side and do my own thing. Usually someone comes by that truly wants to Jam and we do just that.

I dont care if its SW1 or Virt.

Cool when ya get a player on a slitherhorn and they say I only know .... ,Paaa I say lets jam. There reaction when they hear the different combos on just there one song is pretty cool. Now we are makin Music.

Who says I have to be part of the main band ....when was this tradition made?

If players has the gaul to park in the middle of a Cant for 20 hours that doesnt mean they own the place.

I think I'm allowed to do my own thing.

Thoughts?

Definately nothing wrong with that either :-) I have done the same thing as well. If a new musician with his slitherhorn comes in and can play SW1 only, hey, I break out the Mandoviol and lets get to town.

I doesn't hurt anybody.... AFK away.
I AFK'ed through a good portion of novice entertainer to master musician. And now I AFK macro all day in my make-shift cantina in my city... when i'm at my keyboard I usually tell people , they flock to me to get focus/will buff, and then I go out hunting and before I go to sleep/work, I go back to my house and put back on the macro. This is actually a large boon to my guild. Macroing allows me to give my services to my guild even when i'm not personally available. An artisans services are available while afk via venders...and my services are available too... except via macro... and i'm free =)

Aras
master musician
brawler 4000
marksman 0400
entertainer 0404
smuggler 1201
pistoleer 0021

I agree that AFK'ing (*when done politely*) hurts no one and definitely does not need any kind of -nerfing- as has been called for repeatedly on this board.

I have a macro that I AFK-tain in a cornerthat runs for 5 hours. I've even gotten compliments from other master musicians on the quality of my macro.

1.) Iintroduce the song like "And now for a little something from Mos Eisley!"
2.) I play a song for10 minutes (flourishing the 12-flourish combo the whole time)
3.) I stop, heal myself, then take off on another song: "Let's slow it down with a little Ballad"
4.) After I run through every song (7), I announce that "I'm AFK so no tips or heals. Please tip
your live entertainers, they deserve it."
5.) Then I start the whole process over again.

I, personally, am AFK'ing my musician skill simply because I *want* to be able to play as many instruments and songs as I can. While I'll miss out on the very best because I don't have enough SP's for it (ME, MM) I'll have 3-0-4-0 Musician when I'm done. Which is enough to give me everything I want to do as a Musician.

And I do enjoy playing a Bandfill or OmniBox on the lower songs so we can have a bit of a bass-beat when it's just 2 or 3 of us jamming.

On AFK fixes and 'fixers':

I also wentand surveyed some last night during my harvestor run. Once again, every two or three samples, I get this popup that asks me a question, I have to say no (because as I've said before, the bonuses are worthless, don't think you're going to get any kind of a reward that helps you, it's too 'unbalancing') and then wait another 20 seconds before it samples again.

All musiciansshould not want pop-ups during our music. I can't stress that enough. I don't understand why some people are willing to give up ease of use in a vain attempt to stop something that will never be stopped.

I'll tell you who it hurts, it hurts my eyes to keep reading about this issue lol. I'm so sick of it! Everyone has the right to post on this board about there feelings on the matter so that I can do nothing about. However, I can say that this issue has been beat to death and it is really getting old in my opinion. The devs know the positives and negatives of the issue. Let's just leave it up to them now and get on with life.

Thanks for reading,

Tobius