Musician Archive
Thread: Musicians and money
I’m sorry, but I have to 100% disagree here.
This is a game we pay to play in order to have fun and relax, therefore we all should be able to play what we have fun playing and not be forced to “do” something we hate in order to make credits.
Over the past almost two years I did try many servers and many characters, I’ve been a crafter, combatant, healer …. But I found them all insanely boring. And yes I did try the space also, lasted 2 days before I just couldn’t stand it anymore.
Different people like different things and that’s why we have so many professions to choose from, the main problem I see is that not every combination of offered professions results in productive and useful character. But to blame players for it is wrong, it’s the Devs fault in not paying attention to details where it comes to game balance.
You seem to enjoy little combat thrown in to your template (unless I’m misunderstanding) and that’s awesome, I’m very glad, but please understand, it is not what everyone likes. Atm my character is MD, MM, ME, MID or as one of my combat friends said, she’s a dancing Avon Lady. There is absolutely no predictable way to make credits for her, unless she performs inside a cantina which has entertainers mission terminal on the outside (and many of my favorite cantinas don’t). But if I would follow your opinion I would have to spend large part of my play time doing something I dislike. I only get to play an hour or two each evening, I log on to basically unwind after the day filled with too many things I do because I “must” because it’s my job, I sure as hell don’t want to spend large part of my play-time doing things I don’t enjoy.
This is not meant as an attack at you or your play-style, just an explanation of how I see it from my perspective.
Continuing this discussion in an appropriate thread.
My current character (Godogo) is Master ID, Master Musician, and working on master dancer, I am also a pilot.
However, twoweeks ago, my band made 500k credits for playing at a celebration for a city. The band currently has five members, so that is 100k. Thus, to me, the argument that "I am a musician, therefore I am poor, therefore you should tip me" is not a valid argument. The musician is only as good as the person behind the character. We plan on doing a few things for Empire/Liberty day. (I have a Jedi Anthem I sing and with the full band and dancers choreographed, the effect knocks the audience off their feet!) And I expect that we'll make quite a few tips from our performances there, as well. As we gain in popularity on the server, we expect to get more gigs, and have a little more money coming in for the band. But yeah, doing so takes work that not a lot of people have time for. But that's no reason to demand a tip from someone just because I'm a "poor musician".
And yes, I am saying that there are many other ways to make money. Yes, there is crafting, there is combat, there is pilot. And no, not everyone enjoys it. But the point of reference that ALL of that is used for is that the opportunity cost for being a musician is not adequately compensated for by game mechanics. But that is NO excuse for musicians to say "I'm poor, and you must tip me because musicians can't make money." And that is what the covercharge is effectively saying. Rather than giving us content or credit-worthy quests or missions, they give us a way to annoy patrons, make us feel, like Warryr put it, like a vendor.
I have never, and will never, tell someone that they must tip me. I feel, that if they find me entertaining, they will tip me appropriately. (I've received tips from strangers ranging from 50 credits up to 200k credits... although that 200k tip was a shocker. 
But I suppose that person found me to be very entertaining. Since then that person has tipped me 10k every visit after that. Ifsomeone doesn't tip me, maybe they didn't agree with my sense of humor. Maybe they didn't feel my performance was good. And that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions.
Hopefully everyonecan see that I'm making a differentiation between the two arguments: I am musician, therefore I am poor, therefore you must tip me; and
I am musician, therefore I am poor, therefore the devs should give us more ways to make money.
I am 100% AGAINST the former, and 100% IN SUPPORT of the latter. There is no reason why musicians/dancers/ID cannot make money on their own. Especially given the skill point investment in them all. Every class has a way to make money, and the opportunity costs are probably pretty close between every type of profession, except the entertainers. We need more variations in how ALL of us can play our professions.
Please see that I am using all those other methods of making money as examples of the opportunity cost of being a musicianbeing so large. It's not to say that performers SHOULD be doing those other things to make money, but that they COULD be doing those things to make money, and by choosing to be a performer, they should not be giving up the ability to make that kind of money (through game mechanics). But they should not be trying to force tips from people because of it. They should not have to play games with /covercharge as a way to make money.
Okay I think I'm understanding now. You're against "begging" for tips not against the reliance upon tips. Is that a correct assessment?
It so happens that Deli'ah and I are both entertainers on the same server. We often form a band with two of the best known musicians on Shadowfire (free plug for Buzzz and Tanoo!). When we play at events we do indeed get paid well for our time but Shadowfire is a relatively small server so those events can be few and far between. Lately I've met a number of new entertainers and I have no idea how they'll be able to participate in the game economy if they choose to be full time entertainers and if nothing changes as far as actual game support for entertainers. Last night I was grouped with a new player when he got his first direct tip - meaning not a /splitCredit tip from me. It wasn't his first time in the cantina, he's personable and fun, but for whatever reason he hadn't yet been tipped by a patron. To me that clearly indicates that it is imperative that the devs remove our reliance upon the "generosity" of our fellow players. They've already decided that it's a mistake to "gate" our profession advancement by requiring we "heal" players. So with luck, they'll give us more financial independence as well.
I'm in 100% agreement that the /covercharge would make me feel like a vendor. I've never used it and the only situation where I can imagine using it is if someone were griefing me and I was the only entertainer around. Then I'd find out what the max covercharge possible is and introduce them to it. But I already have a tool for those instances (/deny) and it's just as satisfying if not more so. I'm sure the Devs had a reason for /covercharge but I wish they'd simply increased the mission terminal payout to 5K - 10K per mission instead.
psikobunny wrote:
You seem to be forgetting though, that most entertainers in real life begin as "bottom feeders" i.e. street musicians, models, TV extras, backup singers, waitpersons. It's not like they can jump in and command top dollar for a gig ESPECIALLY PRE MASTERY. While I don't knock people who ask for tips (note ask for them, not macro for them), I never did myself. Do I think patrons ought to tip more often? yes. Do I realistically think they will unprompted? no.
You can't knock a new kid for doing what they've got to on that long climb to the top. If you do, it just comes across as elitist. Teach them how best to make money as an Entertainer first, so that you yourself are not devaluing us even further (sorry but recommending they do something else like pilot for money, is devaluing that's simple truth).
Never once in my life have I heard a waiter or waitress stop by my table and ask "How are you doing? Can I get you anything? Can you tip me please? I'm a server and I am poor." Tips are a valuation of a service, not a fee for the service. If people find value in your service, you receive tips. If people do not find value in your service, you will not. This is why coverchage, and related conflicts are not appropriate for the profession.
I don't have any sympathy for beggars (regardless of profession) because there are ample opportunities in the game to make money. It is very important to understand here that it does not matter how the money is made. Whether you craft items for it, whether you fly ships for it, combat missions, selling loot, performing for events or parties, money can be earned if you put effort into it. If all the effort that a person can muster is "tip me plz, im musician and p00r", all I have to offer in the way of advice and teaching and all that happy trash is that my grandfather used to tell me all the time while I was growing up, "crap or get off the pot". (And crap wasn't the word he used. )
That having been said, please understand that I am not recommending that people have to perform any other profession for money. I am simply illustrating the opportunity cost of BEING a musician. And if someone complains that they aren't making enough money being a musician, and they don't like anything else, and all they do is whine about how they don't have money, and beg people for tips... THAT devalues our profession and casts a very poor light on the rest of us. Crap of get off the pot.
Think of it this way. A Master BH doing NPC missions gets about 33k per mission, which can be done in about 20 minutes. That's 99k per hour (with a negligible amount spent for droids, and travel fees if the BH is not JTL-enabled.)
A double-elite combat character can take missions for about 8-9k a pop, let's say on average it takes 10 minutes per mission, for an average of 54k per hour.
Crafting professions are very variable, but for the amount of resources that are yanked up out of the ground in an hour, they easily make at least 4-5cpu in profit on items, or on resource sales alone. Let's say that an average crafter can pull up about 100k of resources a day (assuming they are not lot sharing or lot ghosting), that's 500k a day, or about 20k an hour (and that's being conservative, considering that many crafters are getting 20cpu or more for their items.. using 20cpu for profit, that's 83.3k an hour).
Pilots, in my current experience, can make about 100k an hour, depending on the loot drops and current pilot level, but let's just assume at-or-near master pilot for 100k an hour.
So what about musicians/dancers? First let's look at Entertainer Missions. Entertainer missions payout about 1200 and take about 10 minutes to complete. That's a mere 7200 credits an hour. This is a paltry offering from a game-design standpoint alone. But not enough to make a case for begging and/or asking for tips an acceptable practice.
But musicians and dancers have the edge -- in performing for specific functions, by banding together and working for something of value that people will pay for, can easily charge 100k per hour, per band member. If you have a full band group (post-CU), that's 800k to divy up. And that could even be an average, I've heard of some bands making more, and some people make less.
However, this all requires effort. You have to market yourself. You have to have a performance that people feel has value. If you have none of these, or don't plan on creating a performance that has value, I don't think you can expect many tips when you're not performing for a special event. Being a musician or a dancer takes a certain amount of creativity. A player can go to any master musician and hear the exact songs you can play, or go to a master dancer and see the exact dance you can dance. In that respect, there is no inherent value, especially as the game gets older and people get tired of hearing the same songs or seeing the same dances, and thus the inherent value of those game-based performances goes down.
The band I am in has original lyrics to go with every song available, except for virtuoso. Some are funny, some serious, some are love songs, some are inspirational. Some of the songs I singrequire me NOT to play an instrument, for the full effect.At least one song has a costume that goes along with it. People value them, and I know this, because I often receive tips for performances (and I've never had to ask for a tip). When I'm not singing the scripted songs, I'm often making people laugh, or trying to take the edge off the otherplayer having experienced a death.
In my experience (and I've been a musician in some respect ever since launch), people will congregate around a good musician or a good dancer, or a good group of 'em. I started playing in Talus/Dearic cantina, and formed what will probably be life-long friendships with a number of people. The community was tight-knit there. The game and music still had it's luster from being bright, shiny, and new.
I've been the sole musician for an entire guild of crafters, who never had a NEED for fatigue healing, or wound healing (except after random deaths, which occurred so infrequently that it wasn't even a blip on the total amount of healing over my character's career.
I'm now on a different server (after having taken quite a long break from the game, and all of my former guildmates have moved on to other games) and playing in a band that has had a number of gigs already, and we plan on having quite a few more in the future. I don't expect that we will make less than 100k per band member.
So if you want, take this as my suggestion and passing on of knowledge for any of those who feel that musicians just can't make money.
Enjoy writing. Put your macro skills to work and write ORIGINAL song lyrics. If you feel that you are not a good writer, that's baloney. Anyone who has the balls to put down in writing what they feel in their hearts, or think in their heads, is one up on anyone who is afraid to do so. Learn how to make aliases (search the forums for it, it will be invaluable to you).
Get creative with your costumes. (My costumed song is titled "Ootini!" and my costume is made to make me look like a Jawa. I'm rodian, and master ID, so I can make my eyes glow yellow and my nose black (and my skin as close to black as I can.. :smileymad, with a hood-up cloak, brown shirt, and brown skirt, and a bandolier. The rest of the band simply dons brown hood-up cloaks for the performance.) Offer to kill a kitten for every day that goes by that we can't wear armor.
Tell jokes. Learn jokes. A sense of humor goes a long way.
Learn to listen. Talk to people, and listen to what they have to say. Think about things from their point of view. Don't be afraid to let someone know that you feel for them, and truly empathize. Nothing feels better to a person when someone else notices that they're having a bad day, a good day, a strange day, etc. etc.
Above all... just have fun! Musician and dancer professions are the most unique profession to date in any current MMORPG offerings. Not because of what the game allows them to do, but what the players do WITH it.
SWG has one thing that goes a step beyond the competition, and something that so many people ignore. Player created content. Player cities. Freely-decorated houses. And the performances that you can create with what the game gives you are where you will find your credits. But you have to put forth and effort in order to get them.
And that is why I say that anyone saying, "I am musician, therefore I am poor, therefore tip me," should just crap, or get off the pot. The argument is simply just not valid. Creativity is not something you are inherently born with. Creativity is something you learn, and something you can practice at, and get better. That is why the entertainer community exists!
To that end, I invite any entertainer on the Eclipse galaxy, or anyone who wants to be a performer, to arrange a visit! The band's private theater is on Rori, in the town of Deliverance (plays duelling banjos), at waypoint -5123 -5300. Let me know you are coming and if I am available at the time, I'll be happy to help you work with your macros, timing, or lyrics. The other members of the band will be just as happy to help.
Come begging for tips and I'll introduce you to the business end of a shotgun. 
Steve_12_08, I think we may have misunderstood each other here. Nowhere did I imply any support for /covercharge, personally I see it as yet another waste of Devs time by working on implementing it. I’ve never used it and don’t ever see myself doing so. Nor do I like beggars of any kind, my ignore list actually scrolls with spammers and beggars names. The issue I had with your original statement was you saying entertainers had other means of income, as in combat/crafting. I think we are actually on the same page by believing entertainers should have predictable source of income.
If I misunderstood, then I sincerely apologize.We shouldn't have to turn the game into a real job to survive. I have done very well in the past entertaining in cantinas and selling buffs. I had a big following and was well known. I simply got tired of the effort it took for a friggin game. I prefer to use my entertainer to entertain ME, after all its what I'm paying SOE for a game to entertain me. I prefer hanging with my friends and doing things together with my guild not spending all my time marketing myself to the rest of the server. The fact is I should not have to, it is a game and it should provide me the same prospect for income and the same access to game content that every other person paying 15 a month gets. Either that or entertainers should get a steeply discounted subscription because of the reduced game content we receive.
So although I realize that with enough effort it is often possible for an entertainer to make some good money it simply should not be required. The game should provide sufficient mechanics for us to make money at the same rate as every other profession without having to depend on their generosity in any form.
LyteFoot wrote: [snip] So why is this mechanic only provided for combat players at a rate of income vs. time that is reasonable? Every crafting profession that the devs haven't completely borked the products makes extremely good income. So where do entertainers sit in all this?
After giving the entertainer missions some thought, I want to do some testing. Because a) can entertainer missions now be done concurrently for 2 every 10 minutes? And B) do entertainer missions split the payout amongst group members, or do they now provide full mission payout for the entire group, or do they provide full payout for the single entertainer?
Think of this. If you have a group of 8 performers, each with two concurrent missions, that's 16 missions every 10 minutes, for 19,200 credits. For an hour, that's 115,200 credits an hour. If that's the case, then theoretically, entertainers can earn MORE than a BH on a good day, outside of Jedi missions.
LyteFoot wrote:
So although I realize that with enough effort it is often possible for an entertainer to make some good money it simply should not be required. The game should provide sufficient mechanics for us to make money at the same rate as every other profession without having to depend on their generosity in any form.
I disagree with this statement, because while entertainers do not have a risk v. reward theory to follow, there still has to be something to achieve in order to be rewarded with credits or items of value. Given current game mechanics, and given that this is a social profession, the entertainer will have to exert some form of effort in order to be deserving of tips (i.e. ATK playing) or special performances. But it's subjective and everyone's individual opinion whether it is something enjoyable or something that is more like work. Personally I do not mind writing new song lyrics, or practicing with the band to perfect timing and our performance, because it is enjoyable to me to do so. Not everyone might find that enjoyable, and might have something different in mind for their entertainer role that doesn't involve performances and practice.
There are lots of suggestions for entertainer and related professions that not everyone will like. But in my opinion, the devs should implement all of the suggestions, and provide entertainer with a variety of directions for each player to choose a niche within.
For instance, many people view entertainer as a party-organizing profession, and want more control and content related to creating player event parties, by giving them player event perks as craftables (the jukebox especially ).
Others view it simply as a cantina-performance function, and want a fix to the AFK plague, as well as performing a game function by way of buffing or healing.
I view it as a creative expression & social function, and want more control over my performances (by way of being able to more precisely synchronize my songs, flourishes, effects/holoemotes, and lyrics).
Some players voice their advocacy for a battle-musician/dancer ability, so that they may join their combat-oriented friends on the battlefield.
Almost all of us advocate for entertainer-specific content in general.
All of these are very valid wants, and can be money-generating venues if the devs implement them with the game mechanics to do so, and honestly, I think all of these are excellent additions to the profession, and gives entertainers their choice of what role they wish to perform within the game environment, if only the devs would allow them to be part of the design.
Part of the problem here though, is that the devs are keeping us in the dark, and since we do not know exactly what the overall plan is for entertainers (excepting the few mysterious tidbits and immediate changes that have been made public), which causes us to be uncertain about whether the professions are deserving of their skillpoint cost (and monthly cost to play the game).
Message Edited by Steve_12_08 on 06-28-200511:36 AM
Message Edited by Steve_12_08 on 06-28-2005 11:37 AM
Steve_12_08 wrote:
After giving the entertainer missions some thought, I want to do some testing. Because a) can entertainer missions now be done concurrently for 2 every 10 minutes??
Yes and no. At times it takes refreshing forever to find two missions for the cantina you want to perform in. With traveling being a death-wish for many of us it would be very useful if the mission terminal would have an area selection or something, which one could use to display only missions for lets-say given city and not the while planet.
And B) do entertainer missions split the payout amongst group members, or do they now provide full mission payout for the entire group, or do they provide full payout for the single entertainer?
They split
Think of this. If you have a group of 8 performers, each with two concurrent missions, that's 16 missions every 10 minutes, for 19,200 credits. For an hour, that's 115,200 credits an hour. If that's the case, then theoretically, entertainers can earn MORE than a BH on a good day, outside of Jedi missions.
Yes, that would be awesome if it would work this way, but unfortunately it doesn’t
It seems like this would be a simplish fix for the devs to make, and give a little boost to the professions at the same time. Wonder if we can get a dev comment on this one!
Petronela wrote:
Steve_12_08 wrote:
Think of this. If you have a group of 8 performers, each with two concurrent missions, that's 16 missions every 10 minutes, for 19,200 credits. For an hour, that's 115,200 credits an hour. If that's the case, then theoretically, entertainers can earn MORE than a BH on a good day, outside of Jedi missions.
Yes, that would be awesome if it would work this way, but unfortunately it doesn’t It’s how missions now work for everyone but us, aren’t we just so special ….
Message Edited by Steve_12_08 on 06-28-2005 11:52 AM
Iwas trying to think of some mission types that could be used to give a little boost back to the entertainer missions outside of simple "stand here and play for 10 minutes". One that hit me as a pretty simple algorythm that could probably be implemented using the NPCs now (since it's clear they have recognition of what flourishes you play).
It's basically Mastermind, if you're familiar with the game. Any kid of the 80s probably wanted to smash their Merlin over this game at some point. Basically the computer generates a string of random numbers from 1 to 9 (or was it 1 to 6? The 80s were so long ago.. <G>
, and you have to guess the string. The computer tells you how many you have wrong, and you try again. You only have a certain number of tries before failure.
But with the NPC system that can recognize what flourishes you perform (based on the theater manager quest), they could probably put together some form of Mastermind with flourishes. You can select the length of the stringand get a payout based off of the difficulty/length of the string, andan NPC spawns in the town (much like thedeliver mission's first contact) in a cantina or hotel, requesting a special performace. Theyheard a song as a kid and want you to try toplay it... theyremember how it goes, but won't be able to tell you if you have it until they hear it. But they can then tell you how many flourishes you got wrong, etc.
In addition to the standard "stand here and play" missions, it might give a little more variety to the kind of missions entertainers can do.
psikobunny wrote:
Subtract at least 20minutes time from your "hour" due to scanning for missions, travelling if you dont take the time to find one in a cantina right next to you, and getting everyone started and stopped at the near same time. It's a nice theory, but there needs to be a few more additions. I'm not against the credit split, if the payouts increased based on skill. I think that's a key feature.
I think it's a half-hearted mission design problem overall... really you should be able to have more options and control over the types of missions you get, on any of the mission terminals.
But my numbers up there were in no way firm numbers, considering the time that anyone has to take at a mission terminal in order to pick missions that work for them (distance, direction, payout, etc). Entertainers are no different in that respect. The time it takes to travel to and defeat missions also is a variable that my numbers are assuming to be either equal, or a very rough estimate of an average. No matter how you slice it (no pun intended) credit per hour payouts will almost always fall in the same order of Crafter, BH, Combat, Entertainer, where crafter is variable based only on their ability to market and sell their products effectively, whether they lot-share for ghost mining, etc, but clearly most, if not all crafters, have the greatest profit POTENTIAL of all the professions. Also consider that Entertainers do not have any overhead outside of clothing, which won't decay over the course of their missions and eventually need replaced. Crafters and Combat both have overhead... maintenance on harvesters, armor and weapon decay... if I wanted to do a full audit of the numbers I could, but I really don't have the time or inclination to get that detailed when the point is pretty much known--- Entertainer's can't make money based on game mechanics alone.
Even so,the 20 minutes spent taking and traveling to missions takes 38,400 credits away from the total, for 76,800 in an hour, putting them justahead ofthe Dual Elite Combat characters. Although if musicians were min-maxers, they could rotate missions and continually complete and select new missions and probably reach the full amount anyway.
If the credit payout for Entertainer missions were for all group members in the full amount, it would at least push Entertainer credits per hour, based on game mechanics, up in line with the rest of the playstyles.
Message Edited by Steve_12_08 on 06-28-2005 05:11 PM
Petronela wrote:
Steve_12_08, I think we may have misunderstood each other here. Nowhere did I imply any support for /covercharge, personally I see it as yet another waste of Devs time by working on implementing it. I’ve never used it and don’t ever see myself doing so. Nor do I like beggars of any kind, my ignore list actually scrolls with spammers and beggars names. The issue I had with your original statement was you saying entertainers had other means of income, as in combat/crafting. I think we are actually on the same page by believing entertainers should have predictable source of income.
If I misunderstood, then I sincerely apologize.
I think most of the disagreement thatyou and Ihave is probably just semantics... by which I mean that entertainersdo have other means of income. Everyone is afforded the same number of skill points and the free will to allocate them as they see fit. Whether they choose to take up those other professions is up to them, but it's just basic economics. By choosing not to participate in piloting, combat, or crafting, they are giving up an amount of money (the opportunity cost) of those professions, anddeserve to be compensated for those opportunities passed up.
What we all agree on is that there should be little to no opportunity cost in order to pursue the entertainer and/or related professions.
What we almost all disagree on (and this is what makes a discussion like this worthwhile, because we can see people's different viewpoints, and hopefully uncover a solution that satisfies most people & pray the devs listen to it! 
), is that musicians and dancers can make as much, if not more than, those other professions, but not by a hard-coded credit payout (i.e. mission terminal vs. a guild paying a fee for a performance at a wedding). We disagree that entertainers should have to do any of that at all. Some find it to be more like work, others enjoy it and see it as a fun way to spend their leisure time.
No need to apologize! Sometimes I write in circles. (Dizzy yet?)