Musician Archive
Thread: A plea to cantina musicians (from a new master musician)
My last big push for master musician wasn't as fun as I hoped it would be. Why? Because none of the masters I trained with want to do the cantina scene anymore. Each time I qualified for a skill I had to send tells all over the place to get someone to stop by to train me.
Why have the masters left?
1. AFKs: There has been an unsettling rise in the number of career-AFK entertainers. Going AFK while you get a sandwich is one thing, but being AFK for nearly your entire career only degrades the value of the title for those uf us that actually showed up to work. This just makes the entire profession look cheap to those that fight and craft for a living.
2. Tip spammers: If you are desperate for money go buy a hat and play on the street corner. Or better yet, run some delivery missions like the rest of us did when we were starting out. It is embarrassing to play in a group with someone who is constantly harrassing the audience to tip them. If you greet people when they come in and entertain them while they are in the cantina, they will tip you. Trust me on this one.
3. People who think they own the cantina: Last time I checked, cantinas were public buildings. There is nothing more annoying than to go into your regular cantina only to have a newbie tell you that it is "their" cantina. Funny, seems like I have been playing there longer than you ...
4. Group leaders with "banned" lists: Everyone should be able to play that wants to play. If you don't like someone, don't exclude them from the group. They have as much of a right to play as you do. You don't have to be friendly to them, but don't be nasty either.
Why do you want the masters around? Next time you are playing with the high level musicians, check you xp. See how much nicer it is? And besides, eventually you will need training and you don't want to have to spend hours doing tells to get someone to train you.
This is my opinion. If you don't agree with it, fine. But don't exclude me from your group next time I show up. You may want some training ...
Sorry for ranting, I just hate working really hard to get XP and Credits and have people driving off customers around me.
Oh and just rememberd another thing I wanted to say... If you're going to do an AFK Macro for XP, do everyone a big favor and go find a place no one goes to, like the basement of the Anchorhead Cantina for those of you on Tatooine, and play by yourself, I know it's less XP, but you don't annoy fellow musicians or customers by being in the middle of the live entertainment and not being at keyboard to interact with other people. Also, don't put text into your afk-macro! I hate hearing the same "I'm gonna take five... etc" messages every minute, it drives me and everyone else in the Cantina insane! Lastly, if you're going to be a jerk and start an AFK Macro while playing with a band, PLEASE make sure you're not the leader! It's a real pain to walk into the Cantina looking for a band to play with and not being able to get an invite because the leader is AFK!
Now once agian I'm sorry for my long drawn on poorly organized rant, but I hope maybe some of you consider these issues and try some of the suggestions I know I put in there... somewhere in there at least =) See you in the Cantina!
Cesrir_Tonar wrote:
If you're in this profession for the money, A.) bad choice, go be a CH, and B.) try being a real musician, it's not like people are going to tip you enough to live by every night. PLEAS PLEASE PLEASE don't beg for tips because it really annoys customers and they're really both less likely to tip and more likely to NOT want to return to your services knowing you'll be asking for Tips every minute...
For the life of me I cannot understand the proposition of "entertainer is a bad profession for people who want to make money". I'm a master musician and I have 20k weeknights, and on weekends I have no problem passing 30k a night. Do I just have super mojo?
I am a master musician, and have several friends who have mastered music and dance as well, and none of us have left the cantinas for the reasons mentioned above. We have all left to work on second professions, or combinations of other professions. Simply put, the time I spent in the cantinas was very fun, but there is no way I am going to spend the other half of my skill points on more entertainer skills - dancing, for example. *cringe*
Having said that, we all do still entertain quite a bit, but it is in a private cantina we ownon Corellia. It has a pretty regular crowd, and every Friday there is a large party there. Still, overall it is quieter than a public cantina would be at most given times, but we are there to play music and chat with our friends, not to make xp and tips.
NOW not to contradict myself too much... lol... I do find myself going to public cantinas from time to time. This is usually when I find myself low on credits and none of my friends are online and I just want to make some quick cash. I'll pop into the cantina for 30 minutes or so... masters seem to do pretty well tip-wise in public places, I guess I can understand why. Anyway... that's my story. 
Tanizaki, I don't really want to argue with you anymore. It's more than clear we won't come to a consensus regarding AFKMing, so we'll just have to agree to disagree. I've saidall I want to say about AFKMing.
But I am beginning to wonder what people really want. I can interact non-afk all night (in a starting city cantina) and still not come close to the figures you're making. Do you generallyset up your entertaineron the more remote planets as opposed to the starting planets? I haven't done that much because the intervals at which people come into the taverns and cantinas there is very far apart and it gets boring sitting there alone. Icould see people being more grateful for an entertainer being on those planets.
If, on the other hand, you are playing in the crowded starting cities, then you must have super mojo.
MoyaWookiee wrote:>4. Group leaders with "banned" lists: Everyone should be able to play that wants to play. If you don't like someone, don't exclude them from the group. They have as much of a right to play as you do. You don't have to be friendly to them, but don't be nasty either.
I have a bit of a disagreement on this point. If someone has constantly been a problem I don't feel that they have any right to group XP. Someone with an ugly tip spamming AFK macro who has made it to my ignore list is not likely to ever be invited by me. Further I will leave groups with people like them in it. I don't feel that I need to help out someone who is irritating me.
I still do play the cantinas on a fairly regular basis but I'm working on a second profession and like traveling around to see the different planets so I'm not there nearly as much as i was when i was working to get the XP. Also I'm playing a player house cantina on a fairly regular basis. Unfortuantely it's tough to draw a crowd out to a player house ona regular basis.
I also agree with the exception of banned lists. While I do not currently have a ban list, I would ban the tip spammers or people that are abusive. I have booted people that spam up the screen with tip comments. I then explain why I booted them and reinvite them if they agree to stop. This hasn't always made me the most popular person in the cantina, but thats ok.
Something that some entertainers need to remember: A tip is ashow of gratitude, hence gratuity. A person does not have to tip. It is up to the entertainer to earn the gratuity. Simply playing in the cantina doesn't mean you deserve a tip. Work the crowd, ask questions, make jokes, just talking will do it too. I made 20k last saturday night in Anchorhead. I wasn't alone either, but I was the only one welcoming people as they entered the tavern, talking to them while they healed, and wished them well as they left. I actually had a combatant tell me that this was the 1st time he had an entertainer talk to him. He tipped me 5k just for talking.
People are developing a bad attitude towards entertainers, not all of them, but some are already jaded. All of our demenors get reflected on the profession.
Enjoyed reading everyone's responses. Good to see that I am not the only one who has noticed these things.
So, what is the role of the masters and the higher leveled people in training the newbies? How can we convince them that AFKing is not the best way to go and that tip-spamming is annoying?
Any ideas?
MoyaWookiee wrote:
So, what is the role of the masters and the higher leveled people in training the newbies? How can we convince them that AFKing is not the best way to go and that tip-spamming is annoying?
Any ideas?
I always condone faith
Have faith that the AFK macroer is not going to stick with the profession. It can be automated, so therefore it is. These same people would macro-sample through Master Miner is such an advanced profession existed. These same people wonder how they can automate standing in the middle of the Kor Vella shuttleport courtyard, gunning down meatlumps, looting them and hoping to walk away for four hours while their character keeps looting until they come up with four encoded discs.
What always always happens is they don't get the true value of the reward. They get some lesser more-immediate joy from having achieved, but it doesn't stick with them. So they move on to something else.
In the case of MM/MD, they'll achieve the title, play around with Virtuoso on a Nal for a few nights and then realize there's no "reward" for doing so.
Why?
Because they missed out on the entire reason to be an entertainer. People aren't advancing beyond Novice Entertainer because anything higher forms some "necessity." The active musicians are doing so because it's fun, and they enjoy it, and they like other people. The people most dedicated to this profession go off and join a band, and hire themselves out for gigs by other players, and join the entire social roleplaying sub-culture you don't read about on forums (because people are having too much fun in the game to worry much about stuff that goes on out of it).
The person who achieves for the sake of achieving achieves Master Musician through macros. But the person who defines what we are those that keep it.
So I have faith that today's AFK macroer is probably tomorrow's CHer or BHer or Smuggler 
I was the 4th musician on my server to get master (although the 1st and 2nd both dropped music). I still try to play in the cantinas each day. It lots of fun to have a master in the group, not only for the healing and xp bonuses but also to provide the nala sound and help out the others in the group.
I admit I dont spend as much time in the cantina anymore as I am training other skills as well and I am buys playing with my band at different parties/shows etc. Which is probably the reason you dont see as many masters in the cantina. Also as there isnt need to get more music xp, the incentive to come into a cantina decreases. But its still so cool for someone with 699 mind wounds to walk in to a cantina and heal them in under 5 mins with music. The tipspammers and afk-ers do annoy me, but they aren't the reason im not in the cantina.