Musician Archive

Well, not the /tip system. The design is broken.

I'm a Teras Kasi Master, and recently decided to add Doctor. So, I sit in the cantina and heal dancers. After two days of this, this is what I have come to realize:

Noone pays entertainers. Well, almost noone; Some generous players will infrequently throw a 500-1000 credit tip at one of them from time to time. Presently, there is no effective mechanism to enforce payment. It is the customers' discretion to pay dancers; Anyone can click "Watch" and get their healing for free. Should I be able to visit a Master Armorsmith's vendor and click "Steal" on all his/her Composite armor segments?

I believe you have the Entertainer payment structure backwards.

Noone should have BF healed by walking into a cantina. They should have to find a dancer or musician they like, give them a tip (after negotiating the fee), and the Entertainer then uses a /provideService command. Only then will the customer have their BF & Mind wounds healed.

When all players are required to PAY to have BF & Mind wounds healed, the economy will be more complete. Eventually fees would settle as novices and Masters competed for credits; payments would most likely end up ranging from .5 to 5 or 6 credits per BF, depending on how fast the Entertainer can heal them.

You have two entire professions full of players walking around with 3-4,000 credits per player in their bank because their ability to make a living is determined by how well they beg, or how little clothing they wear.

S.

P.S. - I won't even start on how laughable the penalties for high BF are. Most Teras Kasi Masters I know are running around with 1,000 BF, as the penalties for it are laughable at best.

Personally as an entertainer would hate to have to stop performing to haggle over amount. Would rather game itself removed credits from customers bank (like a vendor) for say each bf. To me would end all the bickering.

You misread my post

You wouldn't have to stop performing. The person watching you simply wouldn't get any healing until you targeted them and did /provideService. They could listen to the music, watch the dancers, but get NO healing until they selected one of them, negotiated a fee, and the Entertainer used the command to "enable" healing for that person.

That mechanism FORCES people to pay you for your time, effort and all the time you've spent getting to the "level" you are.

Thanks for your post. In my polling on Musicians' suggestions for improvements, I haven't heard this precise suggestion before. A number of Musicians have asked for a /bandtip command -- it's currently #3 on our "top five list" after distinct sounds for instruments and new songs -- but even the request for /bandtipissomewhat controversial.

Speaking only for myself, I'mcomfortable with the current "presumption of service" and would prefer not to reverse that presumption. I make thousands of credits in tips in a relatively short time -- at least if I'm playing my role well. I never ask for tips; I don't need to or want to. More generally, I find money rather easy to make in SWG, so tips aren't a big priority for me personally. That said, my role is to report on Musicians' preferences, not my own, so I have included a request for /bandtip in my first couple of reports, and I will of course include your suggestion if it attracts enough followers here.

So, fellow Musicians-- comments?

Yeah, i can see the point of this suggestion. it would bring our service in line with every oter service in game. However, Ican hear the howls already from all the gunslingers.

I think if we could heal BF & mindanywhere like adoc maybe this could work. but you'd also have to look at something like the holoprojector suggested in the entertainer forums that would act like a stim.

I could see bringing our services more along the lines of docs but & this is a big BUT.. it would have to involve more than reversing the assumption of service. If you thought the fighters were screaming blackmail about /denyservice it would be NOTHING compared to what they would do at the implementation of this suggestion.

I'm just happy they let me play in the Cantina! Can't complain when I'm getting gigs, even if the money is tight. Starving artists have more character anyway!

I don't think Entertainers are supposed to make loads of money. This game is all about dabbling in other skills, and there's no reason why any entertainer should only have 4k credits unless they never leave the cantina. A lot of game mechanics are put in to draw people to the cantinas, but this one about entertainers not making good money is something to get them OUT of the cantina every once in a while.

As a doctor you should know better.

I ask people for a fee, to heal them from 2000 wound damage in about 4 heals (1cr per wound) and people laugh at me, and go find a freebie.

I had one guy that

/shout Medic needed in the med center

I went, saw he had about 500cr worth of wounds, told him my fee, anyone care to guess his response?

/shout Medic wanted in the med center plz!

If you wont do it for free, people will find someone who WILL do it for free.

The only use is if you are the only person there, in an isolated location.

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sseese wrote:

Noone pays entertainers. Well, almost noone; Some generous players will infrequently throw a 500-1000 credit tip at one of them from time to time. Presently, there is no effective mechanism to enforce payment. It is the customers' discretion to pay dancers; Anyone can click "Watch" and get their healing for free. Should I be able to visit a Master Armorsmith's vendor and click "Steal" on all his/her Composite armor segments?

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When a combat type walks into a cantina, he needs BF healed. An entertainer needs Entertainment Healing XP, which comes only from healing someone else's BF. So the combat typegets rid ofhis BF, and the entertainer gains XP. An even trade has been made. In the case of a Master Musician or Master Dancer, there is no more XP, sosome sort of extra compensation can be thought of as obligatory. Before that point, however, it is simply gratuity. We both got something of equal value from the transaction as it stands. Without me, the entertainer would gain no Healing XP, so I have provided the entertainer something he could not provide himself.

The armorsmith, on the other hand, used resources to make his armor segments. That cost him something beyond any XP he got (and since he's a master, the XP is meaningless anyway). He has given up something to make the item, and stealing it from him would literally be robbing him of something, especially since the person who steals it from him provides him with nothing . Entertainers do not give up anything to provide their service. Utilizing their services without providing money does not take anything away from them. In fact, in most cases it gives them something. Entertainment Healing XP.

This is not an argument against tipping. I tip and I suggest that anybody out there tip. It makes entertainers feel good, and that's reward enough for me. This is an argument against anything that makes tipping obligatory. A combatant does not owe tips to anybody but a Master as far as entertainment goes, because an equitable trade has already taken place - XP for BF. I believekeeping payment optional is necessary to keep the transaction between entertainer and combatant fair, unless the entertainer is required to use something up to heal BF or gains wounds that need to be healed by a medic. There is one solution to entertainment money woes, and it's a perfectly good one - make missions pay out reasonably, increasing with an increase in skill. I believe it's as simple as that.

Entertainers do not give up anything to provide their service. Utilizing their services without providing money does not take anything away from them. In fact, in most cases it gives them something. Entertainment Healing XP.

I would have to disagree with this comment. I am a Master Musician and Master Entertainer, and no longer get any XP. (which, yes you did mention in your post, and that is not what this is about.) However, Entertainers do give up something to provide their services...their time. Bah, time is nothing, you say. Well let's continue the analogy of the weaponsmith. You say he has given up something, which you're right, he's given up resources. But those resources wouldn't really mean that much to him if he hadn't spent time collecting them, even if it was with the assistance of a harvester.

There's an old saying that time is money. Many entertainers could spend their hours in the field doing low level destroy missions and make good money. Granted alot of entertainers would rather spend that time in the cantina, afterall we chose to be entertainers not fighters. (Outside of Ted Nuggent I can't think of any musicians going out into the wilderness with sub-automatic weapons killing animals they come across...) Though there are occasions that I would like to go out and adventure with my friends, or go offworld to shop for clothes. But often I am unable to do this because people depend on my being in the cantina to help them with their BF and mind wounds. So, I give up my time to provide a service. Time that I could be using making money.

Now, I am not saying this policy of requiring payment first is one I agree with, in fact I never have agreed with it in any of its incarnations. But this idea that entertainers are getting XP, so they don't deserve or earn money is absurd. Now I make good tips, I usually can make 10k plus a night in Nashal on Talus, a ghost town. But I can make just as good in Coronet, I've done it. I never ask for tips, I just have a good time, and by proxy make sure the customers have a good time.

But somehow I doubt this battle will end before the GCW, in fact, I blaim the Emperor. Yeah, that's it.

-- Jigs Sunphire [Master Entertainer/Master Musician - Nashal, Talus - Eclipse Server]

Excellent point, JigsSunphire.

If I walked up to an armorer, weaponsmith, tailor, etc. (whom I didn't know well)with all of the materials they would need to craft something for me, and ask them to craft it for no charge (since I already supplied everything except their time and expertise), almost all would laugh blatently in my face. Especially if they were a master at their trade.

Time and expertise is money. Period.

I am several ranks into Musician and I never expect anybody to pay ... They call it tips not payment.... Most musicians do not just play music. Most have actualy day jobs. Only those few bands that crack the top 100 or whatever make enough money to just play music all day long. Besides most service provided by musicians sucks ... there is no coordination and most of the time all the persons in the group are playing the same instrument ... thats not a band ....

True bands can make a decent amount performing a few shows a day. what most musicians are doing however is nothing more than being a bum playing on the street.... your working for handouts ... you can't force them to pay. Your trying to be the RIAA and sue your potential customers. I have noticed that the more diverse the group I am in the more tips I get....

One thing I will agree on is that there needs to be a system that splits the tip among group members. It should do it evenly as it is up to the band leader to decide whos a deadbeat and kick them out. If he doesn't like afk macro'ers boot em. If somebody is sitting more than they are performing .... boot em.... thats up to the leader.

There is already a deny service command that allows you to not provide healing to people ..... if you get somebody that never tips you can just choose not to heal him. don't be lazy and expect the game to force everybody to tip. Its not tipping if you have to do it. Its payment.

i think entertainers should have a fee controll like merchants have with entering a building they can say u have to pay me 10 credits if u want to enter it should be the same. Say if i wanted to listen to someone id click listen and it would say to listen to this person there is a 10credits charge and they would say either yes or no and this option would be optional. and for bands the leader would set it up so it would say there is a 20c listening and watching fee do u wish to accept and they would say yes or no and the 20c would be evenly split and the credits that couldnt get evenly split would go back to the player who payed.

Now that I've had to give up my former means of supporting my musician habit (Artisan survey missions) to free up skill points, I certainly do wish that this were a more lucrative profession. But I personally would not like to see this suggestion implemented.
1) I like the tip system. I don't want to ask for payment; I don't want a fee-for-services arrangement with my audience. When I get a tip it makes me happy because I know the person didn't have to give it at all. And I'm just as happy (well, OK--almost as happy) when someone says "You guys rock!" or /applaud's us. So sure I'd like to be tipped more, but I'd like to be TIPPED more, not PAID more.
2) Your system puts entertainers in a position of competing with each other for tips. This will be the death of the entertainer professions. Ask most entertainers why they do it and I think they'll tell you they enjoy the social aspects of the professions. Grouping together as a band and working together. Interacting with the audience and drawing them out of their daily grind. Entertaining people. If you turn this into a mercenary profession where entertainers have to underbid each other to get paid, you change the dynamics of both the entertainer-to-entertainer interaction and the entertainer-to-audience interaction. And both would be changed for the worse.

Please, please, please, please, please do NOT implement this suggestion.