Musician Archive
Thread: Repairing The Profession
I read Drygo's comments buried in another thread, and felt they deserved wider audience. This thread is NOT about AFKing.. but about addressing the core issue and a discussion on how to go about fixing it.
...Back when I first started dancing, my perception is that it was *easier* to find an entertainer to buff you. Not everyone may have that experience, but it was mine. But, as soon as the hologrind and the afk went into full force, I noticed a mass exodus of live masters leave the Cantinas because the environment became so unpleasant. This brought about less people to be able to buff you, and then more people decided to create buffbots. I just don't think you can really blame this on the "real" entertainers. After all, if people didn't do the annoying things that they do while they were afk, you may very well still have all the masters in the Cantinas on a regular basis and have no need whatsoever for the buffbots.
My fear though, is that when the hologrind is over, so many masters will have left or dropped, or so many people will have gotten use to the afk'ness and the buffbots, that our professions will have been ruined past the point of no return. If the afk'ness had never happened, we may not have had the need for the plethora of buffbots that we have now.
Believe me, if there's such a thing as "self esteem" in this game, the current entertainers are at an all time low. And that's why we appear to lash out from time to time. We feel so completely undervalued at this point precisely because of the afk and the buffbots that we have all but given up. I truly believe that if there was a place for us again to provide these services and we felt like people really appreciated the atk'ers you'd find more of us there to provide your buffing needs. As it stands now, many of us wonder why we even bother trying to play when we can't even use our own buffing skills on ourselves, and the buffing skills we have for other players are no longer considered useful due to the buffbots.
We are at point of transition - if we are to believe that the hologrind is coming to an end. It is my belief that we must fix the problem ourselves. We - meaning entertainers who are in it for the fun and social aspects of the profession. This will not be done by those who say, 'can't' or think it's too late. We can only move forward if we pick our chins up and quote the famous phrase, 'The show must go on'.
First of all, the above letter does a fine job of pointing out the real problem. The hologrind ran thru our profession like a Rancor in a China shop - leaving everyone feeling pushed around, bruised and even dejected. With the hologrind, the devs devalued an already under-valued profession - they took tips away from a low-income group, and de-socialized THE social profession in the game.
You can't devalue and de-socialize a SOCIAL profession an NOT feel the effects for sometime to come. Already low-income, and undervalued - the only draw was the social aspect of the profession. It is not debatable that this has happened, and having been around before the hologrind and after - I do not believe it is debatable that the Hologrind is the cause of great damage.
What can we do? What MUST we do?
I own a little cantina that is the hub of our player city. I suggest that all remaining entertainers migrate to player cities and player city cantinas (find some in the middle of nowhere) and set up shop. I have had MANY MANY people stop into my cantina and be pleased and surprised to find an ACTIVE, fun cantina where they can get a rid of some BF, get a good buff and have a pleasant conversation. Players WANT cantinas to be what they used to be - and guess what - only WE can create that atmosphere. Move to a player city cantina and fulfill your destiny!
I know many will tell me all the reasons this can't be done. I don't care to listen - because I'm here to tell you it CAN be done - I did it.
If we fill the player cantinas long enuff, we will restore value to our professions. We will be working on HOME turf - away from the damaging effects of the hologrind. This will allow us to reintroduce ourselves to our customers away from the noise and clutter. When the hologrind is done, and the large cantinas are empty, people will learn what they have been missing - and we can then reclaim our rightful place as a valuable profession. In the meantime, we can help to build up several player cities.
Message Edited by ArthurP on 06-02-2004 06:10 PM
ArthurP wrote:
I own a little cantina that is the hub of our player city. I suggest that all remaining entertainers migrate to player cities and player city cantinas (find some in the middle of nowhere) and set up shop. I have had MANY MANY people stop into my cantina and be pleased and surprised to find an ACTIVE, fun cantina where they can get a rid of some BF, get a good buff and have a pleasant conversation. Players WANT cantinas to be what they used to be - and guess what - only WE can create that atmosphere. Move to a player city cantina and fulfill your destiny!
I know many will tell me all the reasons this can't be done. I don't care to listen - because I'm here to tell you it CAN be done - I did it.
If we fill the player cantinas long enuff, we will restore value to our professions. We will be working on HOME turf - away from the damaging effects of the hologrind. This will allow us to reintroduce ourselves to our customers away from the noise and clutter. When the hologrind is done, and the large cantinas are empty, people will learn what they have been missing - and we can then reclaim our rightful place as a valuable profession. In the meantime, we can help to build up several player cities.
Only problem I see with this is that when the large cantinas are empty, all the newbie entertainers will be hurt the most. If the cantinas had been empty when I started out, I would not have stayed with any of the entertainer professions.
Although, if I had started out with the current cantina situation, I wouldn't have stayed with any of the entertainer professions either...
I often visit certain Player City Cantins that I find enjoyable but I have yet to set up shop in one. I prefer to be a wanderer, but that's my personal way of jamming.
Another thing I think would help everyone as entertainers, is to get to know some fellow entertainers. That way, if you got a friend on, get together and have some fun. And if your friend has a friend, that person can come along. I know this isn't a spectacular idea, but it'd save a lot of folks from being lonely in Moenia. (Do I hear possibility for a song?) Essentially what I mean to say is, know your fellow entertainers. Get together wherever is convenient. An Audience isn't always necessary, try and come up with some good tunes, swap song macros (SONG MACROS!!! NOT AFK MACROS!)
Anywho, to sum up get to know your fellow Entertainers.
We have the GES (Galactic Entertainers Society) on Naritus. It's a group of entertainers from across the galaxy and faction lines. We pick a new spot, cantina, whatever, to play at eat Friday. It's a fun group!
http://r2ol.com/ges
It is a great idea. I tried it. it worked for awhile. had fun for awhile.
the problem with it is that you dont get the right-off-the-shuttle entertainers in your cantina. These are essential in trying to create and maintain a cantina's atmosphere. I will give you two reasons why new entertainers dont go to player cities (unless they already have friends there).
1. not as good healing xp. lets face it nobody gets more hurt individuals then coronet/theed. anybody that wants to get healing xp at all. I had more than a few new players come entertain at my cantina, they just didnt stay long. As much fun as they had, they didnt see that they were making any progress on their profession and decided to go back to coronet after a few nights.
2. Most fresh-off-the-shuttle players dont leave npc cities for quite awhile. i know i didnt leave coronet for months - then again that was before holocraze. Even then if a new player looks at the choices of places to go, goes to one and finds anempty cantina what do you think their impression will be?
These are just my experiences. I hope you have much better luck than i did. Unfortunately my failure led to me realizing that the carrot they are dangling in front of my eyes isnt the only one, and have left the game :/