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SWG Entertainers...Did it work?
Beatnik59
Member UncommonPosts: 2,413
The entertainers have to have been the most underappreciated and neglected professions in Pre-CU, CU, and NGE. What did you think of the concept? Did it work for you, either playing the classes or observing the classes in action? What did you think the problems were? How would you have fixed them?
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Comments
They were more flavor in the mix always seemed to be plenty around,it was a lifestyle just like every other proff, i remember on flurry There were some special people who played great entertainers,definitly starwarsy and iconic all the way.
concept was good, they were needed by most players and they helped to bring the community together. They did there job until SOE started changing the game. The biggest problems that plagued them was AFK ents and shoddy design. Entertainers were not treated very well.
The entertainer professions could have been made even more important by making battle fatigue more debilitating as you allow it to age. That it have something like a logarithmic effect as your BF increased. So that combat ability degrades more steeply as your BF approaches some maximum figure.
I think it did work, for the most part, but just needed to be further developed. The AFK issue to me isn't that important, because if I have a choice of entertainers, live or AFK, I'll go with live every time, but sometimes live entertainers aren't available but I'd need their healing services, and AFK would be close enough for government work.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Personally:
Pre-CU entertainers worked swell at first. No matter where you were in the galaxy (Rori NOT included...when was Rori ever a visited planet? :P )you could find a entertainer to fix ya up and get you into a community.
I could visit any cantina, no matter time of day, and I would find a player who liked the playstyle of the entertainer, and who spent their time making sure that not only did I have a great visit, but also that I stayed healed.
That was up until the players that didn't like the entertainer playstyle found out how to AFK macro entertainers tho. Then the entertainer profession was taken over by PvP alts, gold seller alts and guild alts, who hung around every major cantina spamming their AFK services 24/7.
That made the cantinas a rather hostile place for "real" entertainers, and they started to vacate the cantinas, or leave the game.
How can a live person compete with a AFK bot that could do what they could just as efficient, and more important for the "zippy go go go" crowd, without "interaction" ? They couldn't. Instead they were flamed and criticised on the forums for their Anti-AFK attitude, and in some cased even harrased ingame for being a "live" entertainer.
And then the entertainer died, and the cantina community and lifestyle died. For a while we had small gatherings of entertainers in far away player city cantinas, but never again did we get back the cantina community, the cantina lifestyle/playstyle.
It had stopped working. In favor of PvP monkeys and gold sellers that in some cases(told in PM by one of the major Bria AFK'tainers) earned up to 200$ a week for having a second computer running a macro.
To me, it was one of the sadest losses of SWG, as it offered something to the game that NO other game had ever offered... A game and community outside of the "combat-wombat" gameplay of all other MMO's.
I was both a real entertainer and a buffbot, as the situation demanded. I think all the AFK hating is utter nonsense. The boon of being able to chat while entertaining in stead of mindlessly mashing button sequences, by FAT outweighed the commercial AFK bots. And it was a good think for a levelling entertainer if you were able to invite an AFKer who had autojoin. that way you could at least get a good group size if you needed xp.
I was usually in Coronet cantina on Bloodfin. Yes, quite a few in our groups were afk. Quite a few of us weren't, either. The AFK ones? Some left their toons on while they were at work or asleep (both levelling AND service to the community: there were fully templated people doing that). Others were young parents, who had to run away from the keyboard all the time to take care of the kids. And there was ONE (count them, ONE) permanent buffbot, in the back room. Most people preferred live entertainers, so it never was a problem.
And yes, in our player city, my entertainer was a buffbot. Sue me. It helped the guild tremendously to have an entertainer in the cantina 24/7, made it possible to grind from our city and to have a safe place to heal up in-between PVP. And don't come telling me there was a way to have live entertainers there doing the same thing. Parties, yes. Non-stop stand-by duty, no.
Entertaining was a social thing, not an earn-a-million-and-get-rich thing. We were the worst gossip-mongers ever. I miss the Coronet cantina...
Linna
I think the entertainers are reasonably content with what they have, great animation system, even for years ago. Plus recently, they've seen their buffs become invaluable and have had various collections devoted to them etc.
I loved the idea. It added flavor to cantinas and turned them into very active hubs.
Entertainers weren't exactly one dimensional either: a lot of them moved around and had fairly "normal" SWG lives, even joining groups to attack mobs and whatnot. However a great deal of them were really content with the non-combat aspect of the game and chatting.
Some of them were even active in PvP as spies and participated in some serious espionage. Some of them even participated directly in combat. It was great roleplay all around.
IMO, these non-combat folks form the backbone of any given server. I know they did a great deal for Bloodfin. You simply can not have a healthy, happy game without a contingent of folks, and the non-combats contributed a great deal to the game.
-- xpaladin
[MMOz]
AC1/2, AO, DAoC, EQ1/2, SoR, SWG, UO, WAR, WoW
I had an entertainer account pre CU on Eclipse as an enhancement to my other accounts. And the class added another dimension to the game that no other MMORPG has even come close to. It was social, fun, there was plenty of flirting and great conversation with many many people. There were those who would not buff the other faction which was hilarious. There were afk bots that were left there as a service for other players and entertainers and there were those who wanted to be online all the time and just chat. Pretty much every entertainer used a macro of some description so that they could chat socially, The atmospere was amazing as every city had a cantina thriving with activity, and many of the favourite grind spots too, Mining OP on Dantooine and Dathomir to name a few.
Player cities also had entertainers. This was a guild's way of "looking after their own", or attracting people to the city if the buffs were particularly good. Many visitors would also visit a city mall as well to see what was for sale, and so the economic balance continued.
Buffbots were invaluable for pvp, and for defending a player city. When our player city was attacked (and it was, often), everyone online in the guild would move to their "pvp alt", whether it was a tkm, jedi, CM etc... and all of those players would need to be buffed before they moved in defence fo their territory. Also any friends online that flew in to help would need the same courtesy. In this situation, the entertainers and doctors were king. A battle was was dependent on them being around.
And the best thing ever in game... Going back to the cantina that buffed you in the first place, and getting your battle fatigue sorted while you talked through the war stories that had just happened with all the guys you had fought with. Just like going to the pub after watching an awesome football match or movie with your buddies. Priceless.
It's not perfect, but I think entertainers are in better shape now than they were pre-CU.
Entertainers worked. They were great. Where SWG went wrong was making people choose to be an entertainer with their only character slot; placing entertainers in direct competition with combat and crafting. Instead, it should have been a freebee alt. You can have your combat/crafting character, and could also (maybe unlock) have an entertainer/image designer / trader. That would basically just be a social character.
This way the ease of capping your entertainer wouldn't matter, as it was a separate metagame compared to your normal combat/crafting character.
The only problem I had with ents were that they couldn't buff themselves. Which is why we had so many bots. IMO. Other than that I loved the concept as it was in SWG.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Heya Beatnik
. Tbh I started SWG the original game as an entertainer. I loved it. My friends were like, "man you play that new StarWars MMO, are you a jedi?" My answer cracked them up, "no I play in a band at the cantina" lol. The fact that you could actually do that, got many of my friends interested in the game.
I loved learning the different songs and getting the different instruments. I loved my special effects smoke and light show bot. I loved playing in the huge 20 member bands, matching the songs with all the different instruments, and having dancers do individual or group flourishes to the music. It was a real trip. I took it all the way to Master Musician.
When there was mind buffing and battle fatigue you met just about everybody in the game at the cantinas. Indeed they were a main hub for player interaction. A lot of groups would stop in for a mind buff before a big hunt. It was a good place for folks to assemble before heading out. Then a lot of groups and individuals would stop by after a hunt for battle fatigue healing. They'd talk and laugh about the evening's exploits and wind down while getting mind-healed.
I then made a combat character on another server. There I enjoyed the mind buffs before combat and the mind healing afterwards. I especially liked going to the cantina after campaigning against the empire to chill a bit, chat a bit, and get my character in good shape for the next time I logged in. I'm very social, and these game mechanics were geared for people with that preference. I loved it. There were often 3 full bands, with 20 members each, playing in the cantinas. We'd all chat and joke around while earning xp to the next new song, new instrument etc., good times.
I also always went to an entertainer to have my stats migrated. I had things adjusted so that a mind buff and certain foods and drinks would put me in a very good situation combat-wise. I learned the ins and outs of the system and found something that really worked well for me. I had friendships with certain entertainers that I received buffs from, and I had friendships with people that I bought weapons, armour, food and drink from. Entertainers and crafters really worked to bring the community together.
So, the original concept of entertainer in SWG was a very positive experience for me. All I know about the NGE (in this context) is that my crafter and entertainer friends felt useless, so their game experience was ruined. I didin't play an entertainer in the NGE so I can't comment on the experience first-hand. I've heard that they have more of a role to play again. I also heard that some of the key mechanics related to their buffs were bugged at release, and that this created frustration. When I read posts about that, it didn't surprise me.
During my time in pre-NGE SWG I played entertainers a lot and enjoyed many aspects of it (constantly switching between Musician, Dancer and Image Designer).
It worked pretty well, but the AFK-bots were a bit annoying. Typically 80% of the entertainers in Coronet were bots, but we non-afk folk had fun as well.
They should have removed recursive macros from the game (as they had actually planned), and most of the afk-bots would have been gone.
Tbh most of us in the large groups were at the keyboard in the early days as well. We'd go afk to grab some food or something, and it was nice to be able to do that. I didn't mind the odd afk buffer though either. If someone wanted a mind buff and didn't want to socialize, no problem, go ahead and use a "buffbot." If someone did want to socialize a bit, cool there were entertainers at the keyboard also. Options are good. Honestly nobody ever hassled me for either being at or away from the keyboard.
Real problems happened with the removal of things like mind-buffing, mind-healing, and stat migration. These were key game mechanics that gave entertainers valuable roles and fostered community building. When those were gone, entertainer's lost a lot of value, a lot of fun, and the cantinas became dead--just like a lot of the servers.
Also, in the pre-cu game, I could mix and match combat and entertainer skills. For instance, I was a Master Musician and a Pistoleer. If you challenged me to a duel in the cantina, I'd pack up my piano and blow your head off lol, good times. People weren't locked into one dimension of the game. Getting rid of the skill system, mind-buffing, mind-healing and stat migration really wrecked the entertainer profession. Replacing it with an xp buff that people wanted yesterday so they could go out and grind faster was a very, very, poor compensation.
Many times I've thought to myself, whoever was making these changes to the game had absolutely no clue how much they were wrecking. It seemed like they didn't even know what they had before they started messing with it.
I agree with pretty much everything said so far. There was never anything quite like the cantina culture. SWG was one of the few mmos where the "taverns" became the social hubs instead of the banks. I played an image designer for a long time. It was a nice service profession; casual, social, and interesting. I could meet up with anyone from any walk of life, have a simple chat with them, and work on them. It was interesting gameplay distinct from crafting or combat.
However, one problem endemic to pre-CU was that non-combat roles were marginalized. Yes, it had an amazing crafting and entertainment system, but it was very clear the world revolved around combat. They got all the content, quests, most of the dev attention, and they were the ones who made all the money. I image designed for months, price gouging as much as I dared but I doubt I ever came close to making as much as a maxxed out combat type could running for a couple days. (I didn't care that much about money, but it would've been nice to be able to afford some of the nicer vehicles or houses.) I couldn't see Jabba's Palace or other locations without getting a generous combat character to walk me through the quests (couldn't afford to pay them anything worth having either).
A really low point in entertainment history was hologrinding. I think that was really the start of the afk craze. Legions of bitter players who didn't want to be there poured into the cantinas. The competition and abuse drove off many real entertainers, turned off others to the cantina scene and entertaining as a service became cheapened. As soon as they figured out how, they all started AFK macroing. Mind you, there were AFK ents before hologrinding, but I think that's when it started getting really bad.
I don't really know if these problems have easy solutions. Of course, they could have never put hologrinding in to begin with, but after the damage was done, I think the best thing to do was make a clear policy on AFKing. Anyone who was unresponsive for more than say, an hour or two a night should have been subjected to a CAPTCHA of some sort, and kicked if they failed, with repeat offenders subject to disciplinary action. Normally I don't think simple enforcement is the solution to things, but I can't think of any other way to restore the atmosphere and allow entertainers to be in a position to make money.
On the economic side, entertainer missions should have been made profitable more on par with combat missions, at least in the same ballpark. Perhaps this could involve reducing combat mission payouts. There should have been a wide variety of extra services sufficiently skilled ents could provide, and a way charge for them automatically that was on by default. Really the problem here is that the economy was somewhat broken, and money wasn't circulating enough. Maybe relying on tips wasn't the best idea either, but then that was part of the fun.
There should have been non skill specific ways to get through the them parks, or perhaps the difficulty scaled to your combat skill level. Actually, this wouldn't matter so much if you made entertaining profitable enough that they could pay a combat type to run them through it. Really there were alot of problems I noticed, but never really thought about what it would take to solve them. Dev attention seemed to be focused more on the combat side of things, and I kind of figured all we needed was more of it on us.
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Couldn't have said it better myself!
/sigh you just reminded me of the great moments in the old game. Oh god I really miss all of the things you just brought up here...
Couldn't have said it better myself!
/sigh you just reminded me of the great moments in the old game. Oh god I really miss all of the things you just brought up here...
Actually, a major reason I never tried SWG back in the day was when I read about the forced downtime required of players including having to find doctor's to heal them and entertainers to remove battle fatigue.
I realize it increases the social side of MMO's (something I care little for) but I can understand why most players figured out ways around this system by botting to avoid it. I certainly would have been one of those folks.
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Actually, a major reason I never tried SWG back in the day was when I read about the forced downtime required of players including having to find doctor's to heal them and entertainers to remove battle fatigue.
I realize it increases the social side of MMO's (something I care little for) but I can understand why most players figured out ways around this system by botting to avoid it. I certainly would have been one of those folks.
I understand what you are saying. From time to time I was like that as well, I just wanted to be for myself and not having to socialize with anyone.
That said, I must also point out that it was also one of the great things about the old game. The game was geared up for a lot of different play styles. In the case of entertainers, you could just silently walk into the cantina and start watching or listening to any entertainer in order to get rid of your BF and mind wounds, no interaction required! You could just be passive and watch the drama in chat lol. As for buffs, there were other ways to deal with that (implying that that you might be a non-socializer and most likely a PvE player only).
Pre-NGE, Entertainers worked. They were important to us adventurers after a long trip in the boonies to lower fatigue. Talk to them and all that, and tip them a couple thousand credits.
* I also agree with what someone said that Fatigue could have been more severe the longer it wasn't relieved *
Towards the NGE, I want to say about the time of the CU, you start noticing more bots.
You had to pay attention and look for clues so that you actually watched / listened to an actual Entertainer who wasn't AFK, especially if they're busy trying to get the XPs.
The basic idea of the Entertainer in the Pre-CU system worked I think (from a non-Ent player's view). We all came to them. We all had our favorites, who in turn had their favorite hangouts. And everyone had some great Entertainers in their Friends List.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
It wasn't the bots that bothered me. It was the bots who wanted payment for their afk services. Quite annoying to walk into a cantina and see the few atk dancers or musicians having to put up with some clown macro dancing with his/her face in the corner shouting, "Don't forget to tip us."
Actually, entertainers are very useful and quite needed in the current system. Entertainers can provide you with a custom buff for whatever you need.
Say your a medic and your going to go after something with an energy attack, you go an entertainer,and ask for a buff in your energy resistance, then get say increase in healing and strength, now go kick ass with that.
say your a jedi, your going after something with a kinetic attack, you go to an entertainer and watch and get a kinetic protection, strength, and chance to heal damage in combat, then, go kick ass with that.
say your a jedi about to go pvp, you can get increase in movement speed to go along with your forcerun, along with strength and mabye a chance to heal damage automatically in combat. go kick ass and beat those imps down.
entertainers provide you with a rich custom buff system that you use for whatever occasion you need it for, so, entertainers are certainly NOT useless in current swg.
So we have to plan everything we want to do from one moment to the next around an entertainer now? LOL. To think people believed we were too reliant on buffs in the pre-NGE days. I swear this current system puts those days to shame. You pretty much need a buff now just to take a leak. Quite lame.
As a side note, I am glad that entertainers have some usefulness in the new game but creating a system that is over reliant on buffs kind of runs counter to a lot of things people complained about in the old days of the game.
I'll play any game that has a system like the SWG Entertainer system. I thought it was great. Loved dancing and the flourishes.
It wasn't the bots that bothered me. It was the bots who wanted payment for their afk services. Quite annoying to walk into a cantina and see the few atk dancers or musicians having to put up with some clown macro dancing with his/her face in the corner shouting, "Don't forget to tip us."
Uhm... there were a lot of us ATK entertainers who had that 'please tip us' in out macros (and we all had macro's, it was that or punch a key every few seconds). I always thought it annoying whoever did it, but it's a fact a lot of people didn't tip and needed nagging. A lot of people also never bothered to talk to us, so they may have thought we were AFK while we were actually chatting in group chat.
=p
Aheh Ercipo (dancer/musician)
It worked, quite well I might add, which I bet surprised quite a few people.
I was a master musician from pretty much server opening on gorath. My family and I started up a band to begin with, and had loads of fun. As they left for various reasons I found myself among a lot of friends, many of which I still talk to 3-4 years after I quit (just after CU).
I have played 3-4 MMOs since, (L2, EQ2, WoW, Eve) and none of them have produced the atmosphere that SWG's cantinas provided. it isnt even close.
I left SWG due to AFKers basically. They were always there for sure, but the hologrind made it 300x worse. Atleast the AFKers prior to the hologrind wanted to be there (their goal was to be a master musician/dancer) where the hologrinders had no thoughts about even really trying the profession and often were quite rude and disruptive (either their macros were horrible spammers or when they were at the keyboard they were rude/disruptive). I could go on and on, as I was a regular board warrior against AFK non-play, but that was a long time in the past and I am over it.
Nothing will beat old Pre-CU cantina fun. It was pure fun and enjoyment of others, no other goal but to make a pleasent atmosphere. Everytime I log into WoW (the game I am playing now) I cant help but to remember SWG as the core of my raiding guild are people I met in SWG about 5 years ago if not a little more.
edit- about the forced downtime. it was often beneficial to those that had to spend time there. It was time to learn about things, find where the best vendors were - or hunting spots, find out where the other faction is going to be later on. Its not like people came in sat down and watched their bars become colored again. Well, maybe some did - those that did wasted their time as if you asked the entertainers, they generally knew more about the world than those out fighting in it.