Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Star Wars Galaxies: Fan Faire Panels
Szark
News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420
The Star Wars Galaxies official site has been updated with a list of panels that the SWG team will be hosting at SOE Fan Faire in less than two weeks in Las Vegas.
SOE Fan Faire 2007 is almost here! If you're already signed up to attend, or you're thinking of stopping by, here is a quick look at the Star Wars Galaxies panels planned for Fan Faire attendees. We look forward to seeing you there!
Bringing Star Wars to Life
Panelists: Alexis Allen and Jake Neri
Find out how ideas become art and how art comes to life in the 3-D world of an MMORPG. Join Star Wars Galaxies Lead Artist Alexis Allen and LucasArts Producer Jake Neri, to see how the art of Star Wars translates into an online game.
The ENT Session
Panelists: Thomas "Blixtev" Blair and Jesse "Loche" Benjamin
Entertainers and traders keep the fabric of the galaxy together. We want to help you with your endeavors as you make your way through the universe of Star Wars Galaxies. Dance, craft, and buff your way to this session to give us your ideas for these valuable professions.
What's Your Story?
Panelists: Mark "Tunso" Halash and Jason "Pex" Ryan
Creating in-game events is one of the most challenging aspects of any game. The Storyteller feature recently added to Star Wars Galaxies makes it easier for you to share your story. Let's talk about the process, best practices, and your thoughts on how to keep the stories alive in Star Wars Galaxies.
;)
Read the full list of panels here.
Comments
"Entertainers and traders keep the fabric of the galaxy together. We want to help you with your endeavors as you make your way through the universe of Star Wars Galaxies. Dance, craft, and buff your way to this session to give us your ideas for these valuable professions."
So how exactly is this panel different from the requests for entertainer and trader feedback during the last four years? I mean why should we believe that the panelists aren't going to do what they usually do with entertainers' suggestions - i.e. look as if they're really interested and then completely ignore them?
Entertainers have been COMPLETELY ignored during the last four years. Any changes to the profession have come with no input from the entertainer players (or rather lots of input that has been totally ignored) and I'll guess the same can probably be said for traders.
Why do the folks at SOE keep up the pretence that they listen to the players? The only players they routinely listen to are the leets, and as a result the game has been through hell. We're wise to this crap already - play another tune - this one is getting old. If the panelists really care about entertainers in SWG they will remove the ability to AFK macro the profession. That's what we really want. If the panelists aren't willing to give us that, then they may as well not bother.
As for me, I'm long past caring about the developers' attempts to pretend they're interested in what we want. If AFK entertaining goes away, maybe then I'll start to believe that SOE has entertainers' interests at heart. Until then, SOE can kiss my arse!
Entertainers got quite a bit of attention with Chapter 5, incase you haven't been playing recently. Entertainers buffs are attractive to all professions in the game, rather then just being for crafters as they had been since the CU was released. They also gained a combat line of expertise for those entertainers that like to take part in that part of the game from time to time. Additionally, the new buff system can't be AFK'd.
I have a current account and I play the game regularly, so I'm well aware of the recent changes - this is not one of the usual bunch of trolling 'I hate SWG since NGE' posts that we usually see on MMORPG.com. My point is that none of the entertainer changes that we've seen were suggested by entertainers, and although the recent changes were indeed an improvement the fact is, entertainers are constantly ignored as far as their suggestions are concerned - and this has been the case for four solid years. The fact that they make changes to the profession doesn't amount to much if the changes have nothing to do with what we're asking for.
Buffs can't be AFKed it's true, but buffs are a VERY small portion of what we do (I'd estimate that, at most, 5% of our skills relate to buffs). The bigger issue has always been that AFK play is souring the entertainer experience in the game and has been doing so for four solid years - it's got so bad that the entertainer profession, which used to be one of the most populated professions in the game at launch, is now virtually empty - the entertainers that can be found are usually AFK 90% of the time. The AFK situation is so oppressive that the rest of us would rather spend our in-game time travelling or just chatting than playing music or dancing in the cantinas.
I have a current account and I play the game regularly, so I'm well aware of the recent changes - this is not one of the usual bunch of trolling 'I hate SWG since NGE' posts that we usually see on MMORPG.com. My point is that none of the entertainer changes that we've seen were suggested by entertainers, and although the recent changes were indeed an improvement the fact is, entertainers are constantly ignored as far as their suggestions are concerned - and this has been the case for four solid years. The fact that they make changes to the profession doesn't amount to much if the changes have nothing to do with what we're asking for.
Buffs can't be AFKed it's true, but buffs are a VERY small portion of what we do (I'd estimate that, at most, 5% of our skills relate to buffs). The bigger issue has always been that AFK play is souring the entertainer experience in the game and has been doing so for four solid years - it's got so bad that the entertainer profession, which used to be one of the most populated professions in the game at launch, is now virtually empty - the entertainers that can be found are usually AFK 90% of the time. The AFK situation is so oppressive that the rest of us would rather spend our in-game time travelling or just chatting than playing music or dancing in the cantinas.
Really, is AFK play the only thing that is "souring" Entertainer?
Profession only content and more customizing (create songs and dance) features would help the profession more IMO. You have a very valid issue. I can take a new entertainer and get it to Master in about a day with AFK macros. Haveing them access the Legacy is not going to fill in the loss content tailored for Entertainer Class character. I still believe that AFK is only a small part of the class being incomplete for broader experiance. I will attend the panel and see what they got to say and give my thoughts.
I have a current account and I play the game regularly, so I'm well aware of the recent changes - this is not one of the usual bunch of trolling 'I hate SWG since NGE' posts that we usually see on MMORPG.com. My point is that none of the entertainer changes that we've seen were suggested by entertainers, and although the recent changes were indeed an improvement the fact is, entertainers are constantly ignored as far as their suggestions are concerned - and this has been the case for four solid years. The fact that they make changes to the profession doesn't amount to much if the changes have nothing to do with what we're asking for.
Buffs can't be AFKed it's true, but buffs are a VERY small portion of what we do (I'd estimate that, at most, 5% of our skills relate to buffs). The bigger issue has always been that AFK play is souring the entertainer experience in the game and has been doing so for four solid years - it's got so bad that the entertainer profession, which used to be one of the most populated professions in the game at launch, is now virtually empty - the entertainers that can be found are usually AFK 90% of the time. The AFK situation is so oppressive that the rest of us would rather spend our in-game time travelling or just chatting than playing music or dancing in the cantinas.
I wouldn't say that none of the changes were asked for by the Ents. I knew many Ents that wanted to play a more important role in the game like they did pre-cu when they were able to give out buffs that benefited all professions and I knew others that wanted to once again be able to participate in combat from time to time without having to switch from their favourite profession. The expertise wasn't the only thing that Ents got with Chapter 5, there was a bunch of new music, dances and a new instrument.The AFK thing is somewhat server specific I guess. On Chilastra at least, I can go to Mos Eisley and find an ATK entertainer the majority of the time, and this was the case even before Chapter 5. Personally, I don't understand why more Ents don't spread out from Eisley and take advantage of some of the other areas where there is potential Ent demand, eg Restuss, Mustafar, Kashyyyk, Theed, etc.
I never said it was the only issue. But it is by far the most important - the most devastating - issue.
We do. But often doing so means going there alone and entertainers tend to like company. I have entertained in Theed and even places like Mos Entha for 8 hour stretches, but it's kinda hard to do that over and over again, day-in-day-out when you don't see a living soul for hours at a time. You see it's a chicken and egg thing - not only do entertainers pretty much congregate only at Mos Eisley, but people looking for buffs pretty much only go there too. No one uses the 'register' feature - neither entertainers or their clients - so going outside Mos Eisley won't get me any clients even if I /register at a cantina. I've /registered at Mos Entha, Mustafar, Kashyyyk, Theed etc. and when the occasional client came in I asked them if they found me on the planetary map by my /register tag and they had no idea that entertainers had the ability to register on the planetary map - I'd say 99% of players have no idea how to find an entertainer this way, so it becomes an exercise in futility to even switch the registration on. Not only that, but half of the entertainers themselves, presumably because they're post-NGE players, don't even know what /register does.
Sure, in the best of all worlds, entertainers would spread out to all the game's major cantinas. But there's little incentive to do so and even when we try to do it, it's virtually impossible to let people know. We try, but if 99% of people looking for buffs don't know how to look on their planetary map, our efforts are futile. Then we get people on the forums saying "Oh, I can never find an entertainer anywhere but Eisley - I was on Starsider yesterday on Naboo and I couldn't find anyone to buff me". I respond "Did you look on the planetary map? I was entertaining in Moenia on Naboo on Starsider all day". They reply, with annoying regularity "I had no idea we could find entertainers on the planetary map".
How do we combat that? I've tried. I've tried urging players to check their planetary map. I've tried urging entertainers to use the /register feature and to spread out to other cantinas, but in the end a game has to have incentives in order for people to do what's necessary. In the end we have no incentive to entertain outside of Mos Eisley and buffees have no incentive to look outside of Mos Eisley. It seems it's easier for players to just go to the starport and grab their ship and go to Eisley where they're assured of a good chance of finding a buff than it is to open their planetary map and look for a /registered entertainer on the planet they're on. I know that's silly - it takes longer to do the former and there's no guarantee that Eisley will have an ATK ent, and the latter method ensures that you'll find an ATK performer, but hey, players don't always do what's logical, even when they know how to do it. Now if it cost them money to travel, there might be enough incentive for players to start looking on the planetary map, but the developers, in their infinite wisdom, have instituted a travel system in which it costs nothing - not a penny - to travel across the universe. Why should players take out their planetary maps to look for entertainers when they can ignore the map and just fly for free, instantaneously, across the galaxy to Mos Eisley?
Doesn't SWG have a seperate fan fest anymore? I suppose after it got changed to "summit" and Julio Torres was verbaly abused by a drunk SWG gamer they decided to scale back a bit?
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
I started playing pre-CU and finally let my sub run out about 1 month after the NGE hit. I think I may have gotten one crafting buff from an entertainer post-NGE to make one final saber before leaving the game. I barely tried any combat and I don't recall getting buffed before doing it.
Pre-CU, as you suggest, we could get buffs that were great (too good, imho) for combat. If I'm not completely mistaken, we had to get 2 buffs from Entertainers and 1 from a medic. They increased our HAM bars and allowed many to act as tanks... remember? I was to be considered pointless to do any fighting without first getting buffed, for the most part. I remember the first in-game chat I ever had with a Jedi (dark, but nice guy). He had his own afk ent. running macros inside his house. It was his second account that he controlled from his lap-top, he said. He told me that he never went anywhere without buffing himself first, because light and dark Jedi could attack each other on site. He didn't mention BH...
Post-CU/pre-NGE, however....I got buffs all the time...and I NEVER crafted. I especially remember standing around inside cantinas on Dant. with a bunch of other Jedi getting our buffs before yet another long grinding session.
My memory is admittedly fading about game details, but I believe the only big difference with pre-CU buffs and pre-NGE buffs was that we needed 3 pre-CU and only 1 pre-NGE.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
**Returned SWG player**
IGN: Gindacca, RACE: Wookiee
OLD GUILD: [cCc] (aka: BOC)
NEW GUILD: -SAS-
PROF: Light Jedi (elder)
(pre-NGE PROF: TKM/Master Swordsman)
SERVER: Chimaera (Euro)
Read the full list of panels here.
Muhahaha, Each panel room comes with its own tumbleweeds . " How to bring Star Wars Galaxies back to life" would be the best attended but its does not exist . Oh never mind , I found the bitch session not to be missed -
The SWG Gathering
Panelists: David "Dev-Vapor" Jones, Thomas "Blixtev" Blair, Mark "Tunso" Halash, Travis "Shadowbrak" Hicks, Jesse "Loche" Benjamin, Lorin "DeadMeat" Jameson , and Jake Neri
Join the Star Wars Galaxies teams from Sony Online Entertainment and LucasArts for a discussion on all things related to the game – and some exciting new information revealed for the first time at this summit! Meet the people behind the game and hear them chat about what the future holds for Star Wars Galaxies. Bring your ideas, questions, and feedback – we want to hear from you!
And hear from me they will. /Jedimindtrick "I'm ok , I'm one of you , we don't need to see my ID" , SonyDroney " He's ok, He's one of us, We won't need to see his ID"
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
ITS still broke..75% jedi...oooo--yah--ICONic it is.I gave up all hope too....its just plain brokin
WILL u charge me to chat..
Trade in material assumptions for spiritual facts and make permanent progress.
I started playing pre-CU and finally let my sub run out about 1 month after the NGE hit. I think I may have gotten one crafting buff from an entertainer post-NGE to make one final saber before leaving the game. I barely tried any combat and I don't recall getting buffed before doing it.
Pre-CU, as you suggest, we could get buffs that were great (too good, imho) for combat. If I'm not completely mistaken, we had to get 2 buffs from Entertainers and 1 from a medic. They increased our HAM bars and allowed many to act as tanks... remember? I was to be considered pointless to do any fighting without first getting buffed, for the most part. I remember the first in-game chat I ever had with a Jedi (dark, but nice guy). He had his own afk ent. running macros inside his house. It was his second account that he controlled from his lap-top, he said. He told me that he never went anywhere without buffing himself first, because light and dark Jedi could attack each other on site. He didn't mention BH...
Post-CU/pre-NGE, however....I got buffs all the time...and I NEVER crafted. I especially remember standing around inside cantinas on Dant. with a bunch of other Jedi getting our buffs before yet another long grinding session.
My memory is admittedly fading about game details, but I believe the only big difference with pre-CU buffs and pre-NGE buffs was that we needed 3 pre-CU and only 1 pre-NGE.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
yes, pre cu you needed a buff from a dancer and from a musician.. .it made them more viable... and you had to interact while you were getting them or ask someone to get an alt out... it was fun! it was interaction... and you couldn't fight without that buff--- not well anyways...during the cu i think we only needed one but the action had to be directed at us... i think ents figured out how to direct their macro to us if we "watched" them...
imiss the game... pre cu or cu... i played a ton and my wife hated it:)
Run For Fun