While the original post may have been a joke, the issues themselves are not made up. However, they are not all necessarily entertainer issues as much as dancer or musician issues.

In collecting the list of issues, I looked for both what was most commonly mentioned, and where they were placed when they were mentioned. I also tried to generalize into different categories. For example, any time I saw a request for more songs, dances, hairstyles, instruments or anything similar, I included that with the requests for more content. In ordering things this way, 5 issues kept coming up, and quickly became apparent as the obvious issues that the community cares the most about.

This is the final list as it was submitted. No more changes are being made.

1. Unattended gameplay

   To quote Haden, "... the Entertainer was, at its heart, meant to appeal to the socializers in the game. Our goal was to provide a profession that allowed them to enjoy their preferred gameplay style while still providing a valuable role to the other players." Entertainer is at it's heart a social profession. Individuality in the profession currently is purely social oriented. Content in the profession currently comes soly from social interactions. And yet, in a profession so focussed on the social aspects, players are permitted to play in the most un-social way imaginable. The players do not feel like they are providing a valuable service to the community because there are bots that provide the service better. We've heard JustG tell us "We feel that AFK macroers are not healthy for the game." The entertainers would like to see the team stand behind these words, even beyond just removing the hologrinders if necessary.

   The first step here is the obvious one, which has already been put in motion. That is removing hologrinding from the game. This will be a very welcome relief to the entertainers. However, hologrinding is not the only reason people play unattended, just the most common.

2. More content

   This, in many ways, goes hand-in-hand with unattended gameplay as an issue. Many feel if entertainers had more to do, there would not be as noticable a problem from unattended gameplay. In general, the requests for more content fall into one of three categories.

   • More songs, dances, hairstyles, etc

     We have heard they are coming. Now we would like to see them.

   • Entertainer gameplay

     Currently the entertainer class is purely social. There are some who feel that adding a little gameplay to the class could go a long way. There are many suggestions here, quite a few of which have found their way into the "In Concept" thread for entertainers, as well as gathered from the community in the entertainer forums.

   • Solo gameplay

     This sounds like an odd request from a social class. However, there is a reason this makes sense. Currently, everyone goes to only a few cantinas. The reason is nobody is in the other cantinas. And the reason nobody is in those cantinas is because the class is so based around socializing that there is nothing to do alone. As the game ages, the problem has just gotten worse, as people learn where not to go for entertainers. Giving the class something to do solo, even if it's just something small, will go a long way towards spreading people out to new locations.

   One content request I feel deserves special mention. There is not much variety in the lower levels of the class. Dancers start out with 2 dances and get the same 2 dances for the next 2 skill boxes. Musicians are even worse. They all start out with one instrument and one thing to play. The result is you usually hear that same music all the time, predominantly played on that instrument. In both cases, people would like a little bit of variety to start with. Maybe when adding the new music, dances and instruments, push everything down a skill box or two so there is a little more variety at the low end while the new music and dances still goes into the elite professions. Image designers have a similar situation, but in some ways worse. There are some combinations of race or gender that do not offer image designers anything to do at all at novice, and as a result no way to progress higher easily.

3. Entertainer missions

   Right now entertainer missions are confusing, buggy, and low pay. Furthermore, the requirement to complete them is often counter to putting on a good performance and earning experience. The requirement to play for 10 minutes without stopping results in many cases where the only way to complete it without buffs or heals is to not flourish at all. That doesn't result in a terribly good show, and no experience. On top of that, for 10 minutes of work, the pay barely covers the cost of a cheap shuttle ticket.

4. Master entertainer

   Currently the only class that really benefits from master entertainer is musicians. And they are upset about it taking away from their class and forcing them to dance and do image design just to be a true master musicians. Dancers on the other hand get two repeats of existing dances, with only the unflourished animation different. One of these is a dance that most people don't even like to begin with, and the other is a dance where the unflourished animation is not seen properly by anyone but the dancer, so is visually identical. Image design doesn't get anything at all.

   It is apparent that just throwing in part of what each of the professions does is not a good solution. The musicians are already loudly complaining about this, and the image designers are against anything they can do being taken away. The dancers could care less since they already have something there they don't want, so aren't losing anything by not taking it, and aren't risking losing something.

5. Planetary registration

   Nobody uses it. In most outposts, whatever is serving as a cantina doesn't even allow registration. No hotels allow registration. Theaters are hidden where nobody would think to look on the planetary map. Most players don't even know about registration, entertainers and fighters alike. Even for those who do know about it, if someone registered logs out they will continue to be registered even though not present, all player owned cantinas show up as manned until someone registers and leaves resulting in a completely useless indication, and if a player cantina is placed as factioned there is no way to make the building neutral so anyone can register there even if the owner changes faction or passes the cantina to someone of a different alignment.

Message Edited by Tiaga on 04-08-2004 10:46 PM

Inside my heart is breaking, my make-up may be flaking
But my smile still stays on
My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies
Fairytales of yesterday will grow but never die
I can fly - my friendsSWG Entertainer.com            Fashions by TK

My feedback is to keep up the good work Tiaga.  I realize that all of our correspondents are unpaid and have real lives and jobs outside this one.  You have done well for us and it does get noticed.

a suggestion I have is to move the lighting effects to Master Entertainer, and make them effects for the band.  Go ahead and move ceremonial and mando if you like.  Real musicians don't know about lighting from their music training, they get it from being on stage so much (i.e. entertaining? am I stretching too much here?)  Give ME a command like this:

/bandlight <light> <#> <instrument>

so I can call different lights simultaneously for my band without teamspeak or extensive groupchat calls.

This would make ME more like a "stage" "bandleader" if-you-will and the musicians can spend more points on what they like.

Don't know if that's what you wanted as feedback in this thread.. .

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Arryth wrote:

Just a quick comment.....Why do you think you have the right to dictate other peoples play style? Are you paying a special additional fee? If some one wants to play afk that is their right and none of any one elses buisness...Your vocal minority should not dictate game policy to the silent majority.....

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The problem is that these classes were designed for the playstyle that is now the minority. Unfortunately it is a very delicate system that requires that one method of play to be the only one. Either the original playstyle from conception has to be enforced or the concept of the classes has to change. Otherwise the classes wouldn't be justified. *shrug*

The way they wanted the class to be used and played isn't what's happening now in game. All classes and all playstyles will benefit from a resolution to this inconsistency. I don't see anywhere on the list where Tiaga talks about changing someone's preferred playstyle; he's just talking about things that aren't working out as they are now.

Most people that are AFKing are either getting through something they don't like or providing a "service" where they see a huge need. Either reason screams that something is broken and needs to be addressed. This list just says we want a fix.

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Arryth wrote:

Why do you think you have the right to dictate other peoples play style?

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Tiaga wrote:

As to your suggestion itself.. I think that is a great one. I've always thought that master entertainer would be a good spot to put band leader commands, possibly with a subset going to choreographer and composer.

However it leaves out ID. I think that ME should have something for all 3 that doesn't step on the toes of anyone.

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Since AFKing is allowed by the game developers, and since many people prefer it that way (including non-hologrinders) I would think you would be better served by thinking of ways to ENCOURAGE keyboard play rather than PUNISH afks.

The most common complaint about entertaining/music/dancing is that it is boring.  While much of this can be explained by people who are in the profession who have no wish to be, there are many people who enjoy the professions but feel they drag on too long.  I very much enjoyed my time as both an Entertainer and a Dancer.  Having since surrendered both those skills, I am now attempting to work my way back to Dancer.  However I am finding it excrutiatingly bad just sitting and watching my character do the same dance, over and over and over again, with very little variety.  And this is before I've even made it out of Entertainer dancing.

Comparing the skill gain to a combat class, I can kill a piket and get 4000 experience points.  This takes about 2 minutes.  In order to get 4000 dancing xp, I have to dance for, oh I don't know, maybe a half an hour.  To get the highest level of most combat trees, the experience required is 400,000 in a specific weapon type, generally.  To get the highest (for instance) Dancing skill, you need 175,000 dancing xp.  While the amount is less than half what is required of a combat profession, the experience gain is so much slower that the time required is more than doubled.

NotYourAvgEwok--

We've discussed it since launch as I'm sure you're aware.  Also, Tiaga's poll was draw from "the people paying $14.99 a month for the service."  This is not Tiaga's unilateral opinion.  We have, as an entertainer community, suggested many ideas on how to "promote ATK play" as alternatives and additions.  Tiaga, NewJedi, and others have provided us with threads to add our ideas to the pool.

Take this thread with that as context.  The ideas Tiaga presents as top issues did not spring from a vacuum.

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Tiaga wrote:

1. Unattended gameplay ...

The first step here is the obvious one, which has already been put in motion. That is removing hologrinding from the game. This will be a very welcome relief to the entertainers. However, hologrinding is not the only reason people play unattended, just the most common. Other changes to take care of this more globally that have been suggested would be to force a disconnect after a period of being AFK, or to make the entertainer healing process more interactive.

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A minor note... I'd reword this paragraph under the first issue. My problem is with the last sentence. When you start to make suggestions/answers to the issues you are presenting, you are cutting out the open-end part for the devs. They see your suggestions and make a reply a 'yes/no' instead of a descriptive response to what's happening on their end. I strongly disagreed with the wording on the Top 10 (which was sent hastely without undergoing much revision from the community), and we all know the crappy answers that we received didn't help anyone.

I'm VERY glad that you've asked for comments on the wording, and I like the issues that you're presenting and the points that you're making. I would just like the issues to leave the devs with how the community feels, and then force them to reply with a message saying that they understand and what their plan is. Since this is strictly about issues, I think we should leave it at that. Adding that extra little bit may be damaging in the end since that would be the focus of their thinking/reply.

sorry, this was a double post...

Message Edited by NinjasLovePirates on 04-03-2004 09:51 PM