On the value of live entertainers

[jao]

Like most of you, I've come back to SWG because I love the game and missed it's unique, freeform gameplay. Like many of you, I played at launch and through the CU and NGE. Unlike a lot of people, my game in live was centered around being an entertainer. While not uncommon, there are players who eschewed focusing on combat and instead hung around cantinas in a social version of the game.

I feel this aspect of SWG is missing on Awakening. Now, I'm not one to whine without solutions. My guild mates and city-mates are all at work on player events and role play that are at their core, ways to connect players.

But I'm asking: Do you want to play a live entertainer? Do you want to interact with live entertainer? How can we cultivate place for players to gather socially and receive buffs?

Here's some fact about me
1. I do not want to be a buff bot. I don't want to run a macro that logs my character in and switches between dance and music every 2 minutes. I have no issue with this, it simply isn't how I want to play SWG.

2. I do want to be a live entertainer. I want to greet customers, ask them about their upcoming adventures, hear stories of their loot and generally spend a portion of my game time as a social hostess. There's the buff and the tips and those are nice too.

3. I have a master dancer but not a master musician. What? Useless!? It was common to find Dancer/TKM or Musician/Crafter character on live, but here it seems unless you are running "bot style" there's no place for your ent.

4. Players don't need to do both buffs if there is more than one Live Entertainer. Customers don't have to wait for a cycle if there's more than one live entertainer. Also, I dont even need to be in the same group as a player to buff them if I'm atk.

I'm testing the water for support. If we worked on running a live entertainer cantina, would you go there? Do you want to perform there?

Much love to all my SWG friends,

Jao

[Maldred]

I'd go.

I think it is safe to say that we all had our favorite ents in live and I always loved the conversation. Made it feel more "real" in a sense.

Curious to see where this goes...

[Kaede]

I'd LOVE to see this!

I have great appreciation for the whole Entertainer Buffs service in the form of buffbots, but sometimes it is nice to see a lively cantina.

[Rhaige9]

I didn't know you Could buff someone not in your group. I bet a lot of people didn't. That certainly makes it a different critter all together.

[Lasod]

I didn't know you Could buff someone not in your group. I bet a lot of people didn't. That certainly makes it a different critter all together.

is this what the /setperform command is for?

[jao]

Yep! /setperform directs your performance at a player. I did some tests to make sure it was working and it does!

[Nytwyng]

I'd go.

My wife's cantina (Dragon & Pawn in Serenity, Naboo, he plugs subtly) tries to strike a nice balance. We've got some entertainers who provide near-constant buffing services in the cantina, but Xela is planning to put together some periodic live events like she did back in live. And, the reason her main is a dancer is specifically because she enjoys the social aspect of the game the most.

[QuorTek]

Could a part of the solution not be just to remove /invite in macro form but keep the command to /invite personname/targethere but just remove it completely from the actual macro commands meaning you would have to do the stuff in live... could work on Docs as well as other invite on tell or whichever command.. meaning you would actually have to be there to be able to do a difference.

I mean before you can loot a kryat pearl you have to actually kill the thing first idealogy..... above solution could actually also spread people more out in the galaxy instead of just being in a few big major cities on random planets....