I agree with Jythri entirely (hello Pencerdd!). Before I began to perform
my songs in Norrath, the idea of having to type /em sings 'la-de-da.' for
every single verse seemed awful. The macros appeared to be a saviour, but
they have never worked very well and there aren't enough to record an entire
song anyway, let alone an entire set. When I actually took to the stage,
however, I began to appreciate the skill involved in singing each song
'live'. Because nothing is scripted, you can add much more character to
your performance and even respond to the taunts of the inevitable hecklers.
The biggest benefit, though, is the buzz you get from singing an entire song
without missing any lines, without fluffing your words and without jumping
up and down on the stage because you pressed SPACE at the wrong time! After
my first performance, I really felt as if I'd achieved something that few
others had attempted. I AM a fast typist, so I can't deny that I have an
advantage over others who aren't, but if you treat your gradually improving
typing speed as another facet of the experience ladders built into the game,
then it simply adds an extra dimension that parallels your increasing HP's.
Before I actually tried singing live, I would have happily joined the calls
for a scripting command. However, I now know that the typing effort
involved in live performance is well worth it.
The idea of scripting, even with pauses and emotes, removes all the skill
involved in performing your work, leaving the skill of composition behind.
Composition itself is a great skill of course, but being a wonderful
lyricist shouldn't automatically mean you are a great performer as well.
The reverse applies too; you may be able to type 100wpm and enthrall the
audience with your ad-libbing and charisma, but that doesn't mean you can
write a song that has rhyme, rhythm and emotion. The fast but lyrically
inept typists shouldn't be calling for Verant to create an automatic song
generator, they should be looking for good writers who can't perform very
well (Elton John and Bernie Taupin come to mind here).
As for performing longer works, we may just have to accept that they aren't
viable within a game that people are paying to play. Even with the large
Soerbaird concerts, there are very few players who stay for the entire
performance. The audience will shrink and grow over time, most people
listening to one or two songs before moving on. For someone to sit and
listen to a very long ballad or story, even if it is scripted and is coming
to them at normal reading speed (which varies from person to person of
course), the story would have to be VERY well done. Much better to be able
to sell people a book, which they can read whenever they are sitting to heal
or regain manna. As such, I believe there IS a place for recording longer
texts within Norrath. The ability to create books, pamphlets and scrolls
(perhaps as a trade skill), which can then be sold on to others seems like a
very worthy addition.
As the author of one of the plays Jythri mentioned, I'm convinced that it
can be done successfully. The secret is to keep the speeches short and
packed with meaning, and to give good stage and emote directions within the
text.
I hope I haven't been too inflamatory (or too verbose for that matter). I
don't wish to begin an argument, just explain why I think having scripts
would remove one of the fun elements of the game. I don't think bards like
Jythri would have become as famous as they are if their skill involved
nothing more than typing in all their songs and then clicking on a few
buttons whenever they perform them. When people in an audience realise that
- somewhere in the world - there is a bod sitting at a keyboard, typing away
for all their worth and making no mistakes, they begin to appreciate the
amount of effort and skill that they are witnessing.
Elegor Mandreskal of The Soerbaird
>
>Message: 21
> Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 04:45:34 -0500
> From: Randy Varnell <rvarnell@...>
>Subject: Re: Song Scripts
>
>Hello again!
>
>This is one of my pet issues, so I'm going to discuss this a bit more.
>*grins*
>
>Mostly OOC here too, so my apologies...
>
> >I know that EQ is different from the text-based muds we all want to
> >emulate, and I'm incredibly excited about the visual aspect to gaming -
>but
> >until voice-com becomes standard (*grin* one, maybe two years?), typing
>is
> >a significant hassle. I personally have a repetoire of nearly a hundred
> >songs - but typing just a set (4-6 songs) would leave my hands so cramped
>I
> >couldn't type for a week after that. Call me selfish - but I'd like a
> >shortcut :P
>
*SNIP*SNIP*SNIP*
>
>-- Jythri, Pencerdd of The Soerbaird
> http://www.soerbaird.com