Difference between revisions of "Band Commands (Game Mechanics"

System Messages

Game Mechanics

The band commands are /bandflourish, /startband, /stopband, and /changebandmusic (song). These commands allow performers to synchronize their performances. However, only those performing Music may make full use of them. /bandflourish will work for both Dancers and Musicians, causing everyone to perform the same-numbered flourish. Musicians can take it a step further by using /bandflourish (instrument) and cause only people using that instrument to perform the flourish. The band commands /startband, /stopband, and /changebandmusic are applicable only to those with instruments equipped. (Note: Apparently, with start/stop band being only applicable to instruments, this made it so that it was overly difficult for dancers to coordinate with music. Perhaps we can change this to accomodate music queueing and dance queueing for band flourishes so that they are in synch?)

Special Notices:

"/startband [song name]" has the player giving the command immediately begin playing and does a quick intro, then all musicians start the song together. If you select a song that not all players can do, only the players with the proper skills start playing, and you receive the message "Some members can not play that song". It's best to find out everyone's skill level first so you can have an impressive start.

"/stopband" stops all the musicians at the same time. NOTE: just using "/stop" defaults to /stopband, not /stopmusic (which just stops you). So if you're in a group of 10 musicians and type /stop to take a break, you just made everyone end. If the group leader is not performing a flourish at the time /stopband is issued, then the command wont get executed for 10 seconds (until the next experience tick comes along). If the group leader is flourishing while issueing /stopband then the command will be executed at the end of the flourish.

Changing songs:

To change band songs you use /changebandmusic (song name). You can leave off the song name, and it will prompt you with a song list.

Bandflourishes:

/bandflourish # causes every musician you are grouped with execute the same flourish.

/bandflourish # [instrument] causes every member playing the named instrument do the flourish. For a fun time, play SW3 with a Slither and a Fizz and do "/band 3 slitherhorn ; /band 6 fizz" (or maybe the numbers are the other way around...)

/bandflourish only gives xp to the player who gave the command, but will cause all players to use the action cost of that particular flourish as if they were performing it themself. It also adds to the flourish queue (you can only have 5 flourishes pending). Use /band sparingly, on a rotating schedule, or set up in advance if your goal is to put on an impressively choreagraphed show. Bandflourishes will not execute unless every musician in the band is playing at the same track on the same band timer, meaning the band has to be synchronized beforehand (using /stopband and /startband) to get everyone on cue. If a player is not on cue (for example a player who is performing their own flourishes at the time) a bandflourish is executed, then the band flourish will not go off. When executed the bandflourish synchronizes all the players for the flourish, then they return to their original base dance loops. Bandflourishes can only be initiated by the group leader while the group leader is skill animating (playing a dance or song).

You can turn off the receiving of bandflourishes using the command "/bandflourish off". This only lasts for the current song, if you stop to rest and restart, you will again be receiving /band commands.

Bandflourishing in detail :

/bandflo #, by itself, will only affect whatever it is you are doing. If you are a dancer and you do /bandflo 3, then all the bandflourish-enabled dancers will do #3 immediately. Of course if one is in the middle of a different flourish she won't so you have to be careful how you do dancing bandflos. It is not like music where it is auto-synched (though I for one wish it were). The same is true for musicians. The generic /bandflo # will only work on other musicians.

However there is a second form of /bandflo, that is, /bandflo # (instrument), which plays a flourish for a particular instrument. Our band, Hyperdrive, uses this all the time. If you've ever been to one of our performances you will notice that there are times when most of the band is playing the "base song", and a single musician is playing flourishes. Often, the SINGER and the INSTRUMENT FLOURISHER are different. I'll let you in on a little secret -- the SINGER is always, always, the one controlling every single flourish of the entire band (with one exception, that being the "Let's Get Together" duet of Neeno and Dipligonai because, well, it's a duet ...). So how, if I am playing a Mandi and singing and running the bandflourishes, do I get Neeno to flourish his fizzz? I do it with this second form: /bandflo 3 fiz (you only need enough characters to uniquely ID the instrument, so I often use things like /bandflo 3 mand, /bandflo 5 slith, etc).

Now I already had known this for a while but what I didn't know, which Tiaga instructed me on, and which I use myself now once in a while, is that if a dancer is dancing with the band, and uses form #2, the dancer can flourish individual music instruments. Yup, it works. You can't control the song they are playing, but I can dance exotic and do /bandflo 3 fiz and the fizzz player(s) will do flourish #3 of the fizzz.

Now that's not entirely on-topic for the thread, but I just wanted to make everyone aware that your dancer can, technically, flourish musical instruments. The reverse, of course, does not work, because ther are no "dance objects" to flourish (you can't do /flo 4 dancepole, heheh). So a dancer can flourish musicians if you do it right; a musician can never flourish the dancers

Source References