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Star Wars Galaxies (Zombies and Galactic Civil War finally added in after six years)
Archonex
No hard feelings, right?Registered User regular
No hard feelings, right?Registered User regular
So most people on this forum know about Star Wars Galaxies. It's had a pretty tumultuous history, what with the original developer team dicking it over multiple times. While personally I feel the game's improved massively since the backlash to the NGE lead to a shift in developer focus (Along with a few developers being quietly removed from the team.), to the point where it outdoes the pre-CU era, others are still a bit pissed over the NGE and refuse to play it.
Since I didn't see a topic about SWG, I figured i'd post here to mention that the latest content update to SWG finally added in a proper galactic civil war, giving the endgame a purpose aside from dicking around and raiding dungeons. Entire planets, regions on planets, and areas of space can now be conquered by the two factions, and each class, including non-combat classes, now has an actual purpose in PVP, with it looking like entertainers and are going back more of their pre-CU "social" roles. Traders have their own stuff to do now as well other then craft and hope someone buys items from their shop.
In addition to that, it looks like the game has received some fairly massive improvements both in the GUI area mapwise to accommodate the new changes, and back-end network improvements to support the warfare aspect of the game.
Rather then make a long-winded essay about it, i'll let the wiki and update info do the work for me. I've bolded the actual feature list for the sake of simplicity.
There's a metric crapton more in the way of notes and new content, such as including actual functioning AT-AT's ingame now, and the rebels having their own counter to the AT-AT (AT-XT) for invading cities, but I took the most relevant notes in the interests of expediency and linked them here. See below for the rest.
Also, a recent content update added in zombies, a zombie plague, a new dungeon, a new quarantined area, and a crapload of other stuff, as a tie-in to a recent Star Wars book, Death Troopers. Contrary to what you might think, the content update is actually pretty damned awesome.
There's also an even more recent update that pertains to piracy and apparently lets smugglers earn "contraband", but noone except for smugglers cares about that. And we all know that Lucas hates smugglers anyways.
For those interested, here's some pictures of the new content updates.
Screenshots:
Links:
The official patch notes for Game Update 15:
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/en_US/players/content.vm?page=Current%20update#gu150
The official patch notes for Game Update 16:
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/en_US/players/content.vm?page=Current%20update#gu160
The wiki entry for the new PVP system:
http://swg.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Civil_War_Update
Since I didn't see a topic about SWG, I figured i'd post here to mention that the latest content update to SWG finally added in a proper galactic civil war, giving the endgame a purpose aside from dicking around and raiding dungeons. Entire planets, regions on planets, and areas of space can now be conquered by the two factions, and each class, including non-combat classes, now has an actual purpose in PVP, with it looking like entertainers and are going back more of their pre-CU "social" roles. Traders have their own stuff to do now as well other then craft and hope someone buys items from their shop.
In addition to that, it looks like the game has received some fairly massive improvements both in the GUI area mapwise to accommodate the new changes, and back-end network improvements to support the warfare aspect of the game.
Rather then make a long-winded essay about it, i'll let the wiki and update info do the work for me. I've bolded the actual feature list for the sake of simplicity.
SWG Website wrote:Star Wars Galaxies™ Galactic Civil War: Forces Under Siege (Game Update 15)
Publish Notes, January 25th, 2010
*Receiving Coded Transmission*
Imperial Naval Communiqué #31756
To: Fleet High Command and Sr. Officers
From: Ysanne Isard, Director of Imperial Intelligence
Imperial counterintelligence agents embedded with a Rebel Bothan spy network intercepted the following Alliance transmission. Our field agents have noticed heightened Rebel activity in certain sectors, and it appears as though we have uncovered the cause:
Following the recent situation on Dathomir, and additional rumors of Imperial atrocities, it is imperative that we take extreme measures to expand our intelligence gathering networks and secure vital communications routes. I am calling on all fleet commanders to rally ships and available ground forces to three critical strategic points across the galaxy:
Tatooine – city of Bestine: The capital of Tatooine is rife with corruption and political turmoil, and is also a key Imperial outpost. If we take and hold this city we will control a wealth of information that moves through the galactic underworld.
Talus – city of Dearic: Another capital city plagued by dirty politics and scandal, Dearic is also home to a diverse and bustling Starport. Control of this city provides a broad spectrum of intelligence that will span the entire galaxy.
Naboo – city of Keren: As the Emperor's home world, Naboo is the beating heart of the Empire. To establish a control point on this planet would not only supply access to crucial intelligence, but would also be a devastating blow to Imperial morale and the Emperor himself. With its high level of commerce and financial influence throughout the Naboo system, Keren is the perfect target for this operation.
This mission takes top priority. The Empire must not be allowed to hold these cities. Good luck, and May the Force Be With You!
-- Leia Organa
Imperial Intelligence has confirmed the authenticity of this transmission. Squadrons will be assigned to deliver ground invasion forces to each of these locations to take and secure the cities. Under no circumstance can we allow these Rebel scum to gain a foothold. Be advised that Lord Vader himself has taken a personal interest in this matter, and failure will not be tolerated.
*Transmission End*
Galactic Civil War: Forces Under Siege Features
New, massive invasion/siege warfare scenarios in three major cities - Bestine, Dearic and Keren featuring: New Gameplay:
Dynamic changes occur in cities based on which faction is currently in control. Cities will display Imperial or Rebel banners and faction-specific NPCs, quests, terminals and pylons depending on which faction is on top
Added support for Factional Mercenaries. Neutral players can align themselves with either faction to participate in city conflicts and earn rewards
Mayors of player cities are able to set their city's factional alignment from the management terminal
Win battles within newly implemented Planetary Regions, which determine which faction controls a planet
New Planetary Region Display interface shows which faction is in command of regions and planets throughout the galaxy
New Interactive Structures:
Defend your city by manning barricades and building defensive turrets
Assault enemy cities and take out defense structures and key enemy personnel with the might of AT-AT or Hailfire missile attacks
All New Profession-Based Quests:
Contribute to the battle with profession-specific quests that let you bolster defending or invading forces
Improve and repair defensive structures, revive fallen soldiers, heal fatigue, entertain demoralized troops, slice terminals, scout and sabotage patrol points, and more
New Rewards:
Reap the benefits of war when you successfully lay waste to your opponents with invasion-specific quests
Earn tokens for defending your city with battle-specific quests such as manning barricades, building turrets and treating wounded soldiers
Cash in tokens for new rewards, which include: faction-specific clothing including capes, cloaks and battle-scarred armor; Entertainer glow sticks and multiple new weapons
The Galactic Civil War is being introduced with Update 15. With this update, your GCW points are directly responsible for control of cities, planets, and the galaxy. You will see these changes reflected on your planetary and galactic maps. Bestine on Tatooine, Dearic on Talus, and Keren on Naboo have been turned on for the new invasion system.
GCW
Defense
Bestine
The Defending General can be found inside Bestine at -1214 -3626.
An Officer giving defending players quests can be found not far from the General at -1195 -3620.
Dearic
The Defending General can be found inside Dearic at 479 -3007.
An Officer giving defending players quests can be found not far from the General at 478 -3023.
Keren
The Defending General can be found inside Keren at 2131 2766.
An Officer giving defending players quests can be found not far from the General at 1787 2512.
Offensive
Offensive Camps can be used by the invading faction for invasion specific quests, entertaining players, recruitment, and cloning.
Bestine
Camps for the invading faction can be found just outside of Bestine at -900 -3782, -1253 -3348, and -1184 -3821.
Dearic
Camps for the invading faction can be found just outside of Dearic at -2 -2805, 355 -2605, and -890 -2994.
Keren
Camps for the invading faction can be found just outside of Keren at 1820 2192, 2131 2766, and 1212 3054.
Construction
Tools:
Tools must be constructed to make pylons. Their resources are available from a supply terminal near the offensive and defensive general.
Supply terminals may be sliced by smugglers to provide optional components. Slicing the terminal repeatedly will increase the quality of the optional components.
Pylons:
Pylons are construction points where you get construction quests.
Pylons are constructed by tools, which trade skill players manufacture. Anyone may use a tool, but trade skill players are the most effective at using tools during construction.
Constructing a pylon fatigues the builder, causing the construction of pylons to take longer and longer. This can be eliminated by visiting entertainers to work off fatigue.
Some Pylons have 4 levels:
Level 0: No construction and will not spawn during the battle.
Level 1: 1-49 resources have been constructed on the pylon.
Level 2: 50-99 resources have been constructed on the pylon.
Level 3: 100 resources have been constructed on the pylon.
Pylon objects:
Soldier Patrol:
This object spawns NPC's and is represented by a helmet icon floating over it.
Defensive patrols stay entrenched at their constructed location.
Offensive patrols assault defensive positions.
Barricade:
This object guards nearby players and NPC's and is represented by a barricade icon floating over it.
Turret:
Turrets are AI controlled and fire at enemies nearby. The pylon for these is represented by a gun barrel or dish icon floating over it.
Tower:
Towers buff non-player controlled AI nearby to do incredible amounts of damage. The pylon is represented by a floating tower icon over it.
Vehicle Patrol:
Vehicle patrols spawn tough vehicles and are represented by a terminal icon floating over it.
Pylons are converted to their corresponding object when the construction phase ends and the battle phase begins.
Battle
Vehicle spawn points:
Level 1: Level 60 elite vehicle
Level 2: Level 90 elite vehicle
Level 3: Level 90 boss vehicle
Patrol spawn points:
Level 1: Level 60 NPC
Level 2: Level 90 NPC
Level 3: Level 90 elite NPC
Entertainers may entertain patrol points to buff NPC's spawned for both invasion and defense of a city.
Patrol points may be sabotaged by spies, which require a quest from their faction's general/attaché.
Barricade:
No levels, but HP is increased by 5000HP per resource added.
Barricades offer defender quests for general combat.
Tower:
No levels, but HP is increased by 5000HP per resource added.
Vehicles target towers
Turret:
5000HP per resource added.
Level 1-3: Increased damage per shot, but it can be mitigated by armor.
Turrets offer defender quests for general combat.
Wounded soldiers:
Offer a quest to revive fallen soldiers to medics. Will reinforce a location or begin patrolling into the city to add to the invasion force.
Damaged vehicles:
Offer a quest to tradeskill players for repair. Once repaired, they will reinforce the invading force by patrolling into the city.
Demoralized troops:
Offer a quest to entertainers to be entertained and rejoin the battle effort for both offense and defense.
Invasions occur every three hours and last an hour. Two of the three cities will be active during each invasion.
The construction phase lasts 30 minutes.
The battle phase lasts 30 minutes.
Defeating a defensive general will end a battle with the offensive team as the victors.
Keeping the defensive general alive for the entire battle phase (30 minutes) will allow the defending team to win.
Defensive general will flag players as Special Forces, if they persist in attacking him. A warning window will be displayed for attacking a general and not being Special Forces.
The Planetary Map for the appropriate planet will show the current phase that Bestine, Dearic, or Keren is currently in (construction, combat or occupation).
Factional Helper
Neutral players can become factional helper to help their favorite faction.
Use the command browser, /factionalHelper slash command, a faction recruiter, an invading city General or a city defensive Field Commander NPC to access the factional helper system.
There is a 30 minutes cooldown once you have stopped helping one side before you can start helping the other side. You can still immediately help the side that you most recently stopped helping.
If you are a Special Forces factional helper, you will be automatically changed to Combatant factional helper upon cloning.
Factional Presence
If you are factional special forces (NOT factional helper special forces), "actively" playing the game, not cloaked/incapped/dead, and out in the world in a GCW contested region, each minute, for risking life and limb to provide factional presence/patrolling the GCW contested region, you will automatically provide a nominal amount of points to the GCW score for your faction for the contested area. The amount of points is proportionate to the character level, plus a 10% bonus for each GCW rank.
Factional presence is only granted if you (or if mounted, your vehicle/mount) are on the ground out in the world. This means that factional presence is not granted if you (or if mounted, your vehicle/mount) are in/on any part of a structure (like entrance steps, roof, balcony, theater stage, etc), or on a bridge, or in a garden, or in the bazaar/bank plaza, or on a storyteller platform, etc.
A "GCW Factional Presence" radial menu has been added to the War Terminal and the War Intel Pad that displays a window showing the GCW contested regions that currently have factional presence activity.
Player City Factional Alignment
The mayor can set the city's factional alignment from the city's management terminal.
There is a 1 day wait to switch the city's factional alignment. There is no wait to align with the same faction that the city most recently aligned with.
The city's factional alignment is displayed in the city's status window and in the announcement message when you enter the city's borders.
If factional presence (see above) occurs within the borders of a same aligned player city (i.e. the player city overlaps the GCW contested region, and the factional presence occurs in the overlap area), there is a 100% bonus, plus a 10% bonus per city rank, plus a 5% bonus per year of city age.
Travel Perks And Restrictions:
Once a planet is 70% controlled by a faction, the following travel perks and restrictions will apply to GCW officers. To repeat, GCW travel perks and restrictions only apply to GCW officers.
GCW officers of the controlling faction will have 0 shuttle wait time.
GCW officers of the losing faction can only board every other shuttle, or pay a 50000 credits surcharge (each time) to avoid waiting for every other shuttle.
GCW officers of the losing faction must pay a surcharge for shuttle travel if either the departure or the arrival planet is 70% controlled by the opposing faction, whichever is greater. The amount of surcharge is 500 credits for each % above 70%.
If the planet has more than 1 Starport, only 1 Starport will be available for interplanetary ticket travel (both outgoing and incoming) to GCW officers of the losing faction. The 1 Starport that is available is the one that is least controlled by the controlling faction.
User Interface
The Galactic Civil War Information Screen:
A new button has been added to the button bar. The Galactic Civil War screen is THE location to get all the information you need to see what's going on in your part of the world, or how the war is going in other galaxies and the final score across all galaxies.
This screen can also be brought up with the /gcwInfo command.
The Galactic Travel Map:
The planet map has been updated to show areas that affect the outcome of the Galactic Civil War as well as the score for that current zone.
Areas currently under rebel control will show up as a rebel insignia, imperial control shows up as an imperial insignia, and 50/50 zones are shown with a contested insignia.
You can prevent the Galactic Civil War zones from showing up on your planet map by simply unchecking the "Show GCW Contested Zones" option on the Planet Map window.
Miscellaneous
Spawns will now be affected by a regions GCW score. The higher the score is in a region, the more likely you will be to see troops from the faction that is currently winning.
There are new collections tied to the GCW city invasions.
GCW points directly affect some planetary spawns and are properly represented on the war terminal.
Mon Calamari Cruisers or Star Destroyers will appear in the sky of a planet, depending on who is winning. The more your side is winning by, the more ships you'll see.
Battlefields
Replaced the original two story battlefield bunkers with reworked single story bunkers to address the line-of-sight issues caused by pvp'ing in those buildings.
There's a metric crapton more in the way of notes and new content, such as including actual functioning AT-AT's ingame now, and the rebels having their own counter to the AT-AT (AT-XT) for invading cities, but I took the most relevant notes in the interests of expediency and linked them here. See below for the rest.
Also, a recent content update added in zombies, a zombie plague, a new dungeon, a new quarantined area, and a crapload of other stuff, as a tie-in to a recent Star Wars book, Death Troopers. Contrary to what you might think, the content update is actually pretty damned awesome.
There's also an even more recent update that pertains to piracy and apparently lets smugglers earn "contraband", but noone except for smugglers cares about that. And we all know that Lucas hates smugglers anyways.
For those interested, here's some pictures of the new content updates.
Screenshots:
Links:
The official patch notes for Game Update 15:
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/en_US/players/content.vm?page=Current%20update#gu150
The official patch notes for Game Update 16:
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/en_US/players/content.vm?page=Current%20update#gu160
The wiki entry for the new PVP system:
http://swg.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Civil_War_Update
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*edit* bug fixes in the patch on 4-27-2010, the updated jedi stuff won't be until the following week
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
which I find incredibly useful. A lot of people still run at 1024 by 768, which would cause the break.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
The game would be playable and even intensely enjoyable if they just made ONE new server. That's all.
98% of ANY joy that can be derived from SWG will eventually, at some point, be canceled out by the fact that you are hopelessly behind the curve in the economy simulation.
Coincidentally, this fact has forced SWG devs to do a lot of ham handed things to solve problems that would be easily solved by a character wipe or a new server.
I want SWG to be good, but SOE does not. So. There's that.
What's more, resource locations change regularly, so you can't camp the best resources either, meaning there's no real intangible "veterancy" bonus unless you have a supply of extremely high end resources or weaponry that are no longer creatable ingame. And even then, I can't think of anything like that that'd be ingame currently since the CU days when spice was removed, meaning that you wouldn't have to worry about that either.
On top of that, alot of really good items come from PVE/PVP now. In my opinion crafting is mostly useful as a way to get kickass armor or to tweak weaponry to make sure it's optimized. Though, I play a Jedi, so I don't have to deal with crafters as often.
That's not to say that crafters get the shit end of the stick however, since alot of equally good items are also craftable too. But if you're willing to dump the time into it, you can get some stupidly powerful items through chronicle collections and dungeon raiding. In fact, that's how alot of the highest tier Jedi items are obtained nowadays.
On a side-note, Jedi sort of had a behind the scenes revamp last time I played.
Jedi players at cap have alot of earnable items through chronicle collections and other similar PVE/PVP "quests". They're never publically mentioned by a NPC, but alot of the really good gear you can get as a Jedi is only available by going on little pilgrimages across the galaxy to find the right items. It definitely keeps the asshole "I'M A JEDI!" folks from getting too numerous since not everyone is willing to dump the time or effort in to getting the best cloak in the game, or something similar.
This is a patented lie, unless you are suggesting that you can make millions of credits now simply by botting, which you can't unless you win the lottery and someone tips you that much.
Oh yeah, what about those guys who DO have those and as a result have so much money that they literally can't make anymore money because there's a cap (not anymore actually, thanks to that laughable "reserve" system), who inflate the economy badly and have months or years worth of 99% quality inventory built up.
No, you just have to deal with a huge collection mini-game that the billionaires will just buy their way through overnight on behalf of their twink character.
You conveniently make crafting and collection sound like they are just things you do on your lunchbreak. Crafting takes weeks or months to get anything that someone will actually buy, and that's if you get handouts from the guys who are both rich and bored, or you buy a million units of ore for 10 credits from some guy who is quitting.
What's more, combat classes have areas they can go too to get items that sell extremely well as well, like high end Krayt pearls, which are constantly in demand from people who want to optimize their DPS. As an example, a perfect krayt pearl will net you a crap-ton of money on the open market if you make the proper advertisements and don't let someone trick you into selling it for less.
I've never encountered someone who capped the monetary system before. There may be crafters out there with 99% gear stocked up, but i'll be damned if I can find them on SS. What's more, the economy isn't inflated either. I've yet to be unable to afford something that I needed.
Granted, this depends on what stores you frequent, if you have a selection, and what server you're on, but Starsider is the most populated server out there, and i've never encountered absurd inflation rates (Which is really more price gouging from traders who are trying to trick people. It's no different from some guy putting up a grey item on the WoW AH for 9000 gold.) that I couldn't get around.
A fair number of the high end collection items are bind on pickup, or are limited in some way that it's only worth your time to sell them if you're opening a collection shop and want a side-business. Never encountered this problem with my Jedi(s) either.
Not saying you can't buy your way to victory with some items, but honestly, who gives a fuck? At the end of the day the items they have, and the items you have aren't going to be different from each other if you both do the collection quests. What'll matter is how good you are at crafting sabers, which requires much more in the way of knowledge, then it does having a large wallet.
Outside of some really hardcore collection items, collections are something you can do on your lunchbreak. Most of them involve going to a location, and either finding something, or killing the shit out of a group of mobs until the item drops. It's not rocket science.
Crafting requires a large time investment, yes. But once you get started and get your feet underneath you, you're not going to be "beneath" anyone else, because they have roughly the same resources you do. There's always variations in the quality of resources since the placement of them is completely randomized each time they're moved, but that's to be expected. It's part of the game. If you keep up to date on the game, you'll prosper. If not, you'll fall behind par when compared to other, more active crafters and end up losing money over a longer period of time. I've seen it happen to oldbies as well as new players. There's nothing wrong with that system.
personally, I play this game with my brother so we can enjoy the star wars environment, go on some interesting quests involving said environment, fly around in x-wings and blow shit up, and other stuff that just makes star wars fun (how many times can you make the "this is not the droid you're looking for" joke and it still be funny? Don't know, haven't hit the limit yet.) This game probably isn't for everyone, but it's not nearly the plague-bearing corpse a lot of people proclaim it to be either.
If you want to play the lottery of get rich quick, space loot also gives a change to end up with an awesome gun/engine/shield/whatever that the space Pvpers will fall all over themselves trying to get from you, while space itself is and always has been a place that pays more than it costs. Or try farming for collections peices, another prayer for luck, and possibly end up rich. or if you REALLy want to play the lotto, buying TCG cards and selling the loot for big bucks is the SWG approved credit buying way.
Ents do make money easy, I know I'm a low tipper but every time I get buffed the ent gets at least 20k. 30k if they're a dude, 40k if they're wearing clothes. Multiply that by maybe 100 people a day, and even at the lowest end of the tipping spectrum, ents can be very, very rich.
I wouldn't call the game a plague bearing corpse. It's more like an STD bearing prositute. Sure, you'll have to get some ointment, but you can have fun with it.
Swordsman and TK are both gone, as is Bio Engineer, you may pick from one of the 7 iconic Star Wars classes now
Jedi
Smuggler
Medic
Officer
Bounty Hunter
Trader
Entertainer
Think that's all of them. If you don't go in expecting it to be old SWG you may enjoy it. Not sure on the resurecton, seems every few months I get a come back free email.
SW:Tor - Tao - Kryatt Dragon Server
The fact that you were a launch day subscriber though means that you will get free vet rewards, which you can sell to stop being dirt poor. Also, you likely have some no-longer-obtainable items that you can also sell for money. Pet snakes, Gruals, Rancors and Rasps will take you from broke to billionair, as will Nightsister Arm Bands and anything from the dathomir FS Village. If you come back, make sure to check you servers trade forums and bazaar.
TK and swordman are gone, however you can pick up smuggler and take the melee skills and thus be a guy who kicks ass with a sword and a knuckler.
Bioengineer is gone, however both beast using and beast crafting were readded, they are now in the beastmater tab. Crafting beasts takes a long time, and takes a LOT of money to get started. As well as being a rather complex process that requires items from 4 different crafter types to make the high end creatures, it also requires items looted from beasts, items extracted from dead beasts, and items randomly /foraged.
Also, depending on what server you were on, your server could now be DEAD. However, dead servers have free transfers availible, the option will present itself as soon as you log on. If you have a free transfer, check and see which servers are active. Currently the most active server is Starsider. If you choose to move to Starsider, and have any spice, let me know, I'll buy it from you
MY 10k Cu Pa and my 10k tusk cat aren't even worth stuffing
Do some research on the trade forums on which rewards sell best on your server and claim and sell those.
Things like free resource crates and some of the minis sell really well. And don't delete anything you had in your inventory untill you find out what it's worth, even the silliest of things is sometimes worth $texas in SWG.
SW:Tor - Tao - Kryatt Dragon Server
Exactly. Do you have any idea how much cash you can get for a Maroj Melon or a Loaf of Bread? Y'know, the things noobs started with. Around 20 million last time I checked. For a MELON.
There's a lot of things that pre-CU and pre-NGE were common as cockroaches and worthless as shit, but now are no longer obtainable, and therefor worth $texas. Armor shards, stupid pets, junk loot, ewok spleens, microscopes, corsec badges, locked containers... check everything. Everything, even if you think it's trash.
Suddenly I recall when there were live entertainers, actually trying to provide entertainment through their presence, not just people botting.
Ah, glorious days they were.
Back in the day, you could max 2 trees, is this still possible, or is it all or nothing? I see up to free monthly respecs, money spent if you respec more than 1/month. This is very exciting. I want to play a sith, but commando also looks tempting and i simply Have to try medic.
Also you may not be aware, but now you can have two characters per server (three, if you are an elder jedi).
Before NGE yeah, so holocron or village grind jedi.
So either they afk'd professions or afk'd quenkers
SW:Tor - Tao - Kryatt Dragon Server
I just farmed elders and darktroopers and sold Holocron's. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
SW:Tor - Tao - Kryatt Dragon Server
The 30k resource kit was a once per lifetime/per account choice last I played.
But that was about a year ago now, so it may have changed.
SW:Tor - Tao - Kryatt Dragon Server
That's how it is nowadays now, actually. The post-NGE developer team put in a AFK check, so entertainers can't bot anymore while handing out buffs. Meaning every buffing entertainer you meet is also at their computer desk, watching the screen.
there are still ways to do it. There's a guy in Bria server botting entertainer buffs in the Mos Eisley starport most days. Usually I go and get buffs from him before heading out to do whatever (and he is afk... because he's listed as afk, and he's got the constant chat spam of the macros he's using).
He's probably using a third party program or exploit then, provided I haven't missed an ingame command or an update that lets you bypass it somehow. I recall the AFK check system as being impossible to get by through normal ingame means.
At the very least, it's probably illegal to do. The whole reason as to why the AFK check for entertainers was put in was to eliminate AFK bot entertainers, and force them to start socializing again.
It is notable that medics have no such AFK check, it being kind of hard to enforce something like that on a combat class. You can find a AFK medic who will put a full stack of buffs on you, and turn you into a killing machine, in pretty much every major starport nowadays.