Virtual Worlds: First Blog

The first project assigned to our class this term was to create a “toon” on Lord of the Rings Online. Now Lord of the Rings Online is the first virtual world that we will be studying this term and learning how they work is learned best through actually playing the game. But before you begin you must create a toon or avatar for you to play as. You can create them to look a variety of different ways. And in LOTRO depending what you choose for your character will determine their strengths, weaknesses and job in the virtual world.

The most important decisions you can make while creating your LOTRO avatar is made when choosing their race, class and skills. I personally decided to play as a character from the man race. I liked the other races (and I knew I did not want to be a dwarf for sure) but I also knew that elves would probably be pretty popular. At first I wanted to make my character be a Lore Master. A Lore Master is a class you can choose that has your character using magic to fight instead of weapons or other objects, "The Lore-master uses his knowledge of ancient wisdom to attack his foes or to ease the suffering of his companions. He can even communicate with animals and request their aid, and also use his knowledge to daze, harm, and hinder his enemies." I knew it would be harder to do that a hunter (which was my other option) but I thought it would be fun. Only elves and man can be a Lore Master, which is also why I ended up choosing to play as a man. I also changed my characters physical appearance do my liking, which was quite fun (due to the many options I had to choose from). This is what she first looked like.

 Yet what I first started playing, I realized that it was quite hard to play as a Lore Master. Lore Master's are under the "advanced" character. So I decided to create a second character (who looks the same) and choose a "basic" level. After I figure out to play the game a little better then I would go back and play as my Lore Master character. This time I chose to play as a Guardian. A Guardian is described as, "The Guardian is the class of choice for players who enjoy hard- fought battles and heavy hand-to-hand combat. The Guardian is one of the few classes willing and able to draw blows onto himself, and can retaliate with devastating response. A Guardian uses taxing attacks and irksome taunts to draw and hold opponents’ attention, relying on his shield and weapon to turn aside incoming attacks with blocks and parries." I started playing, and so far I am on level 7, so it is going well.

Now, according to Richard Bartel, there are four types of players in virtual worlds. Hearts (socialisers), spades (explorers), clubs (killers) and diamonds (achievers). I personally think that I will mostly be in the diamond and spades group because I like doing small tasks to level up my character and exploring the lands. Hopefully playing in the world of LOTRO will be a ton of fun. I am looking forward to learning more about the game as I keep playing it.