Roleplaying

Valhalla Lost is a role-playing encouraged shard. You do not have to roleplay but please be considerate to those that do.

Roleplaying is best described as a personification of a character that either did exist in the time period you wish to portray or the personality of the character that you wish to be. While in-game, you are that character and will act, talk and behave as how that character would. Here are a few guidelines to creating your character.

Give them a first and last name. The first is their given name, identifying who they are. The second is often their family name that could be shared among others or given what they would like to do or accomplished. Fantasy names are often made up of two words to describe the character. For example: a warrior could be named Einvar Bloodmaker; a bard could be named Euston Songmaster or an orc could be named Enger Trollslayer. This name gives us the identity of the character, as in Einvar Bloodmaker, automatically telling us that their first name is Norse in tradition and that he is very bloodthirsty or creates bloody wakes in their passing. Of course, one does not need to give a traditional fantasy name. They can have a unique or family last name such as Koala Pepe, Mace Masterdon, Thomas Trapman or Keith Pindleskin. One naming convention that is often frowned upon is using the name of a well-known literary figure such as calling yourself Legolas.

• There are plenty of naming generators online and will even give you ideas for race-specific names.

By wearing certain clothing and/or apparel, you set yourself apart from others by being unique. Some prefer to pick colors as according to your race. For example, elves prefer forest-type colors so you may not want to pick a bright orange for your robe. Einvar is a very strong warrior and thus doesn't believe he needs to wear a helmet due to his ability of shrugging off his enemy's attempts at harming him. Instead, he just wears a bear mask from one of his past kills.

If you have pets and henchmen, name them accordingly [to do this, drag the name bar off the pet and click the name portion of their status bar to edit their name]. Einvar has a trusty steed that he has had since a young man, named Aelfed, and a follower that he teaches his prowess to, named Halfwur.

Finally, and the most important of roleplaying, is how you speak and behave. It is important to remember that you are not your character. Your character is living in Valhalla and thus certain things are off-limits such as talking about a tv show or what is happening on youtube. Try to talk as how your character would talk as if you were actually there in the game. Use terms your character would use, or speak in the language of your race. For example, Einvar has just met a young dwarf at the gardens and says: "By Thor! Tis a pleasure ter meet you."

Behavior is also an important aspect of roleplaying, which also goes along with speech. Try to behave in-game as your character would actually behave in-game. If someone else says something that is funny, do not use texting abbreviations such as LOL or if you need to go somewhere, say BRB. This is where emotes come in. By using ": " (colon space), you will be able to emote something. So typing in : laughs, you would see *laughs* above your head. Emotes can show a lot of your behavior and try to emote what you are doing. For example, *I am going to the bathroom* is not an emote but *falls asleep* is appropriate. This will increase others knowledge of how role playing is accomplished and increase the amount of people that will role play with you.

Another way to role play would be to have certain things your character does. For example, Einvar is an expert healer and even though he may be hurt, he cares more for those comrades he has in battle. Thus in raids and quests, he will heal others until he absolutely has to heal himself.

Now that you have taken the first steps to roleplaying, it is time to set up your profile. In Valhalla Lost, there is a command that lets us "look" over a person. Type .look and target yourself or another person. If you target yourself, you will be able to edit your profile. Add in things a person would first notice about you, such as you always smile, you prefer to brood, you're in a grumpy mood or you're clenching your sword tightly due to mad battlelust. If you target another person, you will be able to see their profile, letting you know all the things about their character before they even talk to him/her.

Tips on Roleplaying

Be the person in the game based on your race and class. You do not have to follow exact guidelines but make it your own character.

When you first approach a new person, you do not know their name even though it shows above their head. In the real world, we do not all wear nametags identifying us to strangers. Take a minute or two to say hello to them and introduce yourself.

If approaching a veteran player, try using .look first to get an idea of who they are and how they are behaving. Their avatar in-game might just be standing there but their [.look] may say: you notice they are constantly fidgeting and biting their nails.

Adjust your perfect english to that of what your character would say. For example, an orc would not say: Let's all go down to the beach and go fishing. Instead, they would likely say: Targar wan go beech and eaten fesh. Don't be afraid to stereotype your character a bit.

Being overly rude is not roleplaying.

Have fun with it. Remember, you're being someone else so be that person.