Practicum Post 2: Avatar & Village Building - Miller

I should begin this post by saying that I had absolutely zero online gaming experience prior to starting this project. Not only did this make things difficult while choosing a game, but it also proved to be a challenge when I actually started playing Travian. Regardless, I did my best to jump right into the game and set up my avatar and village as quickly as possible.

I started the process by registering my account and choosing a server. I ended up choosing the default server (Server 7) because it had been started 12 days prior and therefore included other users that were just beginning to play as well. Also, it should be noted that Travian is a free browser game (so feel free to play along!).

After registering, Travian walked me through the beginning stages of selecting a tribe, choosing a village starting location, and creating an avatar. There were a few different tribes to choose from, but I ended up going with the 'Gauls'. This tribe was advertised as having low time requirements, better 'loot' protection and good defense available early, a very good calvary, and it was known for being an overall good tribe for new players. All of these aspects appealed to me, so choosing the Gauls was a relatively easy choice. Next, the game had me choose a village starting location. I ended up going with the default location, the Southeast, because I really had no idea what the differences between locations were. Finally, Travian allowed me to personalize my avatar! I could change the appearance of his head, the color of his hair, his hair style, the look of his ears, how his eyebrows were formed, the color of his eyes, the shape of this nose, the style of his mouth, and the fullness of his beard. Individualizing my avatar was one of the my favorite parts of the game so far.

Now that I completed the setup of my account and avatar, I was able to begin completing the beginners-level 'Quests' that Travian gives. My first Quest was to set up a woodcutter in one of the four forests that surrounds my village. At this point I became very confused and a little frustrated with the lack of intuitiveness in the game. I was forced to look to outside sources (gaming forums online) to be able to figure out how to complete the task. I should also note that the game forced me to complete the tasks in order, so I could not move onto the next one without first setting up the woodcutter. In addition, I had to have a minimum level of production/resources in order to complete each Quest, so I was forced to wait in between each task for my level of resources to increase. After finally figuring out how to construct a woodcutter (and waiting again for my level of resources to increase), I had to complete two more tasks of naming my village and setting up a wheat field.

I am currently waiting to complete Quest 4 (building a rally point) and will provide an update on this in my next post.