Article: Starting a new character

This is always an inevitable thing which can often cause much frustration and in short, one giant headache. We’re always trying to figure out “What kind of character should I start next?” and then the part which gets even more frustrating “what am I going to name this character?” After this, I’m hoping that your decision is made a little easier.

PvP vs PvE
When you start creating a new character, your first decision is will your character be PvP (person vs. person) or PvE (person vs. environment). Many of us know what kind of character that we’re planning on going for right off the bat. Being that most of The Knights of Mysterania’s players play PvE, many of us just automatically make a PvE character. However, what many people do not realize is that any skill that is unlocked in PvE is also unlocked in PvP. For this reason, I would personally suggest trying to unlock as many skills as you can before playing around with PvP so that you can gain a variety of skills and you’re not stuck with just a few.

Campaign
Your next decision is what campaign are you going to start off in. If you have in mind a profession (such as Ritualist, Assassin, Paragon, or Dervish) that you want to try, then you might be limited on what your starting campaign is. However, if you’re not sure what profession you’re looking to try out, then your options are open. You just need to remember that each campaign has its advantages and disadvantages.

Prophesies: Although your character will level up considerably slowly (in other words, it may take more than a week of an hour of playing everyday to level your character to level 20) however, your skills are free. This also means that gold is doesn’t drop as much.

Factions: Although your character levels considerably faster and it might only take two days (one if you play without breaks) to reach level twenty, you must buy all of your additional skills. After the ones that you receive from the beginning with your six trainers, you must buy each and every skill that you need/want. However, you are heavily compensated for the amount of gold that you spend on your skills and armor by the amount that you get during quests. You are also given credits towards free stuff and everyone loves free stuff.

Nightfall: Like Factions, you must buy your skills however, you are once again compensated by earning gold and/or crafting materials for completing quests. It is also much slower in terms of levelling your character but not as long as Prophesies. Gold also usually drops more frequently. You also start out with heroes and they level with you so the levelling is usually a little more even than getting them when you’re level 20 and they’re five levels below you.


Profession
Now for the hard part for some, the profession! Many people rush into a profession like it’s no problem. Most of the time, I see that it’s a fad to make that kind of character at that time, especially with the younger players. Usually it’s because someone has made up a dynamite build that everyone has to try for themselves or has gotten cool looking armor. Yes, I’m referring to the Monk and Dervish Epidemics that happened in a certain guild that I was once in almost a year ago where it became the in thing to be playing a monk and/or a dervish so everyone had to make a new monk and/or dervish.

Now, I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to make a character because of a fad. After all, monks are difficult to play as and it made many who swore they’d never be a spell caster create one and give it a chance, not necessarily saying that the chance was a fair chance. However, beware of fads since they tend to last for a few weeks before moving on to the next profession.

Another way to choose your next profession is to look at your heroes. Ask yourself “what hero is the worst?” The reason this hero tends to be your worst is because you lack the available skills to make a build that will actually work. The way to make skills available to your heroes is by unlocking them. The easiest way to unlock skills is by becoming that profession and playing through the game, unlocking as many skills as you possibly can. Often times, you find that you will not be sorry for this strategy.

Did you previously delete a character from a certain campaign because you got frustrated with it? Perhaps you should try the same character but this time, in a totally different campaign. Some times the faster levelling Process can give you a whole new outlook on your character

The last way that I can suggest to choose the profession that you screamed “I will never make a <insert profession here>.” It does sound funny but sometimes, the one you scream that you will never be is your best profession. Take it from the voice of experience, this can happen.

Appearance
Now, there’s no real answer to this. Make him or her how YOU want them to look. Male or female, it doesn’t make a difference unless you are one of those people who will ONLY make characters of one gender. Just make him/her the way you want them to look.

Name
Now here’s probably the worst part of the whole thing. What are you going to name this brand new character? There is the approach of naming your characters after something or someone special to you (kids, deceased pets, live pets, etc). However sooner or later, you’re bound to use up all of those names (assuming that you don’t have more than six kids or pets).

I know this goes without saying but DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE YOUR REAL NAME! I know many of the more mature people are saying “well DUH” however, one would be AMAZED how often I see kids using their real names for their characters.

My last suggestion for names: www.babynames.com
I know this sounds weird and if you’re a female gamer, difficult to explain to anyone else who is using that browser and sees that web address but it works. I have put together some names just by choosing a country and going with traditional names.

I hope this has made it easier to create your next character. I wish you luck and remember, you always have a guild to help you come up with different ideas.