Jean 'Druidsfire' Prior
New Member
This came about during back-channel discussions during or after Professor Corey's Exploring Lord of the Rings class, where members of our Signum community expressed that they wanted to join folks in-game but were too intimidated by the notion of installing and playing LotRO. There are a number of 'LotRO for Beginners' videos, guides, wikis, what have you out there, but every single one so far has approached the topic under the basic assumption that their audience were at least somewhat experienced gamers. This doesn't work for the wider Signum academic community who would not currently self-identify as a gamer.
The solution was obvious, and thus with the good Professor's consent, I will be hosting a series on the SignumU Twitch channel called LotRO 101, where I will present a different kind of beginner's guide, one geared toward teaching academics such as our community how to play the MMO. We're going to drill down to the basics and work our way up one step at a time. We'll begin at the beginning: how to create an account, how to install the game, where to go for help. We'll cover basic gaming terms, common acronyms, and review every bit of the game's user interface. There will be in-depth discussions of gameplay, how to create a character, basics tutorials on each class, cautionary tales, and more. As each session progresses, we'll add to your knowledge until by the end of the course, you will feel confident in your ability to navigate the game at your own pace. There will also be some gameplay sessions, slides, and an invitation to play along at home.
Each session will start with a set lecture but will open up for questions at the end, either on the session's topic, or unrelated game questions. Sessions are expected to be approximately 1 to 2 hours long, and will air on twitch.tv/signumu. The current timeslot for the show is slated for 4 pm Eastern on every Saturday once the course starts, hopefully a friendly time for much of our worldwide community. For those who can't make that time or miss a session, I will be archiving them on Twitch like I do all our shows, but it will be up to the others on the digital team whether they will get uploaded to YouTube. There will not be a gotowebinar or talan for this, I'm sorry to say. I'm not as skilled as the good Professor in juggling so many different chats at once, so I intend to keep it simple for my own sanity's sake and limit it to Twitch chat and Discord. I've created a new channel in our Discord called (surprisingly) LotRO 101, and will post news and answer questions there as necessary. I haven't scheduled the first session yet as I'm still working out the syllabus, but I look forward to the opportunity to get it going soon (tm).
Jean Prior, aka Druidsfire
SignumU Twitch Director and LotRO Founder and Lifetime Member
The solution was obvious, and thus with the good Professor's consent, I will be hosting a series on the SignumU Twitch channel called LotRO 101, where I will present a different kind of beginner's guide, one geared toward teaching academics such as our community how to play the MMO. We're going to drill down to the basics and work our way up one step at a time. We'll begin at the beginning: how to create an account, how to install the game, where to go for help. We'll cover basic gaming terms, common acronyms, and review every bit of the game's user interface. There will be in-depth discussions of gameplay, how to create a character, basics tutorials on each class, cautionary tales, and more. As each session progresses, we'll add to your knowledge until by the end of the course, you will feel confident in your ability to navigate the game at your own pace. There will also be some gameplay sessions, slides, and an invitation to play along at home.
Each session will start with a set lecture but will open up for questions at the end, either on the session's topic, or unrelated game questions. Sessions are expected to be approximately 1 to 2 hours long, and will air on twitch.tv/signumu. The current timeslot for the show is slated for 4 pm Eastern on every Saturday once the course starts, hopefully a friendly time for much of our worldwide community. For those who can't make that time or miss a session, I will be archiving them on Twitch like I do all our shows, but it will be up to the others on the digital team whether they will get uploaded to YouTube. There will not be a gotowebinar or talan for this, I'm sorry to say. I'm not as skilled as the good Professor in juggling so many different chats at once, so I intend to keep it simple for my own sanity's sake and limit it to Twitch chat and Discord. I've created a new channel in our Discord called (surprisingly) LotRO 101, and will post news and answer questions there as necessary. I haven't scheduled the first session yet as I'm still working out the syllabus, but I look forward to the opportunity to get it going soon (tm).
Jean Prior, aka Druidsfire
SignumU Twitch Director and LotRO Founder and Lifetime Member