Robin Torres wrote about children playing wow: "what about the innocent little ones who spam duels or ask for quest help or beg for money, because they don't know any better, and get lambasted by perfectly nice players who don't know they are talking to children instead of grown funsuckers?"
She, and lot of others warn that many of my "M&S" are kids or otherwise disabled people who are not responsible for being useless.
Well, I don't care. Everyone is responsible for his actions or someone else is lawfully responsible. Every kid has a parent who must take care of him and take responsibility for his actions. I don't care if the M&S I /ignore for spamming group invite is a 10 years old kid, or a grown loser. He spammed me, I ignored him. If I hurt the feelings of a kid, too bad. If he runs to mummy crying, maybe "mummy" notice that she has a child to nurture.
Well, I don't care. Everyone is responsible for his actions or someone else is lawfully responsible. Every kid has a parent who must take care of him and take responsibility for his actions. I don't care if the M&S I /ignore for spamming group invite is a 10 years old kid, or a grown loser. He spammed me, I ignored him. If I hurt the feelings of a kid, too bad. If he runs to mummy crying, maybe "mummy" notice that she has a child to nurture.
Let's put it straight: if you let your small (less than 14) child play in a competitive environment with adults without constant supervision, and he gets hurt by other players because of his incompetence, you suck at being parent. These kids should not be here. If we help them level up, we just make them stay at the cost of our own time.
The larger kids on the other hand should learn that nothing is for free, no one will tolerate them being noobs. Learn and be better! Stand on your own feet! That's what he must learn and we can teach him this simpy by refusing boosting and take advantage on their dumbness. For example the best time to farm honor is Saturday-Sunday late morning-afternoon. It's weird. I just go there and grind like they were some lvl75 mobs (of course I still go for win, just grind them around objectives).
However I also got an idea about spamming duels. I posted a suggestion on the EU forum to add an "ignore player" button to group invite, duel, trade, sign guild charter interfaces to get rid of these annoying pests. Please support this suggestion.
If you make a clone on the US forum, write the link in comment and I insert it here so US players can also support it.
PS: Olga has a point in comment that it's better if the kid is exposed to the "bad" world in the game than in real life, as no physical damage can be received. Maybe it's true, especially if the the parent is available to answer the kid's questions "why do they kick me from raid and tell I suck with 1200 DPS?". However it has no obligation for us. We don't have to be nice with the kid, especially since we are the "bad world" he has to learn about.
The larger kids on the other hand should learn that nothing is for free, no one will tolerate them being noobs. Learn and be better! Stand on your own feet! That's what he must learn and we can teach him this simpy by refusing boosting and take advantage on their dumbness. For example the best time to farm honor is Saturday-Sunday late morning-afternoon. It's weird. I just go there and grind like they were some lvl75 mobs (of course I still go for win, just grind them around objectives).
However I also got an idea about spamming duels. I posted a suggestion on the EU forum to add an "ignore player" button to group invite, duel, trade, sign guild charter interfaces to get rid of these annoying pests. Please support this suggestion.
If you make a clone on the US forum, write the link in comment and I insert it here so US players can also support it.
PS: Olga has a point in comment that it's better if the kid is exposed to the "bad" world in the game than in real life, as no physical damage can be received. Maybe it's true, especially if the the parent is available to answer the kid's questions "why do they kick me from raid and tell I suck with 1200 DPS?". However it has no obligation for us. We don't have to be nice with the kid, especially since we are the "bad world" he has to learn about.
52 comments:
"many of my "M&S" are kids or otherwise disabled people"
This line alone made my day already :D
/ignore should also remove the players' character model from your view of the world.
Gevlon:
You've said you want corrections on your English. You have a world misspelled. You used a world meaning "narrow" instead of one meaning "properly ordered".
"Let's put it strait: if you let..."
This should read:
"Let's put it straight: If you let..."
I have two smaller nephews age 13 and 10.
Both play WOW and there parents has no idea what they are doing or why they play this game.
I think they have learned a LOT, going from typical M&S to decent well behaved players.
I also think they use what they learned IRL :-)
Qas
I completely agree. There's a husband and wife in our guild who let their 10 year old play and they strictly supervise his playtime, if he's on Ventrilo with us they make sure we limit the 'adult' topics. And it shows, rather than their kid being a M&S that they carry through Naxx alt runs, he carries more than his own weight in DPS and just playing properly.
On the subject of English and grammar, I'd suggest "Does being a kid matter?" or maybe "Is the fact they're kids matter?" for the title.
My kids are 13, 10 and 7. English is not their first language. The 13 year old has two lvl 80 chars and he PuG-raids Ulduar in full Naxx-gear now. The 10 and 7 years old mainly quests and does BGs in various 20-45 lvl chars. I constantly educate them in english, netiquette and general player-to-player behaviour (the younger have standing "orders" to deny group invites unless I'm with them).
As I'm sure you can understand this is where I disagree strongly with you:
Let's put it strait: if you let your small (less than 14) child play in a competitive environment with adults without constant supervision, you suck at being parent.
Being a "non-social" guy myself I can generally agree with you on various topics, or at least understand your sentiments. This is crossing the line though. You do not tell people that they suck at being a parent because some kids annoy you. Period.
There is an addon called "AutoDecline" (I think) that will automatically decline such things as guild charters, duels, group invites etc from anyone not on your friends/guild list. Nothing more annoying than being in AH or Bank or Mail and someone throws up a Charter in your face, closing all other windows when in the middle of doing something else. It isn't a perfect solution, but for my last month of playtime on an anonymous unguilded alt, was a god-send.
And I do agree that parents need to be more aware of what their kids are doing on the computer.
I quit WoW a couple of weeks ago, but still enjoy reading your blog. Thanks for your insights. :)
@Mike:
"This is crossing the line though. You do not tell people that they suck at being a parent because some kids annoy you. Period."
If you think about it for a minute, you'd see that they are not bad parents because the kids annoy Gevlon per definition.
If they're that young, for example 10, and parents leave them unsupervised in an environment with many potential unsuitable situations. That's where parents fail.
It's a new version of the older: parents should not let tv (or games) raise their children.
@Anonymous
You can't supervise your children all the time, and you'll have to let life teach them. Unsuitable situations in WoW are much less dangerous and unpleasant than such situations at school or toher places where your kid will have to deal with them. Through game child can learn how to do it and when to let his parents know and help - better in game, than in real life.
@anonymous correcting Gevlon
Gevlon 'used a world'. Yes. A world indeed.
@Anonymous:
Gevlons statement was in my opinin a gross generalization. He was essentially saying that all parents who let their kids (under 14) play WoW without constant supervision suck at being parents. You generalize in the other direction. Of course no responsible parent lets TV or games raise their kids. My point is that there are responsible parents who will let their kids play WoW under certain conditions, parents that don't "suck".
I'll give it to you though that there are a lot of irresponsible parents out there...
Correction:
Mikae should be Mike in the comment above.
Hey Ghost :)
Love your blog, and I agree with your views on kids under 14...
I myself am only 14 but I'm in a decent ulduar raiding guild, and am not really a social player. I'm one of if not the best dps in my guild and I take this game seriously, and definitely don't fuck around in raids or do less than 1200 dps. However when I see kids my age do 1k dps on death knights at 80 and they QQ about their class or call me sad as I go 3x their dps it seriously gets on my nerves. Nice post!
Amen. Well Said. Good parents should not let their kids play this game. Good parents should not play WoW either.
In regards to your suggestion, there are addons that can automatically cancel duel or guild character requests, such as Automaton. I'm not sure if there's an addon that would automatically ignore those players as well, but it shouldn't be hard to adapt that code to do it.
Mike,
I have to agree with Gevlon. Although perhaps let me try qualify his statement a little more. It seems there are some points in his message which should be assumed.
It is understood that you probably shouldn't stand over your child's shoulder the WHOLE time while playing WOW. The point is, parents who do not educate themselves first (if they do not play) and then sit down with their kids and explain simple rules of "human interaction" like don't be a damn parasite and pull your own weight ***ARE*** failures at parenting. These are life lessons not only to be applied to wow BUT also to the world in general.
As a secondary point, obviously the younder the child, the more supervision the parent should give until they see that the child has "acclimated" to the society, may it be wow or real life.
The point is having kids just for the hell of it and not training your offspring how to interact with other human beings is a PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY, not the schools, not wow's, not mine. I have no reason to be nice to your child if you haven't taught them to interact correctly in society.
In a nutshell he is saying: Don't get pissy because I refuse to do your job for you.
There is a must have addon that does something like what you suggested (and takes it a step further). Black List lets you put someone on your blacklist (just right click name in chat frame and 'add to black list). If you want you can add a note explaining why you did it. The great thing is if you ever wind up in a raid/group/guild with someone in your black list you get a warning that you are grouped with this person.
@Mike:
"I constantly educate them in english, netiquette and general player-to-player behaviour (the younger have standing "orders" to deny group invites unless I'm with them)."
"Let's put it strait: if you let your small (less than 14) child play in a competitive environment with adults without constant supervision, you suck at being parent."
I don't see what your problem is here. You obviously don't qualify Gevlon's definition of "sucky parent" by your own words.
"Does being a kid matter?"
As my guild is largely a group of over 30 types, many with kids, we often have two or three 6-10 year olds in guild chat. Occasionally one of them does something dumb. As guild leader I get to hear about it. Then the parent gets to hear about it. This usually results in a firm parental discipline, like a week or more of no WoW and a stern conversation about how to behave in game and in life. One of those players is my six year old. I have disabled chat on his characters. There is no reason he should talk to any one. He only plays when I am around to monitor because he should not be expected to know how to behave in game, he doesn't know how to behave irl. (he's six and behaves like a six year old, asking more is unreasonable)
Leave the parenting to those of us with kids. And thank you I have plenty of time for my three and to play WoW while they sleep or are at school.
The reason that "they are just children" is not an acceptable excuse is simple-- there are children who are well-behaved and don't act like idiots when they play social online games. If they can do it, then age is not the limiting factor. Proper parenting and guidance is.
Wow shouldnt be your kids baby sitter.
If your going to leave them untended expect that they are going to have their feelings hurt.
Think of it like Traffic.
If you let a 10 year old play near the highway, eventually he will get hit!
no one wants to hit him, its just that he is going to get caught up in the normal movement of the earth rotation.
and its no one else's fault for letting the kid be unsupervised but the parent.
But wow also can be a social learning circle, My oldest can be ackward and annoying sometimes, He has pissed a few people off and has since learned that something are unacceptable.
if he had to learn this in the real world, rumors, friends acquaintances would all learn and eventually he would get picked on.
so, some of the anonymity of the internet and players who likely wont ever see him again shield him from being abused daily by the bully.
Just remember though, Wow isnt your babysitter. You should monitor what they do, much like you would if some white van parked near the playground and just sat there all day.
Malstram and Lupius,
maybe I'm picky with words. If "competitive environment" means raiding I agree, kids rarely should engage in it. And if they do, fellow raiders should expect them to perform as any other raider. On the other hand if you, as I did, interpret Gevlons words as "kids shouldn't play WoW and if the do their parents suck" then you are totally off in my opinion.
Of course parents have a responsability to teach kids how to behave online - as in real life - and if my kids sometimes annoy other players because thay haven't mastered the game as well as how to behave... well, sue me. There are other "players" older than my kids that pisses me off more than noobs (trade/guild charter dialogs, goldsellers/spammers, cocky VoA-RLs etc).
I agree with you, but I come at this from a different perspective:
I am playing a game. In this game, I am a wealthy, powerful warlock.
In this game, I am focused on my own ends, which are: Raiding for enjoyment, gear, and emblems; making money through my crafts; and exploring this fantasy world. Much like the real world, this game world is filled with people who want something for nothing. Whether they know better or are 12 is irrelevant to me. I'm not lending anyone(well, there is one person) gold for epic flying, or a netherweave bag, or even lunch money.
My response to these people is to ignore them. If they persist, I simply tell them they can go quest for gold, or that I am too busy to run them through x, or whatever. I try to treat them with roughly the same respect that I would if they were standing in front of me.
Why? Because that is how I choose to play. Many people use the anonymity of the Internet and online games as an opportunity to act like d-bags. (Or perhaps they actually are d-bags.) I do not. Nor do I find it necessary to berate people. My goal in this game is to be the best I can at my character. This includes how I behave in-game.
What I find truly interesting is that the behavior that many people engage in, such as asking for money, run-throughs, etc, never even occurred to me when I was leveling. It seems to me to be antithetical to the point of the game. And I think that this is the most important point regarding your post. The behavior is based on a mindset, and the mindset can only be changed with the proper stimulus. For those people who simply want us all to adore them, there is nothing we can do for them.
My friends and I often joke that in the next patch all Alliance players(and we all know that only kids play Alliance, though that doesn't explain the poor behavior on the Horde side) will be able to roll fresh 80's with full Tier 8 gear, all achievements, and gold-capped, so they don't actually have to play, they can just hang around Dalaran on their mammoths looking impressive.
Eh, I'm just a kid and i'm not that bad. Got 1800s in arena and i do like 4k DPS.
"Let's put it straight: if you let your small (less than 14) child play in a competitive environment with adults without constant supervision, you suck at being parent. These kids should not be here. If we help them level up, we just make them stay at the cost of our own time."
I would have to disagree with you on this point Gevlon. 14 is considered an adult in many cultures around the world. For example, in the Jewish community a child becomes an adult at age 13. As recently as the 1800's, 14 was considered an early, but still prime marrying age for youngsters. Back then many 16 year old were fully supporting their own families and were respected adult members of their communities. The fact that western society can't raise it's children to be mature enough to handle adult responsibilities by 14 is really just a sad commentary on our collective parenting skills and parenting philosophy. The children have the mental facilities to act professionally and in an adult manner with adults by the time they're in the 10-12 years old, if we teach them to.
Instead, I would say that if your child can't function maturely in a competetive adult environment without constant adult supervision by the time they're 12, you suck at being a parent and have failed at that job. Thankfully, though, in modern society, you've still got another 6 years to turn them around before unleashing another M&S into society at large.
Clarification added to text:
"and he gets hurt by other players because of his incompetence"
to clarify that the parent suck not because his kid annoyed others, but because he let others hurt his kid.
While I strongly believe that no one should be sensitive to harassment, it should be read as "no adult". Children are sensitive because of their age.
If I tell a kid "you suck at this and just a waste of space", and a kid go depressed because of it, it's not my fault, it's the parent's who got him into the situation where he sucked.
@Steve: theoretically right and maturity varies with age. Some remain immature up to his 30-es. 14 is a legal age at the western World, that's why I set this number. Could have been anything between 10 and 18
@Ayonel
I was agreeing with your post until that last paragraph.. Only kids play Alliance? ..From an Alliance perspective I was under the clear impression that all the idiot kids played bloodelves. You might not run into them much, because they're usually running around in low-level villages like Astranaar to kill low level guards and irritate levelers by taunting, duel requesting and trying to talk trough emotes, so stupid that they don't even understand that writing custom /me emotes will not reach the other side (it's one of the rules you agree upon after each update for crying out loud). There are quite a few of them also, and usually paladins or deathknights (usually with pala/dk in their name). Sometimes when I'm on my horde char I see them actually write LFG's for raiding low level villages. Sure, they probably used to be the nightelf hunters raiding crossroads, but those are practically gone now. replaced by these bloodelf pests.
I feel truly sorry for horde side having to live with these muppets. But, I only see them when I level a char. When I raid with my mostly 30ish alliance guild, these things do not bother, or interest me the least.
So, don't make silly and ignorant remarks like that. The whole horde alliance feud shouldn't be taken seriously anyway (by adults), I would love to team up with horde sometimes, I know a lot of good guys on both sides.
Ignoring that part of your remark, I do fear the same for upcoming patches. Looking at what happened yesterday I can not believe this game becoming any more idiot oriented. Ulduar 10 level epic drops in a piss easy (boring, one room) 5 man? Or 200 epics from the repeatable normal version? I know this is off topic, but I would want to rant a bit about this. In one day, after fixing all my addons and the other usual post-patch annoyances, I got myself 1 ulduar10 and 1 ulduar25 and 2 naxx10 level epics by facerolling (there's even an achievement called that way now btw) in blues on a quite fresh feral/restodruid. I've not seen the 10/25 man yet, because I always reserve the first day for fixing, testing and tuning before I take out my main. But it seems that running any previous instances except perhaps still Ulduar25 (depending on how easy the 10/25 man is) and naxx10 (for easy badges) is a waste of time now, gear wise. What a huge disappointment this patch is.
Kids will be happy though. Moar epicz to raid Astranaar/Crossroads with.
My 5 year old daughter plays WoW on my account sometimes. You'd be amazed at how much playing a game like that helps with her reading and comprehension skills. She mostly just creates new characters, runs around the starting zone till she dies, deletes the character and creates another.
Jeff made a good point about turning off the chat and I'm going to have to do that... as it is now my wife and I check on her to make sure other people aren't harrassing her... I'm more worried about them then her.
I don't raid till after my daughter is in bed. If I'm a bad parent... then my parents must have been worse because I spent 5-6 hours out in the woods by myself every day growing up as a kid.
You guys are all debating over age...I think it's more a matter of maturity. There's plenty of 20 something M&S, just like there's plenty of 12 year old ones.
Kids are more likely to not know what they're doing, which is kind of expected. I think anyone with a brain should stay out of something if they're really bad at it. They need to learn about the activity first so they don't make a fool out of themselves.
I agree with Olga (I think that's what Gevlon said was the name). A kid can learn things in WoW, we would all just prefer that he did it by pissing of someone else instead of us.
I think it reall depends on the kid to be honest. My former arena parter was a 16 year old and had the top rated twos team on our server. I also played with a lady and her 13 year old daughter. Her daughter is very competent as both a Druid healer and a Rogue. On the other hand I remember doing a pug Gnomer on my way up with my Pally during BC. This was when voice chat was just introduced. On voice chat, this little kid is yelling for his mom to "LOOK MOMMY..LOOK" He must have been perhaps 5. After a few extra body pulls I promptly left group.
About a year ago I let my 12yr old son play. He has a strict computer limit of one hour a day.
If was fun watching him. He just wanted to kill stuff. This was his first RPG so after a few days I suggested that he talk to the questgivers. He was still in the starting zone at level six.
I didn't help much at all. Didn't even say anything about his Bloodelf hunter sporting a long cloth robe.
FOR TEH HORDEZ!!1!
Imagine my shock when after a while he was being INVITED to groups while still wearing that robe!
I really have to laugh at all the "serious" people here who want all the kids out of a video game. WoW is serious business.. lol.
If all the kids and M&S you hate so much left the game, the game wouldn't be here.
WoW IS a VIDEO GAME. If you are taking it more seriously than that...
"many of my "M&S" are kids or otherwise disabled people"
I disagree with this. Many of the M&S are not childern nor disabled. Many of them just don't know how to play and wont learn.
Leaving your kid unattended in an online game is the equivalent of dumping him off at the bar while you stand outside to have a cigarette. It doesn't matter that Blizzard advertises it as a kid's game... it's a game with predominantly male adults.
Unattended is really the key word there. You are either comfortable with how they will be treated by adult male strangers... or you are not letting them play unsupervised.
I won't tell a parent how to parent so long as they are not telling me how to behave when their child is dumped on my lap without them around.
Anyone who thinks WoW (and it's chat) is a PG-13 environment is a bit clueless in the first place.
The ignore button would be a great change to the interface!
I nearly started up one of the sorts of conversation you've posted when I got a random guild invite a couple nights ago. I was in Grizzly Hills with my orphan and nearly asked the person why they wanted to invite a random player into their guild, or why I would want to join a guild of random players. But I just said, no thank you.
He replied with, "Then can u help me w some quests and gold?" THEN he got the /ignore. I suppose I could have had an entertaining conversation. "Yes, I could help you", "OK", "But what's in it for me to help you with quests I've already done and to give you gold?" etc. But the orphan was more entertaining, really.
there's a difference between needing to be shown the rigth direction and begging to get carried. i'll gladly help people if they've shown the time and effort to try themselves. but if you didn't read 1 page on EJ, i'm not going to bother telling you ya need to face roll to the left and not the right. some people just don't have a head for numbers like goblins do. show them the proper direction and they'll figure it out for themselves and thus grow as a person.
@ Wooly
That was supposed to be a joke. While I am on a low pop server(Balnazzar US) there is never a shortage of geared 80's hanging around Tauren Mills mercilessly ganking Hordies trying to level, complete with all the behavior that I'm told isn't griefing on a PvP server even if it does make some people quit the game.
So the joke is that all Alliance are immature kids. However, I do have friends who run Alliance toons(and I mock them for this) on other servers(Azgalor), and they assure me that the Horde is just as bad on those realms.
I, for one, do realize that it's just a game, and the Horde/Alliance thing simply gives outloet the the need to define us/them. For me, ganking annoys me because I am pve-focused. I keep my pvp in the BG's, except when rescuing friends.
So, that was meant in good fun, and you could surely substitute Horde for Alliance in my post and some other person's same perspective.
Grats on the new gear.
A lot of parents in the comments quickly interpreted this post as "kids shouldn't play WoW and if the do their parents suck" and took offense to it. In fact, Gevlon said "if you let your small (less than 14) child play in a competitive environment with adults without constant supervision," emphasis on "without constant supervision." This is akin to leaving your kid at a college pickup football match and expect the older players to play a nicer game because you put your kid on the field. Bad parent? I believe so.
Jeff provided a prime example for parenting over WoW. There's nothing wrong with his 6 year old playing WoW if the parent has taken the steps to prevent bad things from happening.
@Ayonel
Ok, sorry for taking your remark a bit too serious :)
Those belfs (exclusively!) have been such a nuisance the past pre-patch days, that I'm easily triggered on the subject. I level an alt when I'm bored, guess others go out and annoy them. Even though I'm on a PvE server, constantly killing the questgivers seems to be a lot of fun for those guys. Or just following you and killing your questmobs.
I always figured Horde would have it easiest on PvP realms, because they normally outnumber Alliance there.
Gevlon, I really doubt you'd say "you suck at this and are just a waste of space" to a child, or possibly even an adult, face-to-face in a competition. I know I would look down on someone for doing so. Why do you think it is acceptable to do so in an online game?
Yes, children and their parents should be mature enough to handle insults and the other situations in the game. But you can't use that as justification not to expect better behavior from other players.
"Your dps sucks, go reroll" and "Your dps is too low, go read the class forums to learn a better spec/rotation/gear setup" get the same initial message across. However, the second one has a much better chance of producing a superior player in the future.
Always keep in mind that 80% of what you need to know to be an effective player in the game can't be learned from WoW content or NPCs. You either learn it from other players or third-party resources on the Web. And you have to be made aware of your unconscious ignorance to do that.
@Anonymous: I don't have the opportunity to tell it to anyone, since welfare leeches and other M&S don't walk in to my workplace. Real life have a "tiered" system to separate different kind of people. Because of having degree, position, living in the neighborhood I live, I never meet face to face with people I would call that.
Gevlon, you're stretching it now. You never come in contact with M&S IRL? Do you ever go out? Restaurant, subway, grocery store, airport, amusement park, sidewalk?
We run into M&S everywhere and being polite and "social" is de rigeuer, which, BTW, is an expression of expected social etiquette in YOUR LANGUAGE.
Is this young kids who are the ones who are always jumping up and down around my bobber and then jumping and standing in my face while I am trying to fish? This has happened to me so many times on my different characters and I don't know why they do this. Just to be annoying? They want attention? This is how they try to make friends?
I agree. I can't stand kids who make the rest of us look bad. I started playing at 12 (almost 17 now) and I -never- acted like most of the M&S. Sure, we were all noobs once upon a time, but that doesn't give you the right to be downright annoying.
I feel that as a responsible intelligent adult you should take the time to teach a child if the opportunity presents itself.
If I find out that the 1200DPS guy is 14, I'll try to teach him to get better. He is young and probably does not know what I know. He is a M&S he is young and has not been here long enough to learn yet. He deserves a break. IF he continues to suck after teaching, then kick him.
There is a huge difference between a 23 year old guy who cannot bring raid consumables and 15 year old guy who does not even know they exist.
If you want less M&S in the world you have to teach the young. At all times. You see a kid out in the world struggling, you teach,and teach and teach. Not all will learn, but you will improve the world by doing it. And gevlon, please o not give me your "I don't care about the greater good" crap on this one. It should be the goal of every person to encourage and educate those that are young so that they become good productive people. If you do not, then you get what you ignore.
In reference to the original article, specifically the quote listed:
what about the innocent little ones who spam duels or ask for quest help or beg for money, because they don't know any better, and get lambasted by perfectly nice players who don't know they are talking to children instead of grown funsuckers?"
I doubt that "perfectly nice players" are going to give an annoying character both barrels of rage-itude. They'll mostly likely /ignore the character and move on.
In the quoted article, the last question asked:
"Do you take into consideration the age of the player you are dealing with when confronted with obnoxious in-game behavior?"
Why should players have to consider the age behind the ignorance? You need either a credit card or a game card to have a subscription, and neither is going to be obtained by a ten year old. Parental assistance is necessary.
One would also hope that with the parent paying for their child to play, they have also taken the time to teach the child some basic manners like "ask, don't beg" and "be polite to people you don't know."
Therefore, ignorance is met with a heavy hand, regardless of the age. Tough love.
Ruthless post, Gevlon, but so damn true.
I can barely standing annoying kids playing WoW that beg for help and spam duels and all that garbage. I ignore them. But if someone blasts them, then so be it. Don't let your young child play the game if they can't take the heat and go crying to mommy and daddy or start picking up bad language or behaviors.
Happens too much that spoiled kids expect everyone to jump up and help them. "Can i get x gold?". "Can you boost me?". "Can you summon me?"...
They all need to learn that noone will jump for them. I've got better things to do then help total strangers. Except if there's a decent enough reward of course. Quid pro quo.
The point is children should not play wow. it is, like it or not, a game more suited because of the social interaction, for ADULTS. If you are letting your kids (basically anyone under 20) play you are a horrible parent. This is rather they are supervised or un-supervised. If your child gets into an altercation with an ADULT or another child in wow and gets told what for and they start crying and get depressed and all that bully-cock...well you have no one to blame but yourselves for your child's predicament.
Most people wouldn't mind watching a porn in their bedroom with their significant other but they would definitely not watch a porn movie in the living room with the kids would they???? SAME RULES pretty much.
I pretty much agree with everything you said in your post. The parents are responsible and it's really not an ideal environment for kids to be in without supervision.
However, many kids have "bad" parents. Why can't people be nice, or at least polite? I think it's morally wrong to use the parents as an excuse when you're hurting children. It's akin to "hey, what a dumbass, this isn't bullet proof class. Meaning we can break it and steal all his stuff, and he totally DESERVES it." It's appalling. There is no excuse when you're dealing with kids, even if you're unaware.
Anon,
If I go to a friend's house who has kids. I would not go into their house and start cursing like a sailor. Why? It is not appropriate. I have entered a place where children are usually, ie. I have entered "THEIR SPACE" and I have to work by THEIR rules. I have to curtail my actions/speech to my "audience".
Now, If I am at a bar which obviously is a place where "only adults" hang out and there is some parent could not get a babysitter but she "has" to go out with her friends so she brings her child to the bar. Let's say that in the course of the night, I am talking to some friends and we start cursing. Does the woman who brought her child have the right to look at me crossly for "cursing" in front of the child? HELLZ NO. She brought a child to a place for ADULTS. Those who go there should not feel they have to modify their actions, she brought the problem unto herself.
Wow works the same way. It is pretty much an adult place. Yes, I agree the fact it is a game gives the deceptive idea that it is "for kids". Anyone ever place Leisure Suit Larry for the PC (Sierra)...definitely NOT a "video game" for kids :).
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