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Game Needed With Enforced Age Gap?
//\//\oo
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 2,767
While I was playing AO, I noticed a lot of older men (which I had ascertained after having known them) that were playing characters with names like "lolita" or certain names of under-age models.
Had I been a parent, I would have forbidden my kid (if he/she were under the age of 16) to play such an mmorpg, especially with sketchy characters that consisted of elderly, extraordinarly horny, old men with nothing better to do than play an mmorpg.
What even shocked me more was that most of the perverted individuals had actually had kids of their own.
As mmorpgs become more popular and affordable, the increase of pedophiles and such increases as well, such that there should be some sort of enforced age gap between players (namely in two partitions: underage and legal adult).
This would prevent pedophiles from having access to minors and would also prevent sexually sound adults from having to tolerate kids.
Besides, adults SHOULDN'T have anything in common with kids and should therefore make optimal grouping between contemporaries.
"Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'ni' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred."
MP
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
Comments
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didnt exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
Couple of things, when I was a little younger, (early EQ days) I used to have fun playin with adults, and usually there would be a pervert somewhere and sure he would get on my nerves, but all the perverts always try to hit on the girl players and if there tryin to hit on YOU than you can just put them on an ignore list, also you have to think about parents who get the game and decide that they want to play the game with their kid, what do they do in that situation?
/b lvl 45 Ranger EQ,
/b lvl 30 Paladin DAOC,
/b Rodian master CH SWG,
/b Some guy E+B (Earth & Beyond)
/b lvl 45 Ranger EQ,
/b lvl 30 Paladin DAOC,
/b Rodian master CH SWG,
/b Some guy E+B (Earth & Beyond)
Enforcing age would be impossible without having people fax/email over scans of their driver licenses (and even that wouldnt be 100% in the case of stupid parents). Otherwise any 11 year old can get ahold of their mommys credit card with some creative begging.
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Played: AC1, DAoC, E&B, SWG
Tested: AC1, AC2, DAoC, Eve, Planetside, Rubies, Lineage 2
Almost all of them say you have to be 18. In an online world, there just is no way to prove it.
Since you know about the perverts, you can be smart enough to protect your kids from it.
Age gaps separating adults from children when grouping this doesn't seem viable. Most groups in any mmorpg are after xp, better armor/weapons, coin, etc.. True there will be many social groups and they will naturally stick with their own age group's interests, but separating the two will be based on the present situation.
I don't think separation in age groups is a likely solution. The best thing a parent can do is inform their kids about the risks.
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The only thing wrong with doing nothing is that you never know when you're finished.
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The only thing wrong with doing nothing is that you never know when you're finished.
And that's why a lot of mmoRPG companies require that a child under 13 require a parents permission to play. Also most if not all mmoRPG's require credit cards. Tthey need to ask mommy and daddy for a credit card ne ways, so they're pretty much consenting to their kid playing the game.
---------------------------------
UO - 4 years
AC - 2 years
AC2 - 6 months
DaOC - 1 month
FFXI - 6 months
Diablo2 - 6 months
Shadowbane - Beta tested
Lineage2 - Beta tested
mmoRPG'er since October 1997
---------------------------------
UO - 4 years
AC - 2 years
AC2 - 6 months
DAoC - 1 month
FFXI - 7 months
Diablo2 - 9 months
Shadowbane - Beta Tested
Lineage2 - Beta Tested
Saga of Ryzom - Beta Tested
Risk Your Life - Beta Tested
World of Warcraft - Currently Playing
mmoRPG'er since October 1997
i wouldnt let my kid play a mmorpg. granted shes only 2 and 1/2 weeks old, but i wouldnt let her play anyway, at least till 16. after that, you get much worse in school than you will see on a game.
besides, most of the perverted idiots are young.
its the parents responsibility, not the game industry.
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The BlackHand
"We Always Prevail"
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The BlackHand
"We Always Prevail"
I stand in awe.. No im not applauding you.. I stand in awe that another person can yet again under-estimate kids. Yes I am 14. Yes I am a power gamer. Yes I love MMORPG. Yes I deal with sick perverted men. Does that affect me????? NO!!
It erks me to no end that people think anyone under the age of 18 is ignorant and stupid. Yes alot of kids online under that age have horrible behavior and are very easy to manipulate. 90% of those kids are on Habbo Hotel and Coke Music. Then you come to the CS playing EQ power gamers that are under the age of 18. The know how the game runs and they can play on an easier schedule than most adults. Games like Second Life(which has ingame pr0n) have enforced this and have done a terrible job because you CANT SENSOR MMORPGs. Do your homework and look into how kids interact with each other. What you a kid doing around his parent is not what he/she does when around friends. Its nothing different from hanging out with some friends without parental supervision.
Sorry to the staff for the flame.
Rage/Enos
Rage/Enos
Any responsible parent would not give their child (under 14 or so) unrestricted, unsupervised access to the the internet and that includes online games. It's a fact of life that pedophiles will go where they can find kids. Making juvenile servers would only serve to attract pedophiles, not repel them. Kids over 14 should be made well aware of the dangers of online predators and they still should not have totally unsupervised and private access.
As has been said, there is no way to insure that everyone on a juvenile server is actually a juvenile or that everyone on an adult server is actually an adult.
And, contrary to what you assert, I'm 52 years old and some of the best gaming experiences I have had included teenagers. Yes, some kids are spoiled brats and I don't play any game to babysit, but true gamers recognize and respect other true gamers and age is not a barrier to honest enjoyment.
wow, i never thought that this would be that big of an issue. if you think about it, there is absolutly no possible way to keep younger people (not children) from playing mmorpg's, or for that matter, any online game, it doesnt matter about the type, it is that it is an online game.
credit card issue
first of all, obtaining a piece of plastic to charge money to is no difficult task. if a younger person is really interested in getting a credit card, momy's purse is useualy sitting on the kitchen table with everything else. that is a quick solution to it all. also, not all younger people are stupid, has anyone ever heard the term 'social engineering'? it is a very valuable tool to use tword parental units. all a younger person would have to do is tell mom or dad that they want to get a head start on learning how to manage money. om or dad takes them to the local bank, puts 10 bucks in an account to start them off, and a week later, little johnny has a debit card all to him self. get some money from christmas, or birthday, put it in the bank, and after that, SOE or anyone else doesnt care what kind of plastic payment you have, but that you have one at all. that is the end to that so me thinks.
parent chaild issue
something that i was informed of not too long ago is that there is a serious bond between parents and their children playing mmorpg's. for example, on eq, there is a guild that is really active, and there is a lot of parent/child players in that guild. some of them dont really have that much money to buy really extravegant christmas or birthday presants in real life for their kids. in the eq world, dad might have 300k plat in the band and could buy his kid on eq something really nice that could aid him in the rest of his journies through eq. i think that this is awsome, that there is the possibility of new typs of bonds between parents and their children through a video game.
charecter names
i know that eq has a lot of restrictions on what kind of content can be put into the names of charecters. i also know that WoW has a lot of rules regarding this as well. in fact, there used to be a recomendation that you make your charecters name mysticle sounding. no where does the term lolita have to do with anything mysticle. also, if the gm's in a game were to see something like that in eq, then they would inform the person that they need to change the name right now, or, if they didnt, it would get banned/nerfed, no if's and's or but's about it.
esrb
another thing to aid people in to makeing the right decisions is a little something called esrb, you can visit them at www.esrb.com for more information. but in the bottom right hand corner of eq, there is that little lable that says that the rateing is T for teen. and right under that little label says "Game Experience May Change During Online Play". they say that for a reason, and if you think about it you'll understand why, they dont wanna get sued becaue little johnny is saying all kinds of creative phrases arround the hose like he pwned the cat because he chased it with the vacume cleaner
also, if little johnny were to walk into wal mart at the age of 10, lets say, and pick up a brand new copy of eq, he wouldn be able to buy it because the checker should be smart enough to see what is going on. so if that is the case, and everything works out how it is supposed to, then little johnney should have mom or dad with him, and they should see what little johnny wants to get involved in. i know some stores dont have things emplemented into their computers to warn checkers of age, and some checkers just dont care, so that is another way that you cant stop the sale of the game to children.
what you should worry about, young people and school
my friend constantly tells me about his early eq days while he was still in college. he would go back to his dorm, or go back home to type a paper. he'd be typing along and then sub-conciously, Word would get minamized, the web browser would pop up and he would be browsing eq stuff. after a while of doing that, he would notice what he was doing, and continue writing his paper. he tells me that this would happen a few times during his writing process, but in the end, he would finaly get it done at the late hours of the night, then he would continue his night in the eq world for even later.
i think that what parents should really have to worry about is what there child will do out side of their game. school will fall dramaticly for the first thing, and after that it will be hard to say what happens. but if a young person has the ability to understand what is going on in an mmorpg, and stick with it and enjoy it, i think that they will have the ability to stay away from the bad people in the game.
Perm2069
No parent should let their children romp around the internet unattended.
Period.
When you get a bit older you'll start to understand why most people feel that way.
Trust me (and every other adult in the world) about this.
I am 58 years old and some of my best MMO buddies are around the ages of 15-19. I've even met several 13 to 14 year olds who are more mature and better gamers than a lot of 20 year olds out there.
Games would fall apart if there were age restrictions.
Not all kids are annoying brats. I've met some extremely nice, well adjusted teens and 'tweens' in online worlds. Some of my best guild members in the past weren't old enough to drive, but they knew the game, knew their role, and always were glad to help others. It was a pleasure spending time with them.
Having said that, most kids in that age group are just a royal pain in the ass. Of course, most people in online worlds are idiots as well, so I suppose that doesn't prove anything.
While there is no way to ensure that children aren't on any one server in particular, there is a way to lower the chance of a youthful population: price. Stormhammer Legends was the best EQ server I ever played on, and I attribute a lot of that to it having an older player demographic. Parents simply were not willing to pay $40/month for their children to be there in most cases.
For this reason alone I hope there are '$pecial' servers in EQ2. While I have nothing against kids, and I think it's great that they are involved in my hobby, I prefer the company of my peers in most cases.
...Pika
...Pika
I am going to flame really badly
You caught me in a bery bad mood Moo or whatever the fuck your name is. Fucking complaining about the way people play online... you entire post made me sick you weirdo. Go fuck Joe Lieberman since you all so much in common. Not only did I vote no to this piece of shit, I would personally help people break the rules if it ever occured. For someone with such a noobish little bratty name, you are the most stuck up and pompous individual that I have ever met. I really hate people like you ruining my day. Really sickens me that post.
I will cut myself off...
Merodoc
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"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."
- Edward R. Murrow
Rage/Enos
Rage/Enos
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didnt exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
seems like these days each generation is getting more and more stupid. i could elaborate but you lack the intelligence to understand. that being said i still voted no. no matter how stupid or young your are you still have a right to play games. I have an easier solution....
KILL ALL THE PEDOPHILES.
ITS A TRAP
----ITS A TRAP!!!----
Im gona give the same response I give to the people who complain about forums like this, chats and other things.
Its not the game/chat thats getting you kid into the grasp of these Pedophiles.
Its the parents.
As a kid, when I was in grade 2... I had been on Yahoo chat, mostly cause my friends just discovered this cool program "Yahoo messenger" that we could talk without using the phone.
Then we started using yahoo chat lol.
All I can say is that I knew better than to listen to those guys/gals.
I cant think of one mmorpg without an /ignore feature.
Teach your kid how to type /ignore and teach him/her than if sombody wants to meet you that you only met online. Don't lol.
Parents are too quick to blame everything and everyone but themselves.
Look at me, Im Long past the days of Grade 2 and I havent been kidnapped yet... imagine, talking to your kids really works!
And this was back before net nanny and such programs, now adays unless you never talk to your kid it should be pretty hard to not teach him/her.
EDIT: Just as a note
"No parent should let their children romp around the internet unattended.
Period."
I disagree with that, my parents never monitored my internet usage, and Im not a prostitute or some internet pervert.
Parents just dont talk to there kids anymore, and tell them not to do these things.
I say it again, the only person the parent can blame is themselves for not educating their kid.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
Munki,
It worked for you. But it doesn't work for others.
Children are preyed upon by pedophiles and others. There is also a plethora of information on many things that are beyond the comprehension of most people, let alone an impressionable adolescent. Parents who allow their children to roam free on the internet are gambling that their child doesn't encounter an exprience he/she cannot handle, and the reality is that there are a ton of encounters out there that adolescents cannot handle.
I'm all for live and let live, but we live in a world where children have special rules...because they are simply not capable of the wisdom and self-control necessary to know how to maneuver down the dark allies of life.
What experience would a kid these days "not be able to handle"? Dirty talk? Requests to meet offline? Requests for personal info?
Parents just teach your damn kids to be careful/distrustful of everything and everyone except friends and family, on the internet; if their naive idiots, fine don't let them play then. Enforced age gaps won't do anything.
One thing that I had forgotten to mention:
Susceptibility of children to online-friends and online-idols:
An online friend can affect your child's DICTION (i.e. replacing dislike with F*** etc.), CREED (look at the various satanic cults etc. that were formed online... they consist mostly of TEENAGERS) and AXIOMS.
There have been a myriad of cases where teenagers under the age of 16 were swayed by some sort of radical or fundamentalist. Although this was partially induced by lack of parental supervision and interaction, working families have little choice and might rely on electronic entertainment as a means of keeping their child occupied in a harsh outside-environment.
Not to say that all kids above 16 are reliable, most countries (not including the U.S) consider this age to be sufficient for the development of a proper moral system.
Do we let kids rent porngraphic videos or purchase movies that were rated R because of their harsh verbal content? No.
The analogy to the former might not seem just, but a picture can be conveyed just as well by words, in some cases.
An enforced age gap would FACILITATE parental supervision, not ensure it.
Since there are still, unfortunately, quite a few parents that entrust their children to their consoles (as many posts about the raving bnet kiddies, 8 year-old COH enthusiasts, lineage-2 high lvl low age pks reveal).... this concern is not unfounded.
Also the lack of palpable role-models for kids and the decrease in adult-responsibilities have almost isolated kids from the real world until they hit college (or, more precisely, their first internship).
"Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'ni' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred."
MP
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.