Calling Father & Son Guild Wars Playing Teams

I posted above about letting my 8 year old play with me. I have a few suggestions about how you can let your kids play with you at a younger age...goto the international districts....turn off local chat...go some where like Fort Ranik (trust me at 8yr old he don't care where he plays at) set him up with a decked out hero crew and let him roll thru. It is truely amazing to watch. For those that think i may be "irresponsible" get a clue or try having kids first.

It seems their young are heading towards a hard time if we don't change our attitude towards the planet. I would be more concerned about that than letting my kid play a video game.

Anyway on topic, I like this kinda stuff, but daughters should be allowed too ofcourse.

parents dont play games. wen i was about 5..im 16 now, my dad would play bomberman an sonic on the sega and id sit there watchin ofr hours.

But now...he thinks nintendogs is weird cuz he doesnt understand that ttechnology has advanced. "Not in my life...nooo...thats just scary"
Getting a wii today so that may get him interested in that lol

if this game had solitaire maybe he'd play...he can spend hours on that computer game

To those who've responded that their fathers (or parents) don't play games:

Husband and I *both* play GW -- WITH our sons. Daughter never got interested enough. Husband and one son play online golf ("Albatross") together all the time. Daughter and I have played an online NWN mod online for a couple years together. There are also a few other online games we all tend to party up for.

Some of us enjoy spending time with our younguns and gaming, too. Ours are now older now (youngest is 17) but it's one of the things that makes us closer as a family -- plus the kids' friends think we're really cool .

Gaile, I'm with you. I adore playing GW, and I know many people who are amazed that a woman plays! Parties are constantly bemused when either husband and I or son and I (or the three of us together!) are out. Makes for an even more fun times .

~Falcon

So you are already suggesting exposing minors to GW? In case your american, which it seems like you must be here is the info on Pegi:

http://www.pegi.info/en/index/id/179/

'Designed to ensure that minors are not exposed to games that are unsuitable for their particular age group'

When I were young my parents abided by age restictions as a law and wouldnt have allowed me to play GW at age 10 if it had been around then. Suggesting exposing a 10 year old to the game for me is unaceptable for someone of your status in the GW community to be doing. Would you let your 10 year old kid watch Saw? Play Doom 3 or GTA? Even if your with them, that makes it ok to do?

Playing games with your kids is a very nice thing to do, but if I had a 10 year old kid, there wouldn't be any chance at all of exposing him/her to this game.

On topic: If my dad would acknowledge my existence, I'd probably never play GW and be a better person for it.

*Distant violins play*

Guild Wars is Rated T for Teen. Titles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language.

As a parent it is your decision what to expose your child too and comparing Guild Wars to Saw is a stretch by any imagination. There is a great page on ESRB.org website to help parents decide which games may be appropriate for their child taking into account other factors which you may want to read here:

Tips and Additional Resources for Parents
http://www.esrb.org/about/resources.jsp

The Pegi rating system in Europe still states the same, that it is to be used as a tool for parents but it's still a decision. I will not let this thread turn into a discussion on age-appropriateness for Guild Wars. That is not the intent or the topic of this thread. As a parent you make the decision what to allow your 10 year old to view and parenting style will not be debated in this thread.

Obviously you have never seen what I have seen. I have seen a drunken parent as he/she is at a party during the evening, while letting his/her kid(s) play on the streets; and some of them have gotten hit by a car. After which they buy a game for their kid(s) (5-10 year old) even though they have been told by the clerk at EBgames it has a mature rating (for sexual content, extreme violence, and etc.). Finally they become activists against video games, in which they still buy those “mature” games for their kid(s) (5-10 year olds).

EDIT: Okay my point of view is this: a parent can make the responsible choices for their kid(s) or not, but stop blaming the interactive entertainment industry as the “escape goat,” for all of your own problems. You see the rating system as Inde provided, but untimely it’s the parent’s decision to expose their underage kid(s). I further back parents when they talk about their underage kid getting the “mature” game from a retail stores without being carded; then you have the most definite right to go after the retail chain of those stores.

+1

I have a 9 year old daughter and she has her own account and access to all three continents. We go out as a family (me, the mrs and daughter) and have great fun running around with the help of our trusty heroes - she is totally enchanted with pre-searing and keeps remaking characters there just to run around and play.

No harm in letting young ones (as in 8+ imho) play as long as you take care where they are at and turn local chat etc off. I also instill in her that she simply does not chat to anyone unless I am standing behind her, and she is true to that and she is to never pug with anyone, ever (the penalty of no more GW is enough to ensure she abides by that one!)

It also helps to be in a like minded guild as well - we managed to find a "mom's and dad's" guild and everyone is really nice, never swear in guild or alliance chat and they are quite happy to chat to her whilst she plays.

Rich

Thank you, Inde, for a well-reasoned and entirely accurate response.

Gaile likes Starcraft! ...gives me another reason to like her.

...My son is only 2 months old... but he still likes playing with me.

I'm not sure what to make out of your post and why it is addressed at me. My message was that global warming and our consuming lifestyle are imo more hazardous towards children and our future generations than video games at this point. To say it in other words: an inconvenient truth.

Me, my husband, and his son all play GW. In fact, my stepson was disappointed that he couldn't come to the Nightfall release party because it was 21 and over (he was 15) and told me in great detail about his plans to get a fake ID so he could sneak into the party... which sounds all very delinquent but I thought it was kinda cute in that sort of "you crazy dork!" sort of way (because obviously he'd never actually *do* any of that). We tried to have him and my husband share an account, but that lasted all of a week before I had to break them out to their own accounts. We've talked to him about behaving himself in game (please please no smacktalk like with Halo, okay?), his mom knows that he mostly plays with us or with our other guild member, and if he plays with others, he doesn't tend to talk much and just plays. It's a good escape for him (because frankly he lives with his mom and that sucks), and it's a chance for us to sometimes hang out with him in a different way if he's at our house or not (something we can do with him almost any night even though he doesn't live near us).

I don't think we'd ever have things any other way, we've always been a gamer family. Even when he was too young to really understand stuff like AD&D we'd include him somehow (even if it was just rolling dice), and we've always played video games together. We're not that uncommon.

(and speaking of Starcraft, mmm new Starcraft coming out... my whole family is so there)

phft only reason I play anymore -.-

You should address your point more clearly, then being general to your comments. Otherwise it’s easy to mistake the comment, as that you care less for the situation on hand or for that matter oppose it. However I think your comment was dually noted in sense, that parents should care less about what they play. I was addressing that care free attiude that comes off very inapt way in dealing with that idea. That is why I wrote, what I wrote before.

I would love to play GW with my dad...too bad he hates gaming with a passion (more specifically he hates that I game) and he rarely even boots up the XPS laptop he bought to check his email.

and to the person who brought global warming into the discussion: how much more off topic can you get?! the planet is supposedly warming so we're supposed to drop all other concerns to worry about something that may or may not happen? this isn't the place for that discussion.

Well, this 51 year old father/grandfather would be interested, but my 19 yr old son, who plays GW off and on, is now serving his country as a Marine. We played D2, Age of Empires I, II, & III, Civilizations III, WarCraft II, many of the Unreal Tournaments, Lords of the Realm, Dungeon Seige, and all the Dooms, to name a few.

I got him interested in computers when he was 8 years old. Taught him to write batch files in DOS, making a menu to access all our games at the touch of a key. Now "Uncle Sam" is using his computer knowledge.

I now have my 3 yr old granddaughter killing skales in pre. "Let's kill monsters, PaPa. Go find the bears, PaPa. Get that witch, (bandit)." (Paint is a good teacher for mouse control.)

Computers are here to stay. The sooner one learns them, the more they will learn. Games make learning fun.

I'm 15 and my dad and I always had a special bond together toward video games. Hell, he tought me Duke Nukem 3D when I was 4 years old (no lies :P). His excuse was "It would help me develop my brain". He eventually got me into Reader Rabbit and stuff. Also Monkey Island, Red Alert, C & C, etc. When I was 9 he picked up Age of Empires II and I really got hooked on that. We played together on the zone everyday, joined a clan, etc. Good times, and that was the first game that showed me gaming is definently a strong hobby for me. He also played Rise of Nations, which I wanted to like, but really never did. When AoE 2 started to die down in the clan, he moved on to Chess, and now he rarely plays games anymore. I occasionally still play AoE 2 on the scheduled games in the clan. But now I've moved on to Warcraft 3: DotA, and GW. (I have AoE 3 but never got into the changes) But I'm proud to say my dad has made me a hardcore gamer .

I remember playing Lemmings Paintball with my father when I was -very- young (~1995). Ah, memories... Now he plays only MS Flight Simulator and Falcon for a lot more hours than I play GW. He sits in front of the computer, grabs the joystick and refuses to talk to anyone. Pretty much like me playing GW, heh. But he doesn't play GW, he says he doesn't like controlling a character...

It's already happening dude according to most of the scientific community and Al Gore and yes I play guilty I went sorta off topic but in the end it all sticks together. The gaming industry is a part of our consuming society (like most of us btw) where making money is important hence games are sold and bought. And abuses are part of it. Economy over ecology so it's not that off topic as you may think. Why do you think they launched the Kyoto agreement and it's no coincidence it's a hot topic in politics of a lot of countries, except USA and China ofcourse, the two biggest poluting nations.

When I was 10 yo, some 22 years ago, I was not playing a video game instead we were playing soldier or cowboy and indian in the neighbourhood. Sometimes kids got hurt and blood flew. Accidents happen. It's in the human nature to hunt etc. and kids/boys are drawn to it and practise it by playing and immitating adults. At least on screen, nobody gets hurt.

Sometimes parents buy video games to keep the kids busy while they do the household etc. When parents play together with their kids, at least they spend time together and the parents have more control over it if they wish too. Hence I like this father/son/daughter initiative.