15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of WarcraftHello Kitty Online players of all shapes and sizes – both the renowned and the relatively anonymous.
Since all the hardcore HKOers are locked up in Hello Kitty Online's closed beta NDA agreement, this week's 15 Minutes of Fame chats with a young MMO player who is anxiously awaiting her turn in the Flower Kingdom. Six-year-old Amillia, a level 23 warrior on Argent Dawn and CakeMania 2 fan, enjoys the occasional hour online under the watchful eye of her mother and big brother -- but longs for the day when she can accept new quests from Hello Kitty herself.
15 Minutes of Fame: So, Amillia, when your days of Cleaving are over, what are you most looking forward to in Hello Kitty Online? Amillia: Oooh, making my room. It just sounds so great! I want to do harvesting and go in other people's places and stores. None of my friends play World of Warcraft, but I hope that their moms will let them get Hello Kitty Online so we can play together. I hope my character looks just like me -- or maybe a little sweet kitty. I want a pink bow in my hair with flowers on it.
Did you apply to the HKO beta? I wanted to, but we didn't have time to do the video thing, so we couldn't. We decided to wait for the game.
One of my favorite WoW podcasts(besides our very own, of course) is Casually Hardcore from WoW Radio. They're a very fun bunch and they cover the topic of age fairly often in their fan mail.
I realize a lot of young people play WoW, but I haven't had much direct experience with the really young crowd. As far as I know, I've only played with someone under 16 a couple of times since late 2004. I'm 21 now, and I'm actually the third youngest person in my guild, and there's only a few others younger than I am in our entire guild alliance. We probably just fall short of 200 people across all of the guilds, so the idea of people so young playing WoW is actually quite strange to me. I see parents saying "AFK, my daughter needs me" more often than kids or teens saying "sorry guys, I have school in the morning."
While there are definitely mature younger people playing WoW(I like to think that I was/am one... maybe) but I haven't honestly had much experience with the younger crowd at all. I'm willing to bet money that my guild's average age is somewhere in the high 20s. What about you guys, willing to take a guess? Is your guild younger? Older? A mix of all sorts?
Gamers on the Street logs onto U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.
WoW Insider's Zach Yonzon posted an intriguing Breakfast Topic yesterday: Who's your favorite playing partner? Readers seemed to enjoy chiming in with a tip of a hat to their own partners in crime. Suspecting that perhaps WoW Insider readers are a particularly chatty and friendly bunch, we wondered what we'd find if we logged in over the lunch hour to chat with random players going about their city business.
So we logged into Khaz Modan, a PvE realm, where we were lucky enough to run into three friendly players who each have their own ways of sharing World of Warcraft (and no, it's not just about progression with a guild of folks you've met in game!). We dodged the gold-sellers in Stormwind's main square to bring you their stories.
I love my wife. I don't think I can say it enough. I was able to convince her to play World of Warcraft with me when the game first came out and luckily for me, she got hooked. We've been playing partners ever since, from her getting lost in the Orc and Troll starting area to exploring Sunstrider Isle together for the first time. Sometimes, she humors me by playing a few Battlegrounds with me or even helps me complete my Arena games when my teammates -- who have more or less quit the game -- fail to log on for the week. Sure, I have to twist her arm to do it, but she enjoys ribbing me after matches: "I thought you were good? How come I beat your DPS and got all the Killing Blows?" Sometimes, I help her farm or watch her back while she fishes up another Mr. Pinchy. Even when we're not together -- like when she immerses herself at the Auction House while I PvP -- we chat in-game and IRL. I can't be thankful enough for actually being married to my favorite playing partner since others just aren't as lucky. Some of our bloggers, like Lisa Poisso, plays with her entire family! Just how cool is it to play with your better half and two kids? Amanda Dean has spent the last week showing her mom around Azeroth.
How about you? Do you have a favorite playing partner? Whether it's your significant other, a roommate, a brother or cousin, or maybe even someone you met in-game, is there someone you enjoy playing the game with more than other people? Maybe there is one person you spend more time with than anyone else in Azeroth (or the Outlands, as the case may be). Why? What makes the experience unique or special? The coolest thing about an MMO is that you play with other people. And sometimes, there are just some people we like playing with more than others.
Gamers on the Street logs onto U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.
How young is too young to play WoW? We've discussed the ups and downs of grouping with kids quite a few times over the years, but the topic – like the kids themselves – just won't go away. Earlier this week, we interviewed an 11-year-old SSC raider and his mother. While most reader comments applauded the family for a disciplined, sensible approach to online gaming, a few readers seemed confused or even aghast that someone so young would be allowed to play World of Warcraft.
Gamers on the Street decided to pop in on Bloodscalp, a high-population PvP realm with what one supposes would be a correspondingly tough outlook on kiddie action. We surveyed several level 70 players at random, asking them about their own experiences with children in game. The consensus: Jerks come in all shapes, sizes and ages -- and children and teens are no better or worse than their adult counterparts. Hear out their reasoning, after the break.
Does it take a certain level of maturity to play World of Warcraft?In the past we have asked for opinions on how comfortable people are gaming with players of all ages.The general consensus seemed to be that behavior is more important than numerical age.
Surely there is value in gaming for young people.Although a full-grown adult when I started playing World of Warcraft, games have always been a passion of mine.They have fostered creativity and logic.Recently our Lisa Poisso featured a guild for Unschoolers, who use WoW as a tool for self-guided education. When appropriately supervised and balanced, the game can be a fun, family activity.
All the World's a Stage is brought to you by David Bowers every Sunday evening, investigating the mysterious art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.
There are some people out there who use online games as a venue for their erotic fantasies, from husbands and wives spending some imaginative time together online, to complete strangers flush with desire and looking for some sort of satisfaction in each other. Most of these people who try out Erotic Role-Playing (or ERP) in WoW realize the need to keep it private; they do whatever they do in private chat channels, where it stays their own affair.
But there are a rare few who take ERP to an extreme: they form a guild whose whole purpose is to engage in ERP, and proceed to garner a largely negative reputation for themselves. They wear their suggestive guild name like a sign above each of their character's heads, as if to draw as much attention to themselves as possible. Their members indulge in various sexual fantasies, some of which may even be extremely distasteful and objectionable, played out in an environment where everyone is encouraged to "explore" with one another in anonymity.
Obviously, the moral danger here is that young people may be tempted to wander in, way before they are mature enough to understand or deal reasonably with what they experience there. We generally assume adults to be responsible for themselves in such matters, but children may very well be confused and curious, even willing to lie about their age in order to unravel such adult secrets. Indeed, ERP is a subject matter that the vast majority of players do not want to see -- least of all parents who like their kids to grow and learn from their interactions with others within the game, or at least have a safe and fun experience. Therefore, roleplayers of any sort have a responsibility to keep the public environment clean and safe for all who play there, and for the few involved with ERP guilds to do otherwise is dangerous and unethical.
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Azeroth Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with WoW.
Kids on the internet is (or at least should be) a pretty scary thing for parents. There are predators, perverts or people with questionable ideas that you just don't want to expose your children to. I find it odd, therefore, that so many parents let their elementary school age children play WoW unsupervised. They must see it as an electronic babysitter like television or single player video games rather than what it really is: having your child be babysat by 9 million potential weirdos. These children attempt to get much needed guidance and attention from whatever stranger happens to be nearby. But players don't know how old unknown, needy players are -- they just see them as a nuisance and verbally abuse them accordingly.
More than just exposing children to negative influences, these parents are missing out on a great opportunity to teach their children some very important life lessons. Children go to school to get educated, but they are supposed to learn their values at home. I believe that playing WoW with your children can be a great way to instill them with some very basic yet important values. My daughter is not even preschool age yet, but when she is ready, I plan to play WoW with her -- probably after playing Toontown and maybe CoH first(there's no death, just defeat). I will play MMOs with her because I've seen the result of parents actively playing MMOs with their children. For example, there was Bigmo.
According to Ars Technica, a study appearing in the June edition of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine covering the effects of video games on young people paints a relatively reassuring picture. The study suggests that video games have no significant impact on academics or socialization. From the article:
Although there were some figures that might suggest that gaming displaced academic activities, such as reading and homework, the total time spent on these pursuits was so small that minor effects were magnified. If people are concerned about the lack of reading done by adolescents, the fact that non-gamers spend only eight minutes a day reading should be a far larger concern than the fact that gaming causes that figure to drop by a little more than two minutes.
And in my experience playing World of Warcraft with both kids and adults, I have to say that the game is very social, and can even teach plenty of social skills. (Well, as long as you eventually level out of Barrens chat.) Of course if you're replacing homework time with World of Warcraft time, that's one thing, but this study doesn't suggest that's what's happening. What's your opinion -- do games like World of Warcraft have a negative effect on our kids? [Thanks, Mogwai!]
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
Warcraft players come from nearly every demographic on the planet, so it's virtually inevitable that you're going to run into people from the dreaded and often misunderstood 10-16 age bracket. In my two-plus years with the game, I've dealt with all kinds, from the polite and enthusiastic kids who are always eager to help someone out and gladly accept advice about their class, to the nightmarish brats who come online purely to spread their antisocial hatemongering and basically use the game's chat channels as their personal repository for four-letter words.
At WoW Insider, we've told you of our woes and even ranted a little bit. Now one reader wants to know how to handle the younger players in a guild:
How can you teach etiquette, chatting or otherwise, to younger audiences? Should they be punished or treated differently? How patient is patient enough before severe actions have to be taken?
It's so easy to lose track of time when playing World of Warcraft. You start out grinding this reputation, leveling that alt, then get invited to go run an instance, then come back and check the auction, then inspect some people standing around in their pretty epics... and suddenly discover that it's 1 in the morning and you've spent many more hours playing this game than you had planned.
Then again, for some people, limiting themselves isn't at all the problem -- it's limiting their kids they worry about! Their children agree to only play for 1 hour, but then 2 or 3 hours go by and they're still in there at the computer, saying, "But Daaaaad, I forgot!"
If either you or your loved one needs a gentle reminder about how much time has gone by while adventuring in Azeroth, WoWTimer may be the addon for you.
I finally finished the children's week quests on the alliance side, after being quite busy for most of the last week. It's interesting to note how different the draenei girl is from the blood elf that Elizabeth covered earlier. Far from a girl seeming fated to grow up to be a evil-doer of some kind, young Dornaa seems to be a child destined to be a kind and powerful shaman, deeply in touch with the elements.
The Exodar's resident Naaru, named O'ros, seems very impressed with her and asks you to have her visit Farseer Nobundo, leader of draenei shamanism, upstairs. She and the Farseer have already met in a dream, apparently! Nobundo is astounded that the child should have such a natural connection to the elements, and says he will petition for her to stay in the Exodar and train under him after you return her to the orphanage. At the Caverns of Time, she is approached by the Wardens of Time (and saved by the great dragon Zaladormu) just like the blood elf orphan, but the feeling of this is quite different in her context, especially since she wants to befriend a dragon someday, not own one like the blood elf. It seems to me as if a great responsibility rests on her at some time in the future, not some great and evil destiny.
Does the difference between the Horde and Alliance orphans reinforce the thinking that the Horde really is generally evil (with a few who are good) while the Alliance is generally good (with a few who are evil)? Is that the balance we like? Does Blizzard need to provide more kind hordies and wicked allies?
(By the way, if you haven't yet done the Children's Week quests, today [the 29th] is the last day already too late. It seems that Blizzard has once again posted one time on the calendar but gone ahead and cut it off early. Personally, it irks me when this sort of thing happens for no reason -- product delays I can understand, but cutting off a fun event before you promised you would? Grrrr!)
I've been trying to find a way to put this, because it's really just a rant, but Dekeon from Dunemaul does a pretty good job over on the forums. He's 35, and he's noticed something that I have, too: there are lots of children under 15 playing WoW.
Now, I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Personally, I think it's a terrible thing. All of those pet peeves, all that noob/jerk talk from earlier, mages who AOE without regard for aggro or strategy, and players who duck out of instances five minutes in because "sry my mom makin dinner"-- I realize not all of these things are the fault of kids playing, but I think that a lot of them are. Let's just say that if Blizzard could charge me $30 a month to play on a server where everyone was somehow guaranteed to be over the age of 18 (I'm 26, for the record), I'd take that deal in a hot second.
Now I know, too, that there are ways around it. I play Horde, mostly. I've found a few good guilds for my characters, places where pretty much everyone playing is more mature and can put together a sentence without using the letter "u" as a pronoun. And I know that not all kids play the game like it's a nonstop loot grab/bragging contest-- I'd imagine there are at least a few 14-year-olds out there who really are interested in working together and relaxing on a run through Scholo instead of worrying about what "epix" will drop or winning the DPS meter. But by and large the experiences I've had grouping with people who turn out to be under 18 have not been, let's just say, my favorite parts of the game.
Unfortunately, there's not really a solution, short of the aforementioned age-specific server that's probably not technically possible anyway (kids would still sneak on-- I would if I was still one). I guess I'll just have to continue to be a geezer, sitting there wistfully trying to understand the deeper mechanics of crowd control and aggro management while the kids in my group fight over what their highest crit has ever been. As Neth jokes in the thread (Neth, if you're reading this, rock on for the Neal Stephenson and HHGTTG love!), someday we'll all have to have our own gaming retirement community. Finally, those little whippersnappers will leave us alone.
I recently overheard someone giving advice on how to avoid guild drama: avoid teenagers. Why? Because nothing loses respect for a guild leader more than their parents kicking them off the computer in the middle of a raid.
It's an interesting point, but I've noticed this sort of age discrimination becoming more prevalent recently. People are happy to tar all WoW's younger players with the same brush -- one experience of an abusive fourteen-year-old in Barrens chat blows up into a strong dislike of all under-18s, resulting in "mature-only" guilds which only take players over 30 (for example).
My experiences, especially of the last few months, have shown me that teenage players can be as mature and responsible as anyone -- perhaps more laid-back than older players who have limited playtime thanks to jobs and other responsibilities. Have you suffered from the common stereotypes of younger players? Do you cringe whenever the words "fourteen-year-old" are used as an insult? Or are you happily entrenched in a mature-only guild without a single curfew in sight?
With all the attention these kids seem to be getting, perhaps this video will be of interest. Yes, they've been there as long as I can remember, and I've never found any quest or in-game text that explains them. Eerie!
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at 
One of my favorite WoW podcasts(besides 
Does it take a certain level of maturity to play World of Warcraft?
Kids on the internet is (or at least should be) a pretty scary thing for parents. There are predators, perverts or 
I finally finished the children's week quests on the alliance side, after being quite busy for most of the last week. It's interesting to note how different the draenei girl is from the blood elf that Elizabeth 
I've been trying to find a way to put this, because it's really just a rant, but Dekeon from Dunemaul does a pretty good job over on the forums. He's 35, and he's noticed something that I have, too: 
I recently overheard someone giving advice on how to avoid guild drama: avoid teenagers. Why? Because nothing loses respect for a guild leader more than their parents kicking them off the computer in the middle of a raid.
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