Our good friends at the OC (don't call it that) Register have an article up about how the University of California at Irvine has received a grant to study the differences between US and Chinese players of World of Warcraft. And the differences are fairly interesting: apparently US players use many more UI mods and addons than Chinese players do. Additionally, more Chinese players play the "more challenging version of the game" (seems like they mean PvP servers to us, though that may change with yesterday's big news), and Chinese players, say the researcher, tend to talk more about color schemes and architecture than American players. Finally, the demographics are fairly different -- here in the states, women make up 20 percent of the playing audience, and in China that number is almost halved. And while people here may play with parents or even grandparents, in China, the older generation isn't interested in the game at all.

These observations seem more to be based on anecdotal evidence of Chinese players in cafes more than anything else, but the study is just getting started, so maybe with some more research they can come up with some more solid numbers (or even more reasons) showing why this is the case. But it's interesting that inspecting how people play this game in two different countries can reveal something about the cultural differences between each.

At one point in time Chuck Norris jokes dominated trade chat. Then it was the Murloc game. I'm sure we've all noticed that now it's the anal <insert spell> gibberish that now floods the channel. Dolce of Blackrock believes that it's time the Blizzard begin moderating trade channels during prime time. The chat channel can be turned off, but then it loses utility for valid messages such as selling enchants, transmutes, and well, general trade.

As a parent, Dolce continued his argument:

Wow has a very broad appeal and the average parent would look at the packaging of the World of Warcraft and assume that it is nothing more than a fantasy game where their son or daughter can play with their friends and have "adventures".
The average parent I imagine (and this is merely a broadstroke comment based on the huge playerbase), may not have any sort of familiairity with online games, and even to a certain degree, computers as a whole.
Asking parents (although I am extremely attentive to what my childrens activities are) to have an intimate knowledge of joining and exiting out of city channels is a bit extreme. Perhaps if there were parental controls that you could set ot make this easier...... /wink
In any event I would not be suprised to see some news anchor with some over the top expository on the lewd and profane content that is seen in WoW spun out of context in the near future.
I would say they would be killing a variety of birds with one stone if they simply moderated these popular channels.

Happy Father's Day, to all of you fathers out there!* If you and yours aren't the type to go out and about on a day like this, never fear. For the family that games together, I Heart Chaos has 8 great ideas for an Azerothian Father's Day. A few other things that come to mind for Dad's special day:

1. Roll a new alt with your pops, maybe crossing your primary faction lines. Sometimes leveling together is more meaningful than twinking an alt.
   
2. Talk your guild into having a Father's Day raid night! Take your dad to Karazhan or Zul'Aman, assuming he isn't further progressed than you are. Hey, don't give me that look. My raid has Dads in some pretty phat purps. Yes, I did just say 'phat'. And 'purps'. Don't judge me!
   
3. Fill his mailbox with delicious cake.

Do any of you have Father's Day plans in Azeroth, or any Father's Day plans at all?

*Sorry if I missed any of you!

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?

We've covered the topic of family members gaming together before, but Sonya Smith, Gadgetress of the OCRegister, brings an interesting story about it to light, which she learned about on her tour through Blizzard's new HQ.

Like our own Amanda Dean, J. Allen Brack, senior producer over at Blizzard Entertainment, plays World of Warcraft with one of his parents. Unlike Amanda Dean, his relationship is paternal. Brack relocated to California from Texas two and a half years ago to take his position at Blizzard, moving away from his family. Interested in the work his son had taken up, Brack's father began playing the game himself, having never been a gamer prior to that. Now they use the game as a way to spend quality time together, half a country apart.

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.

I think there's something so awesome about this story from Rufus on Livejournal-- his mom and stepdad have never gamed before, but they've leveled two characters up to 40, and during a run in Zul'farrak, they actually took on a whole gang of mobs, and lived.

We've talked about playing with older folks before, but that's not even the best part of this story-- the best part, in my view, is the thought of two people discovering that they can do something they never thought possible. There is definitely an accomplishment and a thrill that comes with gaming (and this game especially-- taking out trolls is always fun), and it's awesome to think that these two were able to discover that.

I did a run of Dire Maul last night on my up-and-coming Hunter, and just like that Blackrock Depths run a little while back, there were a few newbies in the group-- we had to explain tanking and aggro a couple of times, and I had to use Feign Death. But even through just the chat channel, you could tell they were having a ball running through all the demons in the old elven city. That kind of stuff definitely makes me happy this game is around.

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.

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.

We've covered this kind of thing a few times before (quite a while ago-- man I'm getting old), but it's an issue that I find perpetually interesting. Tviokh over at WoW Ladies had to deal with a bad kid in her guild-- he constantly requested help for stuff that was easy to do himself, and constantly bugging the guild to try and fight a world dragon that no one really had any interest in fighting. Finally, the kid blew up in whiny 10-year-old fashion, and /gquit... only to pester another guild with his whining and begging.

Now, I should emphasize (since I am older, and have learned to be more and more patient over the years) that this is in fact a bad kid. While there are lots of younger players in Azeroth, not all of them are whiny beggars, and there are quite a few of them that are fun to have around. We've got a kid in our guild, and while he misses quite a few raids (because he has a little bit of a problem doing his homework sometimes-- his parents are in touch with our GM, and the fact that they keep him from playing when he shouldn't be only tells me that they're good parents), he's a fun guy to have around, and a respectable hunter.

Yes, he sometimes bugs us (as level 70s) to run Sunken Temple with him because it's his favorite instance, but in general he's a good kid. So Tviokh's experience isn't necessarily the norm.

Then again, there is part of me that still wants that adults only server, and I can definitely understand why some guilds don't allow younger players. But, as I'm sure WoW-playing parents will attest, not all kids are trouble.

By now, you've all probably heard the tragic story of a 13-year-old Chinese boy who committed suicide after a marathon session playing Warcraft 3. The parents of the boy have filed a lawsuit against the game's Chinese distributors, but the author of this article from the University of South Florida Oracle makes the case that the boy's parents, rather than the game, are really to blame.

Although the article is short & doesn't give much reasoning to back up the author's point, I have to say that I agree, at least in principle. It is the parent's responsibility to teach their children the difference between fantasty & reality, after all. I have, and have always had, serious doubts about the media's ability to 'corrupt' our children, as long as we're talking about a sane, well-adjusted child to begin with.

As Dennis Miller once said on the subject: "If your kids can be influenced by anything Gene Simmons has to say, then you're not doing your job as a parent somewhere down the line." I don't see where video games are any different. What do you all think?