Violence, Sex, Gaming and the 11 year old

I wanted to take a moment and discuss a personal story.

As many who read here may know, my son, who is 11, plays games with us (my wife and myself) on a regular basis. Mainly MMO's, but we have also played games like Baldurs Gate and Marvel Ultimate Alliance.
Today an article was posted here ( Babble.com), a site for Mom's. I read it through and found instead of it being a hate piece, it actually was informed and written by a person who was not so strict as to make Catholic School look like playland.

I wanted to share the story of my son, who sounds like this writers child. Since the whole family plays games together, his case proves to be an interesting outlook on gaming and kids.

My son started to be interested in games when he was about 8. We started on the Xbox, playing the games where we could all sit on the couch and control characters (like X-Men, Marvel Heroes based games and Baldurs Gate). He got an Xbox 360 for Christmas the next year, and started playing online.
Needless to say, the language started and the attacks began. He had a mic, and what was amusing was how many believed he was either a girl, or was gay.
We discussed these things with him when they happened, and realized that he took it well. He noted these were just words that people used to hurt someones feelings. The old "sticks and stones" adage certainly applied in his case. Swearing became commonplace of course online, but he refused to use these words. It was an interesting view of someone who could possibly take everything the wrong way, due to his age, but did not.

As he progressed, he showed interest in gaming with his parents. The wife and myself of course being avid MMO players for years (think we are going on 7 years now playing together), thought it would be great to have another on board, but would allow us to talk with him about the games more.

We let him start simple. He played World of Warcraft for example. But, he really took an interest in our last venture...Age of Conan.
Now, I can hear the screams of many an adult who would be like "WTF???". I kept thinking that he could pretty much see the same violence on TV or Movies, thus why would the game hurt.
Naked women? Heads flying off? How could we as responsible parents allow him to see these things?

I think it has to do with the fact that if WE are there, we are present for these things, that we as parents can explain these things to him.

As time progressed and we played together, the questions started. But, it is not what you think. He started discussing strategy. He broke out pencil and paper, and started taking notes. If a naked girl ran by, he covered his eyes....lol. YES, he was timid and realized he did not really want to see that.

We felt he became responsible.

He started 5th grade this year, and the work he is doing in school has me even doing double takes on how hard it is. But, his persistence in doing the work has already claimed him two rewards.
He is part of an advanced mathematics group who, due to passing grades in that class, is going to Space Camp in Alabama in April. As well, his regular teacher has been so impressed by his "maturity", that she elected him to be one of seven children who are "Young Scholars". Many a time my son has supposedly broken up fights, discussed issues about other children who talk hate (he has heard kids discuss things like how "Jews are evil" and "Obama is black and it is the only reason he won"...ah, gotta love the Bible Belt Southern States), that she felt he showed a maturity well beyond the usual childish antics of most kids his age.
Anyways, the "Young Scholars" is a special program where the child is in a special summer camp for a week at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, NC. While there he will get to choose to be a Movie Director, Crime Scene Investigator or Architect. They will act out these parts as if they were adults and doing the work to solve a crime or build a new business.

So, could this be because we treated him with respect and helped him learn...all because of video games? We like to think so.

So, what does my son think of hate, violence and sex? He really is outspoken about equal rights, discusses racial profiling, talks about religion and of course talks about War. He also says he wants to meet the right person someday to marry...but girls are icky right now...(lol).
Basically he may have grown up sooner than most parents would like. Yet, yesterday, he was in the hallway, playing with his toy Halo Warthog and action figures, defeating The Flood...just like a kid.

Did we do the right thing? Can we be the parents that either say "Don't do that or you will go blind" or should we be the parents who discuss things with their child, especially as they grow older and are looking to other avenues of entertainment, like drugs and sex. I know I was rotten when I was a teen. But, I also had the sheltered life, that we are NOT doing with our son.

Every indication so far says we may be doing it right. Not only is he our child, but we can treat him with respect and maturity in the hopes that WE will be the ones he will talk to when it comes time for peer pressure.

So, to our gaming family, let us hope that as time goes on, he does not want to part from discussing these things with us, and will be in that next big MMO with us...or at least meeting a nice girl he can bring home.

Hey, we can only hope SHE is a gamer chick too!!

Age of Conan - Continued adventures

The last few days have been super. The family gets together, we have supper, maybe watch a show while we eat...talk about our day..

Then log into Age of Conan to commit many pixellated deaths!

Right now, my PoM is level 26 and my sons Dark Templar is 26...the wife's Demo hit 27 and she is part way through that to 28.

This is working out fine for us as well.

Our trio is devastating to mobs...so much so that we have defeated (with a bit of work) a level 30 boss in Conalls Valley, part of Cimmeria.

We chose Cimmeria for several reasons. First, it is a place I have not investigated much, thus. the wife has not seen it. My son loves the snowy mountains moreso than the volcanic Greecian quality of Aquilonia or Deserts of Stygia.

But, as my son and myself play catchup with the wife, we have strayed into the Wild Lands in Aquilonia to complete several quests there. So, it allows us to have other zones to quest in when the wife does not play or we are trying this "Catch Momma" game.

As well, I have put time into my HoX and made it to level 60, and I am already close to level 61. Of note is several zones have opened up for him...with Ymirs being played and now Thunder River along with Atzels Fortress zones, I have a lot to do.

There is no doubt the "Start at 50" deal really paid off for me. Level 50+ in AoC is full of rich content, dungeons and more.

Excited about leveling my HoX.

Otherwise...not much else going on. Of note, I plan to move some hardware around in our setup in the house and do an upgrade of the main system. Looking at a deal on a Nvidia GTX280, which looks awesome.

Also, this weekend, I plan to get back to a raid or two with Bloodline. I have Amatheon keyed for Wing 1 and hope to get to that as well.

Age of Conan is definitely proving to be a great game of choice...

Cheers

Age of Conan - Our directional change

And we have a blast.

This weekend was our first true test as the family trio in Age of Conan. Discussed previously, the wife and son joined me in Conan due to a myriad of deals taking place.

The son was the first to enter, as he originally got hooked by Aion. Enough to want to try another MMO. I ended finding an online deal for an AoC key for 9.99. The wife, having played Age of Conan before, was greeted with a free return trial and a special to sub for only 11.99, giving her an official 44 days to play.

The son started his trial as a Demonologist, raining fire down on all the mobs. He was having a blast.

We grouped up, and everything changed.

Due to his aggro gaining ways, every mob he ended up killing quickly and efficiently...until we entered Epic.

Epic allows small groups more of challenge, as other wise, you are guaranteed someone standing around due to the standard PvE being pretty simple, but fun for one or two players. Epic allows a more powerful group a better challenge, yet still getting quests done. 3-4 member teams can take on mobs at the cusp of their level (example level 17's can take on up to level 15 very well or even one level 17). These Epic areas become in effect a mini raid.

When we first went into White Sands, a quests area outside Tortage, we had a pattern down. The tank (wife) would take aggro, then I would go in to heal, then the Demo could start raining down fire.

But, he started to get antsy, and would pre-maturely start attacking and pulling the mobs due to so much damage. He started to die quickly and efficiently.

He then notified us he was not having any fun. We went back to the drawing board.

Group dynamics did change immensely for the team.

The wife still had HER demonologist from the last time we subbed together in AoC. I still was heals as no one (for some odd reason) wanted to be the one who was yelled at if everyone died when they did not get heals off.

My son took on the Dark Templar...my all time favorite class.

It paid off.

As long as my son was the first one in, it did not matter that he was not causing all the damage to kill the mobs...he was in the fray the whole time. Also, the wife was more..."patient" shall we say than a 10 year old when it came to fire and death.

We got quite a few quests down, and eventually our two characters (myself and the son) were level 19 in no time. We were ready to take on the final night quest to travel from Tortage to the mainland of our home city.

The wife then decided it was time to see what the fuss was about the night quests. When we originally played, we wanted to be together and doing night quests meant solo play. She did not want that, so we did all quests on Tortage and took the "smuggler" which gets you off the island at level 18 and to the mainland.

She tackled those quests last night as the son and myself continued to level to catch up to her. She brought this character back from our previous play and was level 21!

She loved it. She played through to the final battle herself (roughly about 2 hours of gameplay), and is ready to take that challenge now.

Overall we had some great success as a team. The son did a great job doing melee after having an intital fear of the "multi mobs" and using combos to attack. The wife is back into MMO gaming, and we have a really cool setup in the living room with two PC's and a laptop mini lan setup. It rocks!

More as this progresses...Cheers!

Age of Conan - The family that plays together...

Lops off heads and limbs...hehe

This week saw a new convert to MMO's in general...my son. He got the itch after having a blast in Aion this past beta.
He has been mainly a Halo player, and Call of Duty. But, I also see the wheels grind as he seems more intelligent than someone who just sits and mindlessly shoots...
I saw this excitement and intelligence and tried to build on it by having him try Guild Wars and then Age of Conan.

Conan won out after some initial issues.

He got his account for only 10 bucks, with a free 30 days through an online service. A Good deal in my opinion. He immediately went to work on a Demonologist after an initial hiccup in the arena of melee (melee scary is the thought I felt from him)..

The spellcaster was a win.

But, we needed that final party member...the wife, who just when we were ready to order time cards, Funcom opens up the "Return for 14 days" trials for original subscribers. To top this off, they offered a deal for 20% if you bought a scrip right away. So basically, the wife got her account started for 12 bucks for 44 days.

I still have 25 left on mine.

The team now consists of Xerthes, my heal PoM, Shanrethe, the Conqueror and Colthair, the Demo!

We each started separately. We leveled our characters to the main city, and then started doing evening quests up to level 10. We finally took off to quest together at that level and hit our snag...

Each of our classes are TOO effective early on. The Demo can annihilate multiple enemies with a wave of his hand, the wife, who created a conqueror dual wields death, and I am the healer...who, uh, heals pitifully thanks to the last heal nerf (when you see + 2HP regen for a Heal over Time for people with 500 to 600 HP...there is a problem).

We walked all over quests, and the wife even gave up trying to kill anything as it was dead before she got to it.

Then we got crazy.

All 3 of us entered EPIC mode on the same zone we were in. The Acheronian Ruins.

This proved to be a major challenge now, and we were downed several times...but, we started to work strats. My son really got the hang of kiting, and the wife tanked her heart out.
My heals...uh, were ineffective. Luckily, I was able to do damage though and stayed on the main tanks mob, and helped down it quicker.

We felt like a 3 person raid, and we saw some potential here. With effective armor, food, and lots of pots, we may just have created a killer team for our future fun.

Our issue is the main questing seems too...easy. I am rethinking this now of how we can quest AND do it together and have fun.

Three zones exist where we can enter them as EPIC, so I am thinking we will regroup, and attack White Sands until we level. By entering as EPIC, we also have a good chance at some killer drops. The Acheronian run netted each of us gear and weapons we could use. Money was much higher from drops as well.
White sands is lower level than Acheronian Ruins, so this may be a more effective zone to level in.

So, our first day of about an hour and a half of adventure has us discussing and strategizing our hearts out.

The fun factor was quite high, and we are ready for some more

I will try to share the adventures of the trio as we proceed...

For now...Cheers!

Fable 2 - Cannot pry it out of my sons hands...

Now I need to decide if buying him a copy is worthwhile.

He has quite a few friends playing it right now, and the online co-op is actually fun for him.
But, I have been leery of him playing due to the fact that he goes through games like water.
And if he hits a snag, he gives up too easy.

Usually he waits to buy games with his allowance until they reach the 30 or 40 dollar mark (we have taught him frugal shopping quite well).

But, he has REALLY played for almost as many hours as I have.

Yet, he played another game of mine, Viking, up to Campaign 2 (3 Campaigns total), and has stopped.
I asked him if he wanted to play that game while I played Fable 2, and he decided to watch TV instead.
But, while he was playing, he always kept saying it was awesome (and it is...I SOOO love that game. I am on the final parts of Campaign 3...WooT)

But, I think this gives you an idea of how good a game Fable 2 is (especially for a young boy who LOVES FPS games on a regular basis...) if he wants to keep playing it...

The wife is still working on finishing Culdecept.
Yet, she stated that she wanted to watch me play Fable 2 tonight.
The reason for this is last night I played a little as she carved pumpkins for work.
She would look up once in a while and make suggestions or ask questions...

This is always a sign of interest on her part, as she is hard to please (for example, she wanted to put AoC on the back burner for now to finish the Culdecept game first)..

So this goes back to the original statement...do I buy my son his own copy, and have him work off the allowance?
I really want to teach him NOT to impulse shop is the real gist.

What would YOU do?

Fable 2 - Out of that RPG rut

I did something tonight that I have not done in quite a while.

I lost track of time, wandered around, played with my little pup, dug up some treasure, got in some fights...

And realized I had yet to continue on the main quest...

(Also have 3 women, and 1 guy who REALLY like me and want some gifts...)

Fable 2 - 1 Hour in and ready to duo

Ok...about 1 hour in, goofing off and doing the tutorial, I am ready to do some duo fun.

As I have stated before, I have been DYING for a real on the couch old school RPG like Baldurs Gate and Legends of Norrath.
Looks like Fable 2 will foot that bill.
Basically you can create multiple accounts on the Xbox, for separate users, and then press the start button on the second controller. This allows anyone to hop in from their account.

So, right now the main account on the 360 is for the wife, and I created a secondary on the same system.
Once she is done with the tutorial, we will bring me in and each session will be us in one world to see how this affects the overall game.

Should be fascinating to see how this world will change with us both in it.

I have not told her about the Orgies yet though...(shhh...keep it secret)

More as we play...so later..

Fable 2 - I am leaving for the store...

And will put in some massive time tonight to get a feel for if they did things right this time.

The review consensus seems to say...Yes!

3 Day weekend - I'm outta here..

For some Halloween fun.

The family heads into the scary mazes and theme park rides until Midnight. Today and tomorrow for some excitement and well needed time off.
We also bought advance tickets with a free feast and advance tour of all the attractions today...

Everyone have a good weekend.

I also suggest, everyone check out Blip.fm. I am impressed over this service. The selection of tunes available to listen to and playlist creation to plug in some headphones at work for is the best.
I am finding some really cool stuff, plus I can share my musical tastes with others..

Cheers.