Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
PEGI rating.
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
I saw GuildWars having PEGI12.
Personally i think all MMO's aiming at grown ups/adults should have a PEGI rating of atleast 16+. Why? Well, because its not healthy for kids to reside in a grown up/addult community at that age. They might misunderstand certain things from general and guildchat. Now in Normal live, you can see who is underage and keep that in mind when talking trash and such things, but in an online community people often dont see that and talk like they do all day.
I.e. kids are much better of playing together with kids.
In subscription based games most kids never got to play because most sane parrents just didnt pay the subscription, but in these subscription free games its a whole different story. Thats why these games should have 16+ rating, the influence on these kids from the online community is much worse then the little blood that splashes from ennemies.
So how do you handle these minors in game, do you handle them like you would handle your own kids (which is actually what they need) or do you treat them like grown-ups and dont care any further?
Having kids around requires a different attitude then not having them around, and this might be one of the biggest problems. and PEGI ratings does not take that intoo account.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
I miss the good ol days of Saga Master/Nintendo/Atari Linx/etc etc
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.
Carl Sagan-
I agree, any online game unless its specifically for kids should be 16+
I disagree. All of these kinds of games usually have a clause in stating the the person creating the account is 13+, so the pegi 12 rating is fitting. Also, the ratings are just a guide, and hot hard and fast with legal requirements (unless you are in AU, like me), though there are ways around it anyway.
as for different attitude around them, either a) people will set up guilds that are either teen orientated or mature, or b) they wont care and swear their heads off around them.
at the end of the day you cant cater for everyone, and not everyone looks at the ratings, so really a dilligent parent will look into the game and genre before letting their kid on, though that is becoming a rarity these days
I would make servers per ages, some servers for kids and the rest for adults, and if you lvl up to 18 (your real you) you get the choice to transfer to one of the adult server.
I wouldn't mind something like this if it was actually enforcable. I just don't see how you would do it.
Aside from this being a ridiculous idea, it wouldn't really work anyway.
In Guild Wars 2, players can move characters to different servers without restriction (with the exception of WvW only with your home server).
I agree. I don't think PEGI12 is at all appropriate. I would rather see it as 18+. There are always exceptions of course, but I think in general children are not mature enough to handle themselves in an adult community when there is no separate indication that they are just children. If there were some mechanism for identifying them as children in game (say a special icon, like a pacifier, above their heads) then it wouldn't be such an issue because then people would know from their first interaction that they are only children and make allowances. Of course, such an identifier will never happen (for many reasons) so they are treated like adults when they really shouldn't be.
Yeah its not my brightest idea but i would love to play a game without having to read the nosenses (mostly about boobies, ponnys and absurd figths to see who is better on something) of 12 year olds.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
I don't think it matters. Kids hear just as bad or much worse than anything I've seen in barrens chat at school everyday.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
I don't think minors care... well actually, let me rephrase that. They simply DON'T care at all.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation
This could only lead to the highly awkward and disappointing moment when a server full of 12 year olds mops the floor with your server in WvW.
Correct me if I'm wrong here but the problem with PEGI ratings is they are un-enforcable. Unlike here in Australia where MA15+ and R18+ (yes, they are finally delivering on that one) ratings are actually determined by law and are enforceable at point of sale, the PEGI system is regulated by the gaming industry, thus they dont actually have to follow it. That being said, most modern MMOs come with a mature filter anyway.
This whole situation wouldn't be around, though, if parents took responsable action in what their kids play. It is fine to say 'this should get Y rating' but at the end of the day if the parents give in and get them the product it is all for naught. Pointing the blame elsewhere is just scapegoating.
If they can't keep alcohol, cigarettes and drugs out of the hands of children, I promise you they're not going to have any more luck keeping video games out of their hands. I understand where you're coming from, I might even prefer MMOs start coming with age verification, but chances are with mommy/daddy's credit card, even that won't do help. Ratings are superficial, they really do very little in the end.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
A bit of both, honestly. Pre-teens, it's a parent's job to protect & educate their kids. Once a kid gets into those teens years however, it's basically a parents job to be supportive & prepare them for the real world. Kids are going to get exposed to more 'adult' things, and it's becoming easier and easier for them to do it. Denying them this won't protect them, and it certainly won't prevent them from experiencing adult content anyway.
Kids are generally a lot smarter than most adults give them credit for. This concept that 'adults' somehow always know better is just bunk. We are all still kids in our own ways.
Unfortunately I think at least half of those type of comments or more is done by people in their 20s. So.....yea. I mean it would be a great experiment to see. But Id bet the results would be, " Okay....now Im on the adult server. What the hell? ITS LIKE BARRENS CHAT! Its not different at all! " *transfers to kiddie server*.
A lot of kids won't play games that aren't rated at least Teen+, so maybe the PEGI 12 rating will tap into reverse psychology and keep the community more mature, not less?
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
FFXI is pegi 12 , and i still to see a 12 yeards old playing it :P and FFXI has the coolest race ever .....
nothing can come close to that ! (not even FFXIV >.> )
Problem is that most parents still have no clue whats going on online.
In general i really agree with you. Thats the way i raise my kids. But in this case its the same thing as allowing really you people intoo a bar. When my daughter was 14 years old, i tought it was not such a great idea to allow her to go out and visit a bar. Now at 16 she is allowed to do so.
Overhere in Holland the PEGI age is just an advise, it tells parrents what to expect from a product and when parernts see that the product is PEGI 16 they should invest some time in it and talk (very important) about it with their kids, so they can understand what its all about. (thats something most parrents forget) Personally i learned a lot from my kids and raising them, they are far from stupid if you allow them to speak up. Sadly most parrents have no clue how and what their kids think. And for those kids its better to keep them safe, sadly espescially those kids are the ones i meet in MMO's where the parrents show no interests in their kids activities and in that case they are unable to support them.
So i still beleive its better to prevent... and keep the PEGI 16 advise on the box. My biggest gripe as a parrent is that i dont see how old those players are on the internet, if i would, i would keep that in mind and guide them a little through the harsh world of MMO's.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
THIS!
they are just the better fingerwigglers and their reaction time is awesome.
but i would enjoy the whining on the forums, if the top 5 ranking in WvW are kid-servers.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
Making the age rating higher will accomplish nothing at all. Teens will still get their hands on the games they want as most parents will either ignore the rating or judge their child to be able to handle them. The latter is fully in their right.
Furthermore I find it both selfish and big brotherish to even suggest such a thing.
If you have to change the way you handle yourself around children/teens than maybe you need to look at your own behaviour and how mature it actually is. Most of the time it will mean the behaviour is immature to begin with. So it would be a selfish to exclude them so you can go on being immature.
On that note Age does not represent maturity. If that was the case than the rating should be 25, because the human brain doesn't stop making new connections until that age. Give or take a year. Meaning up to that point people can still behave in an immature fashion due to random firing of neurons. That of course doesn't mean people can't behave immature even after their brain are done growing. I find there are more immature adults than children.
I treat both children and adults the same way. That doesn't mean we are equal. Just that I don't have to surpress my natural behaviour differently around either.
As you stated the pacifier thing would be a bad idea for obvious reasons, I won't spell them out but it is a terrible idea all around. I am really quite puzzled by this anti under age 18 thing. I have met too many adults who are not equipped to handle themselves in an online adult environment, at least as many adults as young people. Maturity has not a single thing to do with how long a person has been alive. There are plenty of young people I have played with in the past who I have felt handled themselves in a far more mature and polite manner then some adults.
the poster formerly known as melangel :P
well said. Couldn't agree more!!!
the poster formerly known as melangel :P
Now get a grip, we're talking about 13 and 14 year old kids... the ones that can handle an MMO environment are the exceptions.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Well, most shops I know don't enforce thepegi rating, I saw a 10-8 year-old buy a PEGI16 game a few days ago. Besides, most people I know don't pay attention to the rating.
There will always be kids in MMO's or any other games.