Casual Huntering

Posts Tagged ‘Family’

I feel bad, my brother calls me up quite a bit to invite me to go on mount runs or to do other such things in azeroth. I usually weasel out of it. Why? Because I have a family.

There are always a million things that go with that one line “I have a family”.

I feel bad, but I turn him down all the time.

Those players out there that aren’t married and don’t have children have no clue what its like to be a WoW player with a family. They don’t understand why we don’t have time to farm, do endless randoms, work on the latest achievements, etc. I would like to, but I can only do so much. Often times the prime time to play with others is also the prime time to spend time with the kids, help them with homework, help out with dinner, yard work, spend some quality time with the spouse, etc, etc.

Mind you, my brother isn’t a jerk about it at all, but I really don’t think he understands that I can’t jump on at a drop of a hat. I have to plan it out so I can change my schedule, do dinner earlier, or put the kids to bed slightly earlier or something like that. I’ve asked him if we could just schedule a time where we could play and he’s always been resistant to that (except for raiding). He always just tells me that I can just jump on sometime and then we could play. But when I do jump on he’ll be in the middle of something else.

The problem is much more general, married people and single people don’t speak the same language. In fact married people without kids and married people with kids don’t speak the same language either. And few people can understand crazy couples like my wife and I who have 3 kids under the age of 6 with a 4th kid on the way. I know we’re crazy, what can I say? I think WoW has been a great stress reliever, which is definitely needed in our house of chaos.

Oh, I loved this gamer family Van stickers, I wonder if I can talk my wife into it.

Someone found me with these keywords above (the words in the title?). I get a variation of this every once in awhile. I think there must be an on-going battle between kids and parents in regards to World of Warcraft (a skirmish in the larger videogame wars).

Before we start to think of how to get your parents to let you “keep World of Warcraft”, first let’s think of the reasons your parents might not want to let you play it.

1. You play too much.
2. You’re playing WoW instead of getting some wholesome exercise outside like decent kids do.
3. You’re grades are suffering because you play WoW too much.
4. You’re falling asleep at school because you play WoW too late at night.
5. You aren’t getting quality family time in because you are busy raiding.
6. Your parents have watched or read something about game addiction and the evils of games such as World of Warcraft.
7. You’re religion preaches against the occult and your parents heard about the Arthas and his followers and feel that he’s a bad influence on you (yeah, I thought that one was stretching it a bit too).
8. … hmm… your parents are jealous of your uber gear and want you to stop so they can surpass your gear score.
9. Your parents are concerned about your social life, that you don’t hang out with your friends anymore.
10. Your parents don’t speak Azerothian and thus are sick of wondering what the heck you are saying when you open your mouth these days.
11. Your parents think playing WoW is about the geekiest thing you could be doing besides table top RPG games and are embarrassed to talk to their friends now.
12. Frankly, you play too much (at least in your parents’ think so).

I think to the most part that parents want to make sure that you have a well balanced life. They don’t want to see things like grades, family interaction, sleep, or oral hygiene fall to the wayside. Can you blame them? I mean seriously, when is the last time you’ve brushed your teeth?

Well, if you’re parents are good loving parents, or at least they try, then most likely they have your best interest in mind. No seriously, I bet they do. I have kids of my own, and we really aren’t out there to try to spoil fun and bring death and misery everywhere we walk… well, there are days… but not most of the time.

I would suggest that you first identify why your parents want you to give up playing WoW. It might be one of the items listed above. It might be something else. Figure that out. Mostly likely they have a legitimate concern.

Next, get a game plan; figure out some kind of compromise. Think something out. Weather it be you cutting your playing time, having you earn WoW time by doing chores, or having you do your homework before you play. Maybe you can show them how to use the parental controls, or limit yourself to one night a week. Whatever, just think something through that would fix your parents concerns while still letting you play. Remember, restricted time playing WoW is better than it being banned altogether. And if you’re parents concerns really is the fact that they consider WoW the geekiest thing, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Okay, propose your plan to your parents. (example: “I will only play WoW after I finish my homework on Monday and Wednesday nights as well as Saturday mornings” or maybe “I’ll limit myself to only playing X amount of hours per week, if I get a 4.0 you’ll let me play X hours.”). Parents appreciate you being up front with them. They also like to see good problem solving skill (problem solving skills working with your parents, not against them). They might not understand why you play, but they’ll see you being willing to compromise and make a deal. Parents would much rather make a deal with you on good terms than take the game away from you and have there be negative feelings. I don’t really like making my kids cry (even if they do bring it on themselves sometimes).

If you’re parents agree to some kind of arrangement, then the next thing you need to do is to live up to your end of the bargain. Nothing will get WoW taken from you quicker than to do something you said that you wouldn’t do. In your parents’ eyes, they view this as lying. Yup, they see that you duped them and parents do not like to be duped.

Yes, this means you have to show some self-control. You won’t be able to play as much as you’d like. You might struggle a little bit keeping up with your guild. That’s okay. You really shouldn’t be playing too much WoW anyways. I hate to tell you this, but you’re parents are right, you do play too much WoW.

Of course if your parents don’t go for it, then I don’t know what to tell you. I will tell you this. It’s not worth it to go behind your parents back. Your relationship with your parents is far more important than this silly MMO. Oh man, there I go sounding like a parent again. Well, I guess I am a parent after all. But I’m the parent who plays WoW. Now if you can recruit your parents to playing WoW, that would solve all of your problems (and bring up a host of new ones).

And always remember, someday you’ll be an adult and you can ruin your life all you want by playing too much WoW.

So your kid wants to play World of Warcraft. You’re not quite sure about allowing him or her to jump into the Azeroth, not yet. You may have never heard of the game, or if you have you might have only heard negative information here or there. Maybe you play the game yourself, but you aren’t so sure about letting your kids play or at least knowing when to let them play. Should kids even play World of Warcraft? What age should they start playing? Weather you are a gamer or you don’t know MMOs from Adam, here are some items that you may want to consider before you make your decision.

World of Warcraft is a MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game). An MMORPG is a “genre of computer role-playing games in which a very large number of players interact with on another within a virtual game world” (Wikipedia). World of Warcraft (commonly known as WoW) is one of many MMORPGs currently available (here’s a link to a list of them). WoW happens to be the most played with about 11.5 million players world wide as of December 2008, in April 2008 WoW was estimated to holding 62% of the MMORPG market (Wikipedia). Sufficient to say, it’s widely popular. You can learn more about the game in particular by going to their website or by reading about it on Wikipedia. MMOs (often an abbreviation for MMORPG) have had ever increasing popularity in the past 15 years, the market is only expanding, or in other words, they are likely to be around for good.

Now that you have a clue what the game is let’s get back to the original question.

Should I let my kid play World of Warcraft?

That depends on several factors.

• Cultural bias
• Monthly cost
• Age considerations (including internet safety)
• Time involvement
• Motivation

Cultural bias

Before you continue you should consider your bias. In the United States, there is an underlying bias against games such as WoW and the people who play them. This negative bias is fueled by the media and by ignorance. There tend to be more negative media coverage than positive out there. You hear about video game addiction, ruined marriages, neglected children and other such stories. I’m not going to tell you that this doesn’t happen, but I will say that it’s the extreme, not the norm. You’ll find extremes for virtually anything (don’t even get me started on fans of professional sports).

Another bias that our culture has out there is role-playing in general. I remember people telling me how evil Dungeons and Dragons was. At times it was as if people were comparing D&D to devil worshipping in extreme cases. In more mild cases it was looked at as something lame or nerdy. Fantasy gets a bad rap as well. Every nerd on TV or in the movies is big into all of this stuff if you’ve noticed. They’ll often times be a big fan of Lord of the Rings, or they’ll be in the parents basement playing Dungeons and Dragons, or more recently they’ll be telling people about their level 80 fire mage or something, among other things. Don’t get me wrong, I think the D&D jokes are hilarious, but it shows that our culture over all has decided to frown upon it.

In Asia, the bias is different. It’s accepted to play MMOs, everybody does it. I met a guy from Korea that played MMOs mostly because it was the cool thing to do. Then he moved over here to the US and quit because it was now a nerdy thing to do. Everything depends on what is socially acceptable or not.  Now, I don’t mind scary freaky things being social unacceptable, like having unhealthy obsessions with serial killers, or Barney, but there is nothing wrong with a little healthy dose of geekiness. I mean really, Star Wars (minus Jar Jar Binks) isn’t that bad, Lord of the Rings won how many Oscars? Dungeons and Dragons is nothing more than a group of people using their imagination to come up with a story and have a good time. There really is no good reason for the cultural bias. It can’t be the violence associated with these kind of fantasies because violence is everywhere else. When it comes right down to it, the bias has no real foundation to stand on, except the “it’s nerdy” argument, and, well, that’s just kind of stupid. In my opinion, if this is your only reason to not let your kids play, then swallow your pride and let them have fun.

Cost Considerations

There are several different ways to buy game time. You can buy 60 day game cards at most stores that sale video games for $30 each (such as Wal-mart, Gamestop, etc). You can go to Blizzard’s store and purchase a code good for 30 days of game time for $15. You can also set up an automatic payment plan from your credit card, and no, they won’t commit credit card fraud. Remember they are a big business and something like that would ruin them.

Is the cost excessive? That depends on who you are talking to. How much do you pay a month in movies (netflicks, Hollywood video, iTunes, etc)? How much do you pay for cable TV? Is it worth it? Is it excessive? Well, think of this, how much do you pay for a DVD or a Blueray disc? At least $10, maybe $20? How many hours of entertainment do you get out of it? A couple of hours? Now if you play WoW for 3 hours a week for a month, that ends up being 12 hours of entertainment for $15. It’s actually dollar for dollar a better deal when it comes to entertainment for its hourly rate. (Unless you live in Asia where I hear that game doesn’t have a monthly fee, but rather an hourly fee).

I’ve heard many people say they prefer to play online games such as WoW rather than spend their money on cable or movies because they would rather have a more interactive social form of entertainment rather than the passive form that comes form watching TV and movies. Different people have different ways to unwind after a busy day at work or at school. Of course you may feel that paying for a game is just one more thing that you aren’t willing to do which is understandable. Again, if that’s the main concern then have your child pay for it themselves.

Age considerations (Internet Safety)

You need to think about the age of your child. WoW is rated “T” for Teen for “Blood and Gore, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol, and Violence”. That’s what it says right on the box. I know that some parents are more concerned with the ratings than others. I think some parents aren’t even aware that video games have a rating system. If you are included with that group then go check out this webpage. I work with elementary kids as a speech therapist and they tell me on a regular basis about some of the games they play. I’ve asked them if their parents are okay with this and usually they tell me that their parents were the ones who bought them the game originally. There are much more violent games out there, such as Halo or Grand Theft Auto.

Basically you have fantasy violence, a few references to alcohol, and some suggestive themes. Of course, as with many fantasy games, you have to have your undead and your skeletons (unless you live in China of course, no skeletons there.) If you’ve seen the Lord of the Rings or some other rated PG-13 fantasy then you know what you are in for. This article I found sums up the reason that World of Warcraft is rated “T” very well.

I’ve heard it said, general rule of thumb is the facebook rule. You can’t make a facebook account till your 13 years old (if you put a younger age in when signing up it will block you). Hence the “T” rating.

Something else to consider is basic internet safety. You interact with other people in the game, people that you play with in dungeons, raids, people with whom you work with in a guild. The game is very social by its very nature. You cannot control what people are going to say or do. There has to be rules when interacting with other people depending on the age. Plus all internet safety rules should and do apply to playing this game (and all other online games for that matter).

General internet safety rules (with some gaming rules speckled in)

• Never give out personal information ever.
• Stick with you alias instead of your real name, and have parents okay your choice, and pick gender neutral names.
• Tell you parents about anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.
• Never meet people you meet in the game, without your parents present (people are always what they say they are – a 15 year old kid could really be a 40 year old pervert).
• Always be open and honest about your internet dealings with your parents, communication is very important.
• Encourage kids to only play with other people that they know (other kids in the neighborhood, or family members).
• Never let your children eat the mouse, its not good for the mouse or your child.

Here are some great websites about internet safety in general and about MMO internet safety (more websites than you can shake a stick at – okay, there aren’t that many links).

• MMO Family: 17 internet safety tactics for gaming families
• NetSmartz Workshop
• Mom’s Homeroom
• Webwisekids
• Internet Survival Tips for Kids and Teens
• 10 Rules of Internet Safety for Kids

It’s also my opinion that a good internet filter that you can control is a must. There are some pretty dark alleyways on the web that you don’t want your children to be. The filter we use is Netnanny. This one has a yearly charge for their services, but in my opinion, it’s worth it. There are some free services out there you can find with a simple google search. It’s been my experience that you get what you pay for. It might not be a big deal with younger children, but teenagers can be very tech savy and will find a way around your cheap filters.

If you play World of Warcraft yourself then you may let your kids play earlier because you’ll be able to supervise it better. This next little section is mostly for people who already play WoW.

Young young kids, I mean like preschool kids, probably shouldn’t be playing World of Warcraft, but it could be fun for them to sit on your lap while you play. My daughters love sitting on my lap and making my character jump. My kids also like it when I pull out random vanity pets or mounts. They especially love the horses that you can get from Stormwind. If you aren’t a WoW player then I probably just lost you. Don’t worry too much about it.

When you’re kids are a little old, starting in school, then they should play only with your supervision and your support. I remember when my nephew first started playing, he couldn’t read yet. He’d make me read everything to him. He loved the game even if he really couldn’t understand it at all. This is the time they pretty much run around the beginning area, they won’t get much past level 12 and that’s just okay. They think its fun, and it’s a good time to spend together.

Children that are older, later grades (like 3^rd through 6^th) can play by themselves, but with rules. No groups with people they don’t know in real life. No guilds with people you don’t know in real life. In fact, you only get to play with people on your friends list and your parents dictate who can go on your friends list. No trade chat, no general chat in main cities. Sounds a little strict, but when you consider the age, its pretty reasonable.

Now your jr high aged kids (age 13-15) you can be more flexible with, but rules still apply. Basically, you should stick with people you know in real life, but you can group when it’s reasonable. My brother leaves it up to his kids at this point. Basically, if something makes you feel uncomfortable then get out, and all internet safety rules still apply.

There is an ignore button, and any harassment can be reported to Blizzard, which can get them a permanent ban from the game. I also think the ignore button should be used freely and often.

There should be free flowing communication between kids and parents. This will solve many issues. You as a parent should know what guild your kid is in, what he likes to do in the game, and who he likes to play with. If you have more than one account it can also be a lot of fun to play with your children, but it works best if the computers are next to each other.

WoW presents its own challenges when it comes to internet safety, but the same rules generally apply anywhere on the web.

Time Concerns

Something else that you might be concerned about is time. That is you may be concerned with just how much time your child will waste playing this game (or playing video games in general for that matter).

This is a very valid concern as WoW can be extremely time consuming if you let it. There are some people that let the game ruin their lives because they begin to ignore real life; however, it’s been my experience that most people can manage themselves just fine. Children and teenagers may not have such self control (not with some help at least). There needs to be limits set forth early on, such as – no WoW before homework is done – or – no videogames after a certain time of night. You may even need to put a limit as to how many hours they can play in a given week. These limits would probably be a good for many other activities (browsing the web, watching TV, eating of donuts, etc). Your limits are going to vary with the child’s age and temperament. I’d like to believe that there are plenty of kids out there that can self regulate their gaming time, or at least learn how to given the chance.

Of course you are going to find some children and teenagers who can’t and won’t listen to reason when it comes to limits. In those cases, good luck. Most like defiance goes much deeper than just videogames, which is beyond the scope of this article. You may have to take more action. Blizzard has parental controls built into the game that you can access from their website. You set up your own password and you can control how the time of day the game can be played. You can also limit how long your child can play in a given day and in a given week (not a bad idea for all children – and some adults). In my opinion, it also helps not having WoW on a computer in their bedroom (a good idea for general internet browsing as well in my opinion).

Remember, someday they’ll grow up and be on their own. The best thing is to teach them how to manage their selves at this point in their life, and not just for gaming. Learning how to balance, prioritize, and self-regulate their lives will be skills that will stick with them forever.

Motivation

I recently had a non-gamer friend mention to me that her son had started playing WoW. She knew next to nothing about it except that I played and that her son loved to play. She loved the fact that her son was so into it. Why? Because her son had to earn his game time by doing his chores. She was very surprised just how motivating playing this game could be for a teenager.

If used properly, WoW can be used as a great incentive for chores, grades, and overall good behavior. You can set up a system where your child can earn game time, which I think would work better than just threatening to take the game away. That and using a more positive reward system will foster more positive emotions and a better healthier relationship between you and your child. Of course it may not always been rewarding and then you’d have to change your system accordingly.

Summary

Hopefully this gives you enough to consider to make an informed choice. Realistically, MMOs are not for anyone and little kids shouldn’t be playing games that are rated “T”. And no, my son doesn’t play World of Warcraft, he mostly just likes to chew on hardware and attack the keyboard – making my character jump a lot. What do you expect from a 1 year old. I hope there was some helpful information here for the player of WoW with children and for the person who happened to find this game who doesn’t know the first thing about Azeroth. Please let me know of any comments you have as to how I can improve this article for future readers.

Do you ever think about real life experience as if they were a raid? I kind of was last night, silly and kind of stupid of me, but hey, why not?

So, there we were in the lair of the grocery store, with three little ones at hand, including vehicle mechanics (race car shopping cart). Well, the point was to get in and get out as fast as humanly possible without losing any of the children (yes we were going for the achievement), then of course kill the end boss. The tricky thing is that you can’t stop the shopping cart or child #3 gets out and is lost. The mechanics were tricky. Also if any of the children were upset for one reason or another you got a debuff, not very happy.

So, our 2 man team headed out. I was on collect items duty while the mage’s job (my wife) was to keep the vehicle moving at all times. As she raced about, child #1 and I rushed to find the quest items that she would call out (oh my goodness, this is just going down hill quickly). We almost failed it (maybe this is more of an escort quest than a raid, thinking thinking…). We had to stop the vehicle for a moment which stirred child #1 and #2. Realizing the threat at hand we quickly got the vehicle back into motion moving up and down the isles, not even pausing to wait for items to be put in.

Then finally the final boss (yeah, I can’t decide if it was just a quest or a raid, meh), the cashier. Right before the fight one children go AFK (potty break), thus taking out the mage, I have to do the boss fight buy myself with child #2 and the dangerous child #1. I start out with some high threat taunts; however, in the process the vehicle stopped moving, child #1 started to escape, and then child #2 start to stir. Amazingly enough the end boss helped me grapple child #1, only to her demise. Even though I now had a debuff on me (child #1 clinging to me and attacking all things within his reach – mostly the debit card machine) I was able to attack the boss with increased vigor, at which point child #3 and the mage returned. Our dps and uberness was too much for her.

What did she drop you might ask? 2% milk, pancake mix, and orange juice. No gear. What’s up with that?

Well, I’m kind of getting burned out with the holidays. I’ve gotten the Love is in the Air on both Aoirselvar and my death knight, Elliahna. All I have left of the Lunar Festival on Aoirselvar are the Northrend Dungeon Elders. Elliahna still needs to get all of the Northrend elders in and out of dungeons and she still needs to kill Omen. Hopefully we’ll get done with this soon.

I’m sure most of you were able to get all of the requirements for these things done in like what, two days? Not me, my goodness it takes me a long time. An hour or two in the morning running from one elder to the next is enough to drive me CRAZY!! But that pretty purple shiny protodrake makes it all worth it, right? I especially want it on my death knight because of her +20% mount speed ability. I know I probably should have used that for something more useful, but come on, it’s dang useful to be faster than most people, especially when you are farming.

Well, besides the holidays, my wife and I have been trying to catch her death knight up with our little family team. She’s almost level 63, very close. (Oh, I’m still mad to this day. We created her WoW account just a month or two before the “Recruit a Friend” program came out. I would have really liked that mount too. Oh well, what can you do?) Anyway, our little 5 man family team is really starting to form up, slowly. We have a few problems, okay more than a few, but we’re coming along. Our problems mostly stem from noobishness. My brother is our healer, but he doesn’t yet know how to heal (he’ll be the first to admit that to you). I’m the tank, and I don’t really know how to tank (the only reason I can do decently at this point is because I’m like 12 levels above everybody else in the group, the only 80 at this point). Our dps is fine, my sister-in-law loves it on her warlock and my wife, I think, is starting to enjoy her death knight. Our friend Dave, the other hunter, he’s doing better, but he still has the tendency to send his pet out at random mobs, just not as often now.

I didn’t play with them last time because I was with the boys doing boy stuff (which doesn’t have the same meaning when you live in Utah and you’re lds). Yeah, our guys night out consisted of us playing board games. We spent most of the time playing Axis and Allies (a very awesome game if I might add). So, I missed our last family 5 man dungeon night. They enlisted my cousin to play as a tank. Even though he was about level 75, they wiped … a lot from what I heard. Between my cousin going gun ho with his fury warrior, Dave sending his pets at random mobs, and massive AoE healing spells done by my brother to fix their mess and pulling the aggro in the process, an inevitable wipe would occur. When I’m tanking my brother said he usually gets to be in Shadow spec most of the time, but at the time I had a blood spec and I did a lot of self healing.

Since then, I’ve thrown down 1,000 gold to get dual spec on my death knight. She is now a 2 handed frost tank and 2 handed unholy dps (with +20% mount speed which I probably didn’t need, but I wanted it). I wanted the tank spec to play with my family, but at this point I don’t want to tank in random pugs, hence the dps spec. I’ll admit, I’m not confident enough to do it in randoms.

Any who, this whole 5 man team has gotten my wife excited about playing again, not that she was ever not into playing, just not as much. We worked on leveling her death knight the other night, as I said above. She was worried that I was bored and I didn’t really want to do that. Not true. Maybe I didn’t get XP or gold or whatever, but I like the fact that she wants to play more and I enjoy helping her characters out. We alternate nights to decide what to do after our kids go to bed and she’s actually been picking WoW more often than she usually does. That will happen often when there are holidays going on, but she hasn’t been only wanting to do the holiday stuff. She’s starting to get on her alts that she really likes, such as her level 31 shaman.

Can I tell you how much fun it is to play with your spouse in this game? I’ll have to go into detail on that on another day, but let me tell you, it rocks. Anyway, looks like I had better get going to work soon. I’m so proud of myself, I haven’t written on this blog at work for a while (not including replies to comments). Well, see if I can keep it out of work more so I can be a good little employee.

Sorry about the random update post. I’ll try to keep posts like this to only once a week or less.

I got a chance to play with my older brother last Friday. We ran a couple of beginning outland instances with him, his wife, my wife, and myself. We had a blast. It’s been a really long time since we’ve done anything in the game together. You see my brother had stopped playing WoW around last April. I didn’t think he’d ever get into the game again and it was kind of a sore spot for him and myself whenever WoW related issues slipped into our conversation. Pretty soon we just avoided the topic altogether.

At the time he was getting frustrated in the game. He originally started playing so he could spend time with some of his friends. (He got me and my brothers into the game as well). But his friends main goal was raiding, which is fine, but it made my brother feel like he had to raid in order to spend time with his friends. I think he liked raiding so that wasn’t a big deal at first, but his life is even busier than mine. I only have 3 kids, none of which are in school yet. He has 5 kids, with his oldest being 12 years old, youngest a newborn. (I just realized that I wrote a post about him quitting awhile ago http://casualhuntering.com/?p=282)

Keeping up with his friends to be able to raid with them was turning into a bit of a joke I guess. He felt that he was always playing catch up. He was always behind in dps with his mage and he didn’t have time to get the gear he needed. During Wrath of the Lich King he started getting frustrated with leveling as well. Being on a PvP server will do that to you, especially when some random @sshat rogue decides to camp on you. So, his main never made it past level 73. He was frustrated with the game and he was starting to feel like it was a waste of his time, time that could be spent doing something else to help out his family. Well, of course we could be doing something more productive with our time, I don’t think any of us would argue with that, but it took out something that we liked todo together.

The funny thing was that he’d spend a lot of time playing console games so it wasn’t like he turned all of the time into something hugely productive. I admit that I was pretty bummed about him quitting WoW. It was something we could talk about, something we had in common. After that we didn’t talk much. Our interests don’t exactly coincide outside of the game. (I guess it sad that I use warcraft to have something to connect me with my brother, but its better than nothing). My wife really enjoyed playing with his wife (she was the one who got Kydra to play, not me). We really enjoyed doing 5 mans together. So, when they stopped playing (since my brother’s accounts were not active), our wives stopped playing. Of course young children also had a hand in putting that to an end at the time.

So, when I heard my brother reactivated his accounts I got really excited. We ran with my dk as the tank, my wife’s level 59 dk, my brother level 66 priest, and my sister-in-law’s 65 warlock. Great fun was had by all. And hopefully we’ll be able to do it again real soon. I think we’re going to be making a weekly event out of it. It’s a nice way to spend time together, because it’s really hard to get away to hang out when we have children running around everywhere. This way we can get our kids to bed and then play and chat via vent.

So, I’m much happier with the game these days. Good times.

Have you ever looked at something on the auction house and drooled? You wanted it so bad, but the price tag is a little high. So, you get on all of your alts to see just how much gold you have. You start looking under the couch cushions poking around the guild’s frat house looking for loose change, temptation to ask someone or do something even more deplorable, go to the gold sellers.

Well, I have to say, I never have purchased gold, or even done any begging, but I can see where one might have the temptation. I usually don’t give it a second thought until recently.

My brother told me this weekend that he bought gold. He bought gold. I couldn’t believe it. He actually bought gold. You see in my mind this is just something you don’t do. You just don’t do it. You’re helping the very people who are hacking accounts, who are ruining server economies, driving up the prices of everything on the AH, and single handedly giving Scott Johnson an excuse to use his Ding Pong voice. (I actually find the former point to be amusing, but that’s beside the point.)

I couldn’t believe it. He actually bought gold. Well, I guess he wanted a piece of gear, but he didn’t want to grind the 12k+ gold that he would need for it. He wanted a piece of 264 gear for his druid. Anyway, he was wondering how to go about getting enough gold for it when some guildies told him just to go buy it. He spent like $60 something for, what like 15,000 gold I think? I don’t actually remember. He got an email to post some bandages on the AH for like 1,000 gold each and the gold seller bought it off of him. I guess that’s how they get around the large qualities traveling via in-game mail. He told me it was fast and efficient and now he doesn’t really have anything against it.

Makes me wonder just how many people are buying gold out there. The industry wouldn’t be there if they weren’t making money. There are probably a lot more people doing it than I would expect, keeping it hidden from guildies and spouses, deleting internet histories while in dark shady rooms filled with smoke, booze, and that evil jazz music playing in the background.

I have to admit, when I heard my brother talk as so, the temptation to succumb even came to me. Yes, I admit, I am weak. You see, I’m really slow at grinding and farming. It doesn’t hold my attention span for very long, not long at all. (I say this, but both of my level 80 characters have epic mounts and my hunter has the motorcycle.) But Aoirselvar is still obsessed with mounts, it calls to him. He’s not content with only 74 mounts, he needs more, he’s willing to build onto the family ranch, build another stable (yes his family has a ranch outside of Iron Forge, you’ll have to visit sometime). There were several mounts he never got because of a lack of gold.

But I’ll hold strong. I’ll hold to my ethics. I’ll hold onto my money. Who am I kidding? I can’t afford to buy gold anyway. I work in education and have cosigned myself to a life of poverty. Just paying my $30 a month our accounts is pushing it. You know I could save almost $400 a year if I didn’t play WoW? Well, that’s for another post on another day. But no, I’m not going to buy gold. Its not worth it (money wise or knowing that you are taking stolen goods).

Plus someone mentioned in the comments, it would be like a cheat code. I remember when I found out cheat codes to games that made you have endless money or make your character invincible. It really ruined the game for me. I usually would have fun for a few moments then stop playing altogether shortly after. I remember making a huge mansion on The Sims then having no desire to do anything with it. These things that cost a lot of gold should be a challenge, something to work towards, but my goodness the grind gets annoying sometimes.

Now is buying gold much of an account security risk? They never know your battlenet ID or your password at anytime (of course they do have your credit card which could do far worse damage, but my brother hasn’t had any problems.) Now a leveling service, doing that is just like begging people to break into your account and sell all of your epics. Of course going to the gold seller’s website might be the security risk right there. You’ll be entering the shady part of the internet; on the other corner is the p0rn, then gambling down the alley way with other unmentionables across the street. Who knows just what kind of scripts are trying to write onto your computer? But then maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.

So, not to get to far from topic, but I have to tell you this, later that night as we’re driving home I’m talking to my wife. I told her that my younger brother told me something, that he did something that was so wrong, so against our morals, so disdainful. I told her that I was shocked and appalled by his distasteful actions. I’m sure she had a hundred different despicable acts racing through his brain. Did he get some girl pregnant? Did he visit a brothel? Did he get into drugs? Did he kill somebody?!? When I told her what he did she said, “Oh, is that all?”

I guess it kind of put things into perspective for me as well.

“Is that all?”

I guess there could be far worse things one could do in this life. Your Deity of choice probably won’t condemn you forever for such an act. (Well, maybe…) But by golly the Gods of Azeroth might. Well, maybe, I’m not sure if they would care or not. Oh wait, blizzard sure does. Not to mention your ToS, could pull a perma-ban down on yourself (the equivalent of a lightning strike from the WoW gods.)

What do you think about buying gold? Do you think it’s harmless? Do you think ethically it’s just flat out wrong? Do you buy gold? What was your experience? Do you know of someone who has bought gold? I’m really curious about this now. Let me know your thoughts and such.

So, on Monday we got our 2nd computer back (even if it was a little bit of a drive to get down there). I’m stoked, I can now play WoW with my wife again. So, last night we got on and started to do our brewfest stuff. (This is my first year doing ram racing, good times right there). And then we got on our alts. We rolled alts on a different server so that we can get away from the guild when we don’t want my brother to know that we’re on. He just assumes we want to do nothing but run heroics. Its a good thing he doesn’t read this. So, we rolled an interesting combo. I rolled a paladin (I’ve never tried that before) and my wife rolled a hunter (yes I talked her into it, but she’s used to playing range dps with her mage). The idea is that she could spec BM and have a tanking pet and I could play more of a healing roll, but switch to another spec depending on the situation. I’m pretty stoked to start over on a new server (although I forgot how poor you are in the beginning). But its like our own private server away from our guild (which we love, don’t get me wrong or anything – just sometimes you need a break).

Anyway, I’m sorry that I haven’t written on here for awhile. Unfortunately for the blog, if I have a choice between playing or writing, I’ll usually play. So, on Tuesday mornings I get a lot of writing in. Of course yesterday the servers were down because of Patch 3.2.2, but I was setting up our 2nd computer, getting the mods updated, downloading old patches, etc, etc. So, I’ve been a little behind on writing, that and I’ve been a pretty busy at work, so I’ve been writing less here. Anyway, I’ll try to get back on the ball.

So, my wife and I have two computers that both have Warcraft installed on. We had a good time leveling from level 70 to 80 together. It was our little nightly WoW dates. You have to understand. We are the parents of very young children. We can’t exactly go out on a regular basis, not while our kids are in bed sleeping. So, playing together on WoW was very convenient for us.

But then we hit level 80. We could now go on raids, we could focus more on heroics, etc. My younger brother would send us invites the second we logged on. He didn’t understand that this was our “alone” time, and that we were perfectly happy just questing. We didn’t need to constantly jump into heroics and what not. We didn’t actually figure this out till recently. My wife stopped playing altogether because she was so annoyed. We let her account lapse and run out of game time.

Well, if you and your spouse (or significant other) enjoy playing together, might I suggest something.  Roll secret alts on a completely different server. You won’t be tempted to talk to your guildies, getting yourself invited to some raid/instance/or whatever. You’ll be able to have alone time. This is what we’ve started doing to fix the problem. We’re going to renew her account once we get our other computer fixed and start leveling alts soon. I’m super stoked to be able to play with my spouse again. Now I’m just waiting for my friend to fix our computer. Kind of wish I knew how to do it myself. Oh well.

It kind of sucks when the person who got you into the game or a good friend decided to not play anymore.
World of Warcraft is a social game, usually it seems that someone gets you into the game, rather than you just picking it up off the shelf at Walmart. It’s my guess that most of you had a friend or family member get you into playing. That’s how it was for me. My older brother introduced the game to me while I was going to college. It took him near a year and a half to do so. I was more hung up on the monthly cost, internet connection, and computer capability than I was with the actual game play. I loved the game the second I got a chance to play it at my brother’s house. I tried it out, rolling some nightelf toon. I had no idea what I was doing, but I loved it.
So, it started there. I got playing starting with a dwarf hunter named Aoirselvar (a name which I picked up with the help of the randomization button). I got in the guild with my older brother and soon my two younger brothers followed.
As time went by one of my younger brothers quit playing, he had a full time job and he was getting his MBA, who could blame him, my other little brother talked about quitting, but he stuck it out. He’s now extremely active, guild officer, multiple 80 level toons, 3rd best geared toon in our guild. Yeah, he stuck around.
My older brother use to get so excited about the game, but in the last 6 months he’s been caring less and less about it. He’s still an officer in the guild, but only because our guild leader won’t demote him. He doesn’t play anymore and gets annoyed of me when I talk about the game. The way he puts it is that there are more important things he should be doing with his life rather than spending hours playing WoW.
Recently the two of us attempted an online business together. We were both excited about this and at first all of our spare time went to the business. I took a good month and a half off of playing WoW and writing on my blog. I got back into playing in May/June or so, but my brother never got back into it.
We officially decided to call it quits on this internet business venture just last week. I was really hoping that my older brother would then return to Azeroth, especially with all the news coming out about the next expansion; however, when I got talking to him about it, he could care less. He still felt that he could be doing more important things with his time.
I was crushed, not just because he didn’t want to play the game, but also because this was something we could do together. Something we use to share or have in common. Not anymore, which is sad because I originally got into the game because of him.
My brother is difficult to talk to unless it’s a topic that he’s very interested in. He’s the type of person that rather not talk about things that he’s not fascinated with. WoW use to be something that we had in common, that we could talk about, then it was our on-line business, but now we don’t have much of anything.
I feel bad about this. I hope that we can find something else that we can share. Perhaps I should try to get into college football or something. I don’t know. But I’m a little bummed about the whole thing.