PE Zone Chat is Not Safe for Kids

safespacecadet

If you've played this game for any length of time, I probably don't need to elaborate. People say a lot of outrageous stuff that the profanity filter will not block.

If you are a kid playing this game, or any MMORPG, or using the Internet unsupervised in any way, please do not advertise the fact that you are under 18. Contrary to popular belief, there are bad people in the world besides in Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Iran, and King's Landing. The Internet is the Wild West. There are predators lurking behind smiley face shadows. Of course, I do believe it is the parent's responsibility to supervise their under-aged children if they are allowing them to use the internet at all. Actually, I don't recommend that people under 18 play games on the internet period. You probably have homework and studying you can be doing. Reading books is fun if you've never tried. Plenty of time to waste your lives later. As long as there isn't a nuclear war or anything.

Actually, I really don't see why mmorpgs allow adults and children, who are mostly strangers to each other, to mingle. It may be good for the old bottom line, but it's not good for kids. If I was making mmorpgs, I'd make them 18+ only. Kids don't really need to play mmorpgs on the Internet. They have public school and television to warp their minds, they don't need any help from adults in games. But that's my opinion. You're welcome to have your own. Don't ask me to respect it or agree with it though. I probably won't.

demonmonger

They Scary Thing Is When Adults Join Kid Only Games...

demonmonger

It's not like the average 14 year old has not heard what is being said or worse..... they say worse.

demonmonger

I go with my girlfriend to pick up her sister from middle school often, and wow... they say combinations of profanity I never heard

demonmonger

Ignore button works for me

kreatyve

Bah. Nobody ever bothers to read the Terms and Services. Here's a couple lines from it:

IF YOU ARE UNDER 18, DO NOT REGISTER AND DO NOT PROVIDE ANY INFORMATION UNLESS YOU HAVE FIRST OBTAINED YOUR PARENT’S OR GUARDIAN’S PERMISSION.

...

You must be 13 years of age or older to create an Account. If you are 13 or over, but are under the legal age to enter into a contract in the jurisdiction you reside in (“Legal Age”) and/or under 18 years of age, we require that you review these Terms with your parents or (legal) guardian to ensure they read and agree to them. If you are the parent or (legal) guardian of a user of our Website, Games and/or Service and you have questions about the Terms, please contact us at tos@perfectworld.com.

So, it falls to the parents to monitor their children, and watch what they are doing online. If you are a parent and letting your child play, you may want to think about hiding some, if not all, chat channels.

safespacecadet

kreatyve said:

Bah. Nobody ever bothers to read the Terms and Services. Here's a couple lines from it:

IF YOU ARE UNDER 18, DO NOT REGISTER AND DO NOT PROVIDE ANY INFORMATION UNLESS YOU HAVE FIRST OBTAINED YOUR PARENT’S OR GUARDIAN’S PERMISSION.

...

You must be 13 years of age or older to create an Account. If you are 13 or over, but are under the legal age to enter into a contract in the jurisdiction you reside in (“Legal Age”) and/or under 18 years of age, we require that you review these Terms with your parents or (legal) guardian to ensure they read and agree to them. If you are the parent or (legal) guardian of a user of our Website, Games and/or Service and you have questions about the Terms, please contact us at tos@perfectworld.com.

So, it falls to the parents to monitor their children, and watch what they are doing online. If you are a parent and letting your child play, you may want to think about hiding some, if not all, chat channels.

That's good advice from the Terms and Services. I agree, parents should be very careful about who and what their children are exposed to online. Parents might not know how to hide the chat channels though, even if they play this game. There's a gear in the top left-hand corner of your chat box.

safespacecadet

demonmonger said:

I go with my girlfriend to pick up her sister from middle school often, and wow... they say combinations of profanity I never heard

Well, we can't keep every child from going to public school or watching television.

demonmonger

Even if they don't go to public school .. private school is worse... parents were away weeks at a time. Non stop house parties and beer at age 14.

And if kids are inside all their life with no TV they are still bound to hear someone drive down the road and use profanity.

demonmonger

This world is cool but many pepole in it suck. You can't hide from the world when you are born into its system

safespacecadet

demonmonger said:

Even if they don't go to public school .. private school is worse... parents were away weeks at a time. Non stop house parties and beer at age 14.



And if kids are inside all their life with no TV they are still bound to hear someone drive down the road and use profanity.

Profanity's not such a big deal, it's how you use it, and how often. And I'm a big fan of homeschool myself. But saying that will probably get me labeled as some kind of weirdo. Even though sending kids to school is a relatively recent invention in the history of mankind.

safespacecadet

demonmonger said:

This world is cool but many pepole in it sucks. You can't hide from the world when you are born into its system

No, but kids don't need to be exposed to all of it right away. Parents should exercise discretion, imho.

demonmonger

What better way to learn to swim than to jump in?

demonmonger

Parents should teach their kids right from wrong and what is proper and what is not.

Eventually you will be thrown to the world and if you have not been exposed properly you may not do to we'll with the group.

demonmonger

For example I lived in a place whereally you didn't have to lock your doors and your leave your bikes outside unchained.

I got the shock of my life when I moved to california, left my bike outside for 20 seconds to get a glass of water to come back and find my bike gone.... and a little bike where mine once was.


My mindset told me maybe someone took it around the block to try it out. They will be back... instead a blue van came and a woman said that's my sons bike... took it and left... I waited for the kid to return and he did not. I learned later the term, I got jacked.

safespacecadet

That is where the idea of actually talking to their kids and teaching them things comes in. It's a lot easier for kids to deal with this world when their parents share some of the knowledge and wisdom they've gained about it beforehand.

I'm sorry your bike got stolen. I grew up and still live in California. It wasn't me, I promise.

langoller

I do wonder the age on some of the players or even their maturity range as most of them especially Role players that can be extremely ignorant or naïve fall prey to too often warping guilds with very strange and very often questionable to plain hypocritical ideologies and cyber bully others in gang ups, these immature or young people fall prey to them and become molded by these influences who claim to be good but I've seen over the last 5 years plus years ample evidence to say they are not. Sadly the community in Neverwinter is smaller then most game worlds and vulnerable in this aspect and vulnerable minds fall prey to them, others fall to them by peer pressure so question is when are we going to put a foot down and say enough is enough on gang ups of metagaming OOC knowledge into IC and cyber bullying others out of some hate agenda some guilds or people have against others? Why can't we just behave most the time like they do on Champions online that has a massively larger population but also more mature less vulnerable base of players which is why the things that happen in NWO never really occur in CO but we can't change anything in NWO of this behavior till we say "enough" and tell them or say if they can't behave then they will have a time out/be reported or be ignored, they do these things in the game to others that are bad for the community simply because they are allowed to and lets not forget that famous saying if I recall it correctly "the only thing that lets evil prosper is for the good people to do nothing about it".

langoller

we should also be more careful with the zone chat and keep more sensitive matters to chats more discreet In mind of the young minds and just plain manners when it comes to ERP/etc, and language which seems to become a numerous word use repeat ably in place of otherwise a used to be normal vocabulary. anyone remember the 3 unwritten rules of online games? never discuss politics, religion nor(forgot what the 3rd was) unless granted you have a mature enough audience and open minded for a rational and unemotional debate discussion that won't have people flying into a rage.