Re-activating your WoW account, or interested in "Trying Before You Buy"?How Young Is Too Young For WoW?
I recently came out of my first experience of That Person Is Too Young To Be Tanking My Dungeon PUG.
I mean, I've had experiences before where I knew I was dealing with a young person:
- The Hunter who was enamoured with Eye of the Beast, and would channel that pet-control spell and attack with his pet instead of attacking with the pet AND his bow...
- The countless DPS who never talked on the party line but constantly pulled extra aggro and had to be saved...
- The players who type quickly and talk ALL ABOUT THEMSELVES
- And of course, the Jumpers who are SO BORED with any stop of movement that they need to jump around incessantly...
But this one took the cake. I was honestly shocked.
I logged in to my 37 Druid healer with the intent of hitting Scarlet Monestary or Razorfen Downs or Uldaman to burn off some rest bonus.
I got into a party, it was already full and a couple of people were already at the stone to start summons. The party line had light and friendly chatter.
All of these things were good.
In fact, there was no reason to suspect this wouldn't be a fast-moving, "normal" PUG through a wing or three of the Scarlet Monestary right up until the moment that battle was to begin in the instance.
The tank came in a little behind the rest of us and DPS and myself on heals had taken down the first guy who aggro's when you've got a lower-level member walking into Cathedral, and then we all lined up at the back of the hall and faced down the first hallway, and got ready to get started.
We waited. The tank was there, responded short responses to some of us in whispers when we inquired about her whereabouts, but didn't move.
We waited longer. Lead was passed to the tank so she could mark if she wanted. Lead was passed on to a different DPS player than started with it, but the tank still didn't move.
The DPS member who was given lead let us know that the tank was a "slow typer". I said "She doesn't need to type, she needs to tank".
The other two DPS folk, including a Hunter with a squishy pet of 700 hp, get antsy and bored, and decide to let the pet tank the first 2 mobs. We get through it, but most of the fight I had one or another of the mobs hitting ME because of heal aggro to keep us alive.
The tank is still standing, motionless. Tank apparently gets onto vent with the party lead and the party lead lets us know that.
After a bunch of more waiting around, a second group is pulled with the tank involved, but again it's chaotic and I should have let the pet die... so I've got aggro all over me. But they don't hit hard, so we all live just fine.
I mention that we'd better pick up the pace a bit, or it's going to take us 3h to get through this wing alone - and others had been wondering if we could do 2-3 wings this run.
At this point, we're look into the lower courtyard of the Cathedral, and I stay back, as does the Rogue. A mob wanders by and aggro's on us - the Pally tank is there and does manage to grab the aggro and we down the mob.
After that mob is down I get the shocking whisper:
"She is only 6"
Six. Six?? SIX!!??
I whispered the original lead of the party and relayed the information.
Then, I said on the party line as I turned back towards the door:
"I'm sorry, I'm 6x the age of our tank, I can't handle that. Good luck"
And left the party.
Now, I don't mind if 6 year olds play WoW (although that's a big discussion on its own), and it's possible I've had 6 year old DPSers in my PUGs before that we carried through and coddled, but surely it's not to be expected for me to tolerate 6 year old TANKS in PUGs...
Note: WoW is officially rated T for Teen.
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Amen... six IS too young to play WoW. I mean, if it were a single player offline game, then sure, whatever. Blizzard's game is rated T for a reason. Can a six year old learn most of the game mechanics? Sure. Can a six year old learn their responsibility when playing in a group? Iffy. Should a six year old be privy to the majority of conversations in General/Trade/Guild/Party chats? No way.
You did exactly what I would have done. Shame on this kid's parents. Go buy Hello Kitty Online and knock yourself out, kid.
Lol I was in a group for Gnomergean on my pally once. I had the in game voice chat enabled and I kept hearing this little kid talking. It was the Warrior in party and he must have been about 5 if not even younger. Needless to say I left that group.
No joke 6 is way to young. I've had kids around 15 that didn't even know how to play good enough and they had 70s let alone 6 years. I played on dial up since I was 15 and I learned the stuff pretty well I would say. I have also noticed most of the younger kids that I get grouped with also are sporting a Druid Tank lol.
I don't even see how a kid that age can contemplate whats going on in the game.
Six year olds are good for unattended fishing (with all the chat tabs turned off). Can't imagine trying to coach my almost-six, or even my almost-eight into doing a good job as a tank.
At 6 years old....they should be out vandalising and stuff...not that I promote that kind of behaviour or anything, but you should be out and about regardless :P
Val.. my comment is short.. to the point.. and I think very accurate..
LOL@ 6yr old pallytank.. LMAO!!!
epic: Pacifier
But grats to a 6 yr old who got this far in game.. My 10 yr old hasn't the attention span to play..
It's my suspicion with the speed at which the Pally moved that they weren't playing the character they had leveled up themselves. I'd be surprised if they had gotten one up to level 20...
what's a 6 year old doing on vent with strangers on the internet?
Personally I'm not really interested in playing with anyone who is under age or acts like they are. Such a big game, so little time to play it!
My son just turned 11, and has been playing a year now in my guild. We've determined that he can play whatever he wants on his own. The only characters he can group with us on is as a melee DPS.
Main reason? He can contribute to the fight that way, but is less likely to make a strategic mistake that can kill a party. Tanking is too technical to trust to him and Healing is full of split-second decision-making.
It's much better to put an 'X' on a mob and tell him his job is to 'kill X'.
A 6-year-old tank, though... wow...
my 7yr old son has been playing for over two years, all chat but /g is turned off, he is only allowed to play for 1 hour a week at max and only w/ me or my wife present. he just dinged 18 on his druid this weekend. I would never let him group. being a prot warrior myself I'd certainly never trust tanking to anyone near that young!
One of the ABSOLUTE best healers ive seen is a 12 year old.
Having had some 12 year old tanks that rocked hard, I'd like to just say that the motor control and social skills of a 12 year old far outweigh that of a 6 year old :)
I have a 9 year old that couldnt play wow to save his life ( all he wants to do is chat and do the emotes)...and a 12 year old that THINKS he plays alright, but honestly...daydreams too much to handle the responsiblity. I would have left that PUG too
While I definitely agree that 6 is far too young to be attempting to tank, WoWGrrl's post right above mine is also very true. Two of my friends and I-they are both 13, and I am 12 going on 13-belong to a great raiding guild on our server, and are frequently invited to guild 10 and 25-mans.
The tank, a death knight, and the oldest among us, is considered one of the best in our guild. The dps-a mage-is well liked and very capable of playing his class/spec correctly. I, the youngest among us, am a holy priest, and though I'm still not quite caught up to the other two on gear, our guildies tell me all the time that they're surprised at how well I can heal, considering my age and less-than-perfect gear.
This is why it bugs me when the rest of the WoW community tends to underestimate people below the age of 18. Some guilds don't even allow people under the age of 18 to join. Actually, many raiding guilds don't. This is why we find it works to prove we can actually play the game before we reveal how old we are. This way, people can't judge us prematurely based simply on our age.
So, just remember-still being below the age of 18 doesn't necessarily make you incapable of playing WoW just as well as everybody else. I know this is a long comment, but I kind of wanted to prove my point.
P.S. Yes, I actually am 12. People tend to assume that we can't spell or anything. Some of us can actually construct correctly spelled and punctuated sentences. But don't worry, there's been many a time when my teachers have called my house to make sure my parents didn't write my latest essay for me, based on the fact that everything I type sounds like someone about three times my age said it. I guess I'm kind of a nerd in more ways than one... :(
P.P.S. Grazi Isn't my real character name, just an alt that I'm using the name of to post. Just thought I'd mention that too.
If you read this, thanks for taking the time... :)
My 6 year old and my 10 year old play but I never let them group...UNLESS WITH MY HUSBAND OR MYSELF. I can tell they are just there to have fun and not serious enough for a major group. My 10 year old daughter has a 43 rogue.
Sharlie, you're an awesome WoW parent!
Note, I don't mind if DPS are young, but non-duplicated roles like tank and heals need to be on the ball and focused :)