a healthy gamer: good tips for parents PART 2

It's important to set limits

Set boundaries and make sure your kids understand them. How long are your children allowed to play? What kind of games? Don't just put a gaming system in their bedroom and leave it at that. Rather, turn it into a structured activity and make sure play occurs in a place where you can easily pay attention to their habits.

 Also be aware that gaming may be a pastime that's more appropriate for older children. "There are dangers to introducing games too early. It’s crucial to brain development for children to be actively engaged in the world, getting tactile feedback as they grow," Knorr tells us. "Children learn by doing—putting away the dishes teaches them to be careful, having conversations teaches them how to speak, and playing real games with their friends trains them in a whole host of social behavior that is key to lifelong healthy interactions in the world." Giving them a sedentary activity that's often done in isolation can interrupt that process, with a harmful effect on your child. Her advice is to wait until the age of six or so before introducing your children to gaming.

"I have always been pretty strict in my own home when it comes to movies, TV, games, cell phones, and Internet use," Vance says. "But I do find that whether one parent is more permissive or restrictive than another really should have no bearing on what happens in your own home. As a parent you have every right to set your own rules. No one else has the right to do that. That’s precisely why our age ratings are intended to serve as warning flags, not dictates for parents."

You have to go further than the rating on the box.

Let's take two games as an example: Halo 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Both games are rated M for Mature. Both games have almost identical descriptors on the back of the box—the difference being Halo 3 says "Mild language" while Wolverine's rating says "Language."

The difference in tone and level of graphic content in the two games couldn't be more stark, however. Halo 3 is a science fiction first-person shooter that feels more like Star Wars than an R-rated film; in my opinion, this is something that wouldn't be too harsh for many children aged 10 or so. If my seven-year-old walked in on me playing Halo 3, I wouldn't be in a rush to pause.

In contrast, when you play Wolverine, you'll see men decapitated. The violence is brutal, with the main character killing great swaths of enemies using only the blades on his hands. The language is rough, and the cut scenes are even more graphic than the gameplay. This isn't the best thing for children, and much of the content would get a hard R if it were rated like a movie.

The point here is that rating games is an imprecise thing, and comparing two games rated similarly can be an eye-opening experience. ESRB president Patricia Vance encourages parents to go deeper than just the rating if they're unsure of a game. "Our new rating summaries—available on our website and, for access in-store, via a new mobile website at m.esrb.org—provide an unprecedented level of detail about content in a game that factored into its rating assignment. The feedback we've gotten from parents is that rating summaries are precisely the type of information they need to make sensible choices for their kids."

Microsoft's David Dennis agrees. "Like with movie ratings, ESRB ratings are intended as general guidelines only. Parents should never buy a game based solely on these ratings and it’s the responsibility of each parent to do their homework when it comes to choosing games," he explains, also pointing out the new ESRB rating summaries. "Beyond the ratings, I always try out any games before I let my kids play them to be sure they are age appropriate."

In my own home I'm a big fan of Common Sense Media, and Patricia Vance pointed out that What They Play is also a solid resource for more information on what games are appropriate for what ages.

a healthy gamer: good tips for parents PART 3

 

Online play: something you should take seriously, but not why you think.

With Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network—not to mention games like World of Warcraft and hundreds of other online titles for the PC—being so popular, you have to be aware of when your child is online.

"I don’t think the risks are with online predators. I think the risks are with negative online behavior fostering a generally negative atmosphere for kids, which is ultimately not healthy," Knorr explains. "I think the anonymity of online gaming is problematic because it doesn’t help foster empathy, which again is key to social development. Never allow a child younger than 12 to play online multiplayer games unless the game is highly secure, and has moderated and filtered chat—something like Club Penguin, for example." For kids older than 12, you can allow supervised online gaming with a discussion of your rules: no hate speech, no negative behavior.laying video games online can be unhealthy for children for the same reasons many adults find it distasteful: racial and sexual terms are far too common, aggressive behavior and generally abusive language is the rule instead of the exception, and rarely do these kinds of anti-social behaviors carry any real consequence. Speech or even virtual actions that would never be tolerated in the real world can be normalized by playing online, and these problems aren't just something that you may run into online—they're a near certainty.

Vance makes the case that children need to be instructed how to act and behave online just as they are in the real world. "Exposure to strangers through a game online can carry with it the same risks as meeting strangers in the offline world," she tells Ars. "Just as parents teach their kids to deal with those issues in the real world, they need to prepare those kids for these kinds of possibilities in the virtual realm as well."

Imagine it from a child's perspective: they're usually taught not to talk to strangers, and now they're in a situation where the whole point is interacting with strangers. They're taught not to use certain language, and suddenly everyone is using that language with no oversight. Be nice to others? That's another behavior that's thrown out the window with online play in many games or services. Online play is a tricky thing, and if your child is playing with a headset, you have no clue who is speaking to him or her or what they're saying. Proceed accordingly.

a healthy gamer: good tips for parents PART 1

The first thing to remember is that gaming is not complicated—just treat it like any other parenting challenge.

David Dennis, the Xbox 360 group manager, says it well. "Sensationalism aside, as with all types of digital entertainment and Internet use, parents are the first and best line of defense when it comes to ensuring their kids stay safe online, whether playing games or using the Internet."
How do you do that? Simple: just pay attention. "This means taking an active role in their children's gaming by learning about and setting the parental controls on their child's video game console or PC, and maintaining an open dialogue."

Kourosh Dini, author of Video Game Play and Addiction: A Guide for Parents, stresses that you're the best expert on your child. "At the end of the day, you’re deciding about your child and a specific game. There will always be studies about various aspects of playing games. Studies often focus on the negatives of playing games, and if you only rely on them, you’ll miss out on the positives. Your decision should depend upon your judgment of the game and your child’s maturity."

Caroline Knorr is the digital life editor at Common Sense Media, a great source of information about video games, as well as other forms of media and how appropriate they are the for the family. Her advice? Don't stress out about it—simply become informed. "I don't think parents should 'worry.' I think that educating yourself about the types of game consoles available and their features, as well as the types of games on the market, allows parents the ability to manage the media in their homes proactively and with confidence."

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board has a guide on how to set these parental controls for the 360, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, and even a Vista-enabled PC. The instructions are easy to follow, and it's a simple way to make sure your children aren't playing M-rated games in your absence. Start there, and you've already gone a long way to making sure you know what type of games your children are playing.
So the parental locks are set, and you don't know what to do next. Our first recommendation: make some time.

The easiest way to be a good parent to a gamer is to game with your children

It really can be that easy. Play with them. Learn how to use a controller. Not only will you have another activity you can share together, but you'll be able to better understand what games your child likes, and why. Talk about what game you're playing, and the themes and characters contained in it.
Even if you aren't always there when your child or children plays a game, putting an hour or two into the game when it's first opened up will give you a great idea about what kind of content you can expect to see in the game. Watch your child's body language, because games can evoke strong emotions and reactions in those playing them. My son loves the Lord of the Rings films, but playing the tie-in games often seems to slightly overwhelm him.

Caroline Knorr points out that gaming can be another way to instill lessons in your children, or to teach them more about activities they're already interested in. "Try and choose games for your family that encourage the kinds of values you want your child to grow up with in the digital age. Look for games that have strong female characters, or people of color as heroes," she says. "Find games that allow kids to play cooperatively. And look for non-violent titles that have an educational component, or complement your kids’ interests, such as sports or fantasy games."

Sports titles can teach your child more about the games they like to play in real life, as well as get them more excited about a healthy activity for sunny days when you put the game system away. The Harry Potter games can be a fun way to get children interested in the books as well as the movies. Games where children have to take turns or play cooperatively teach good manners and social behaviors. When you play games with your children, it becomes another chance to teach the lessons you feel are important in a context that children find entertaining and stimulating. Even better, you'll have a strong grasp of what your child is playing.
ESRB President Patricia Vance agrees. "The best thing to do is try to roll up your sleeves and play with them, but if that's not realistic, at least spend some time watching your child play," she told Ars. "Learn about the virtual worlds he or she enjoys visiting, what they do there and why they keep coming back. It's not only a great way to just keep informed about the games themselves, but a wonderful excuse to spend some quality time with your child as well."

Building the Ultimate World of Warcraft Gold Strategy

I won’t pretend that this short article can provide all the strategy tips you’ll need to be the best at farming gold. But, I can provide you with some basic tips you will need to get a good gold making strategy put together. There are so many ways you spend your days sitting around making gold that you might think it is impossible to do it better. But, here are some strategies to develop that will ensure good returns each time.
• Choosing New Professions – Your professions are vital for making gold. If you don’t have the right ones, you’re wasting valuable gold making opportunities. Up to level 80, your primary professions should be chosen from mining, herbalism, and skinning. After Level 80, you can rechoose your professions and pick something like Jewelcrafting or Inscription – very popular ones for making big chunks of gold.

• Planning Your Time – Next up, stop running around hoping to find things that will make you rich. You need a good battle plan when you go out in the field each day. To do this, you need to start out by developing a routine. What will you do each day when you login. If you know for a fact that Eternals are easier to farm at 4pm when you login each day, why not get over to Wintergrasp and farm on the elementals there before you start going into instances or playing the auction house? Time things right to get the most out of your hours online.

• Getting into the Auction House – Finally, there’s the auction houstp. I could write books about this, but the truth is that you’ll want to spend some time figuring out what to do here on your own. Develop good strategies that will allow you to make big chunks of gold without spending hours and hours wasting opportunities. Buy the goods that will flip a good profit and sell the things that are worthless. There are a number of good auction house guides online so I’ll let you check those out, but remember how important it is.

It might seem like an extremely simple strategy, but these three things will ultimately help you play the game better one very possible level. Rather than spending hour after hour trying to perfect how you play the game, you need to spend as much time developing a strategy for what you’re doing. How can you spend less time farming and yet make more gold? Then you can focus on things that really matter, like winning PvP matches or raid battles.

Does Your Class in WoW Have What it Takes?

There are 10 classes in World of Warcraft and each of them is very different, bringing in a number of different strategies and tools to make gameplay more interesting. However, if you’re just getting used to a new class or are just not having a good time with an old stalwart, you need to determine what you’re doing wrong and how to develop better strategies for your situation.

• Does Your Talent Spec Do the Job – Always start by analysing your spec. Your talents might be completely out of whack or maybe just a talent or two away from being perfect. Whatever the case, make sure to rethink how you spec your talents and choose a way to build your character that matches what you’re doing with it. See wikis and your fellow player for tips on which talent specs will work best for you.

• What Kind of Rotation Are you Using – Next up, make sure you have a good shot rotation. Each character class is designed to have an ideal makeup that will allow them to deal higher damage, or heal for more or stay alive longer. Learn what it is and then learn how to adjust that rotation under duress. You want to maximize output, while keeping from running out of mana or whatever you need to perform those attacks.

• Gear and Item Check – Finally, you need to check out your gear and items. There are so many options in there to choose from, but if you have blue gear going into a raid, no wonder you’re having trouble. Check what you can afford and what is available and then max out your stats as much as possible. These are the things you need to be doing to be topped out for your class.

Every class in the game is designed to let players excel in exciting, different ways. If you don’t actually spend the time necessary to learn your class though and tweak them to the degree that is necessary for optimal play, you’ll never be able to get to those upper echelons of excellence. So, what options do you have? To start with, you can practice. Second, find other class members to help you out. Finally, get some good strategies off of forums and wikis to help you choose talents and get the right gear. Only with the right information will you ever truly succeed.

The Inside Scoop on the World’s Biggest World of Warcraft Guide

So, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last couple of weeks, you’ve probably heard about this new Warcraft guide product hitting the market. It’s called Warcraft Blueprint and it’s written by a new comer who’s coming out of the gate swinging. Instead of just writing a new version of a levelling guide or a PvP guide, she’s got a series of four guides that include literally everything you can imagine to help players launch their way to the top of the game – or at least that’s what she claims.
So, what’s the real word? Does Warcraft Blueprint live up to the hype that we’re hearing all over the Internet? I haven’t gotten all the way through it thus far, but I wanted to offer a run through of exactly what you’d be getting if you stopped by her site and bought the new guides today.


The Contents
First up, there is the Gold Guide – one of the biggest around. It’s a solid 300+ pages and contains pretty much every single piece of gold making info you could ever need to make it to the top of the game. In short, if you’re interested in making gold with the Auction house, instances, farming, or anything else that the game has to offer, it’s in here.
Next, are two levelling guides of 300+ pages – one for the Horde and one for the Alliance. Each guide contains exact steps to get from Level 1 to Level 80 in as fast a time as possible. The guides come with links to the databases for each quest and maps to show you where you’re going.
Finally, there are fully featured PvP and class guides – all designed to show players what they’re supposed to be doing as they grind their way toward the top. In short, this is everything you’ll need to buff your way up to 80 and then get the badges, gold, and items you need. It’s impressive and I look forward to going through it in more detail in the weeks to come.

What You Need to Take on Heroics in WoW

 



One of the hardest things to do in World of Warcraft is complete heroic instances and raids. Available only after you reach the level cap, heroics and raids allow you to show off your skills with your guild. They require you to have high-level gear, usually rare or epic, a team of players who know how to play their roles and classes, and a whole lot of time to practice each and every possible strategy. So what do you need before you go on a heroic run? Let's take a closer look.
The Right Gear
First on the list is gear. Despite what Blizzard has said in the past, gear is still a very important part of raiding and running instances. However the exact definition of what’s required has changed quite a bit over the years. For example, when Cataclysm was released, a lot of the new stats that had been added over the last five years were either removed or simplified. Things like armor penetration, spell power, and the overly complicated mana system were changed or removed to make it easier for new players to get into the game.
So what do you need before you can run a heroic instance? To start with you should have a full set of blue gear. Usually you will get this gear by completing all of the normal instances between level 80 and 85. However, if this is too much, you can also pay for them in the auction house or look for people in trade chat to buy them from. Either way, you need to make sure you have enough blue gear on hand before you step foot into a heroic instance, otherwise you’ll just cause problems for your guild.
A Guild with Skill
The next major step in preparing for heroics in World of Warcraft is to find a good guild with players who'll spend a lot of time practicing and preparing before going into these instances. Using the dungeon finder is one thing when you're running normal instances at level 81, but when you reach level 85 and want to run heroic instances, you need people who know how to play their role successfully for an entire instance. This is especially true when you start running raids at level 85.
You probably won't find a high-level guild right away, but if you find a good guild and practice a lot, eventually you’ll get into a guild that will help you combat some of the hardest bosses and newest instances in the game as they are released.
Heroic instances are one of the most fun aspects of WoW, but they aren't easy. It takes time, preparation, and a good team before you'll be ready to take on these high-level bosses. So start practicing now so you can eventually enjoy all the great things that World of Warcraft has to offer when you reach the end of the game.

The Inside Scoop on the World’s Biggest World of Warcraft Guide

So, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last couple of weeks, you’ve probably heard about this new Warcraft guide product hitting the market. It’s called Warcraft Blueprint and it’s written by a new comer who’s coming out of the gate swinging. Instead of just writing a new version of a levelling guide or a PvP guide, she’s got a series of four guides that include literally everything you can imagine to help players launch their way to the top of the game – or at least that’s what she claims.
So, what’s the real word? Does Warcraft Blueprint live up to the hype that we’re hearing all over the Internet? I haven’t gotten all the way through it thus far, but I wanted to offer a run through of exactly what you’d be getting if you stopped by her site and bought the new guides today.

The Contents
First up, there is the Gold Guide – one of the biggest around. It’s a solid 300+ pages and contains pretty much every single piece of gold making info you could ever need to make it to the top of the game. In short, if you’re interested in making gold with the Auction house, instances, farming, or anything else that the game has to offer, it’s in here.
Next, are two levelling guides of 300+ pages – one for the Horde and one for the Alliance. Each guide contains exact steps to get from Level 1 to Level 80 in as fast a time as possible. The guides come with links to the databases for each quest and maps to show you where you’re going.
Finally, there are fully featured PvP and class guides – all designed to show players what they’re supposed to be doing as they grind their way toward the top. In short, this is everything you’ll need to buff your way up to 80 and then get the badges, gold, and items you need. It’s impressive and I look forward to going through it in more detail in the weeks to come.