Concern about online games
Date: January 21, 2004 06:55AM
I played several online games, including the first MMORPG Shadow of Yserbius, but also Ultima Online and now "Star Wars Galaxies" when I have spare time.
In the past, I've noticed several groups that were a bit on the vulgar side, and dealt with rated R topics and spoke rated R language. People would throw nasty insults back and forth, make "real life" attacks on people, etc.
What I mean by real life attacks is finding personal information about a player and ridiculing them. Sometimes make fun of their job, appearance, etc. It would get as bad as photograph alteration.
There is an article about how crazy it got in Korea when their big game "Lineage" was released. High school kids flunked out of school because they played this game day and night. A lot of these guys who played stayed in internet cafes day and night, it was a serious addiction.
Sometimes, in battles between one gang of player killers versus another gang, if one gang was doing unusually well, the other side would find out which internet cafe their enemies play, then they'd take a gang of guys with them, and beat the heck out of their in game enemy!
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Today, I think there is more awareness. Problem players are banned from message boards and the actual games VERY quickly. Still, children can be at risk not so much from sex predators (but that is always something to watch out for), but also the gang-like mentality of some player guilds. Parents should supervise a little. See who your kid talks to in this game, and ask your kid if s/he's in a guild. If s/he is, go to that guild's website, and see if they're reasonably nice people, and not a bunch of kooks.