Talk to me about World of Warcraft

[mumblechum]

My ds (13) loves gaming, but his gaming time is limited so that he has a balance of real life socialising, homework, gaming & exercise.

Having said that, if there were no constraints he would game much more than he does now.

He has all the main consoles but wants to get WoW on PC.

My main concerns are:

1. I've heard it's quite addictive - I don't want to be forever arguing/negotiating about gaming time.

1. It costs a monthly subscription. Haven't looked at the detail yet - does anyone know the ins and outs of it. He'd have to pay for the discs and the subscription out of his quite limited allowance.

So my question is, does your ds play it and if so and you were in my position today, what would you say?

Thanks in advance.

We both play it and most of our IRL friends do. I wouldn't let a 13 year old play it, personally. I do and get worried about the amount of kids I come across playing it.

Yes it is very addictive. It's a live game ie you can't pause it, so it's hard to stop and start. There is always something new for you to do, there's no end game... The whole thing is geared to keep you on there. There are parts of the game where you can't just leave it and it can take some time to move away from those areas. As he gets to higher levels he will want to go on raids which can take more than one night to do and he will be expected to commit if he does the first one to the second.

Subs is up to £10 a month (site is down so I can't find the full range of prices) depending on if you pay by card or buy the game time card from Game (can get it in HMV, but Game is cheaper, which is mad)

Thanks for that TM!

SORRY TO SHOUT BUT DONT GO THERE EVER EVER EVER

DD's friend got into it while away at university, and failed exams etc nearly got thrown out, passed resits by skin of teeth, his housemates also played and they were all back at the university for resits. He is now on total avoidance of the games.

It is not known as world of warcrack for nothing.

It can be played safely, I do, my partner and several of our friends do, but it is a concious decision. I don't think it should be played by anyone who needs to concentrate on life (eg students) or by anyone who is of an addictive personality. I also think the age limit is set far too low on it.

Do not do it my niece plays it & is ADDICTED it is very unhealthy & causes alot of agrguments!

Another shouty DON'T DO IT here. I've got a couple of male friends who got into WoW years ago and are now so addicted they never leave the house except for absolute essential errands, and I'm not exaggerating. I'm sure it's a good game but I think the effect it has on some users is very, very unhealthy.

OH

shit

bought it on Sunday.

The deal is if he doesn't get good grades it's taken off him till he does.

TBH he played for a while yesterday but not for hours on end.

Am now worriting.

Yeah the early levels are easy, you can come in and out without it being a problem, but leveling is quite fast. I can get to level 15 in one sitting. Level 30 takes a few more days, after that you start getting into the real game and then it starts to get to the addictive stage. Once he gets to level 50-60 he will want (if he hasn't got already) the expansion and that takes up even more time and there is a new expansion coming out which moves the level cap to 80. When the expansion comes out people are going to be hammering the game to get to 80.

My ds goes on it. He loves it, but is not addicted to it in any way. In fact this months subscription never got paid through lack of use.

Biggest proble is accessing it...takes ages to load and site often down, but I don't see any problem with it.

Most of the boys I teach play on it. Personally I would rather he was fighting cyber battles than real life ones

My ds[15] plays it.. he seems to manage playing it as well as doing ok at school .. Im with fizzbuzz on this rather he was fighting cyber battles and at least I know where he is when hes on the computer The only problem I have is it slows my computer down for ages when hes finished playing it.

Yes we have that slowing down, and the interminable downloading of patches...

If you're having problems with loading, if your FPS or your latency is low (I think I have that right, mine is really good so I don't check often) you need to check the compatability of your computer with the game. Another trick is to open WMP in the background, don't know how it works but Blizzard recommend it now.

I agree the game can be played without getting addicted to it, but you have to make an effort sometimes. I know people who suddenly realise they're arranging their social life around the game and have to make an effort to not sign up and go out.

For instance - no pun intended - a lot of my WoW friends come round on a Thursday and there is often a Kara run. A couple of them sometimes have to make a concious effort to not raid that night and come out instead. These are grown men with jobs.

What's FPS? We can't get cable broadband round here, so download is not as fast as it cocould be in another place.

Computer is a newish Toshiba (not a year old)

What's WMP and latency . Will show this ti ds he will understand more than me

FPS = Frames per Second. The game is basically downloading the game frame by frame - I'm getting around 60fps and that's only a good connection, it could be a lot better than that.

If you're not on broadband your connection isn't fast enough to handle the game and that will be why you are getting the slow game and intermittent pictures.

WMP = Windows Media Player. For some reason it helps. No one knows why but when Blizzard saw people recommending it on forums they started to recommend it themselves.

Latency needs to be low, I was too tired when I typed that lol. It is the time it takes for the message to reach your screen from the server. A good example of this is when I'm messing around with my friends and we're racing our mounts. Sometimes I will see myself in the lead and they will see themself in the lead, this is because our latency is different so one will be getting a picture back faster saying they're ahead and the other will get it back slower saying the other person is behind.

We are on broadband, but can't get the really really high speed one as there is no cable network in this area, it's still Ok for streaming and stuff though.

Will pass other info nto dp, I don't understand computer talk. Thanks a lot for help though!

It is a very demanding game of your PC as well as of you!

FPS is how cartoons work, if you've ever seen them talking about the making of and how it can take weeks to make 1 second of film because they have to make thousands of frames for each second. Or if you think about things recorded on film, when you hold it up and you see lots of photos.

(I understand things, but I need to understand it in simple terms to make it go in my head because of my dyslexia)

Without a Virgin connection you will get a lot of lag. Damn Virgin and their monopoly on good connections, good price though if you can get it.

Thaks for explaining that ..I now know what ds means when hes complaining the games lagging

Thaks for explaining that ..I now know what ds means when hes complaining the games lagging

A bit like my posting on here lol

WoW too addictive. Try City of Heroes instead

This site lags sometimes (just to really make a personal context ) when you post your message and you wait ages for it to post, but then it looks like it didn't work so you hit Post Message again!