I love my mmorpgs. Everquest was my first obsession, but I hated having to spend money on a monthly subscription, especially when I'd have to skip a month or so because of the obligations of real life. By the time I had the J-Rex, I was all about one of the first pay-per-expansion games, Guild Wars. I remember, in her early years (when I still somehow managed to find the time to spend a few hours here and there making it through a new zone or farming), daydreaming about how cool it was going to be when the J-Rex was a teenager and we could play the game together (assuming the servers are still around by then!)...
What followed those early years, though, has been a very long period of never having the time to visit my favorite virtual worlds more than once or twice a year (if that!). About a year ago, however, we discovered that there are some mmorpg's out now that are geared towards the very young crowd. I was excited, of course, and checked out a few of them with the J-Rex, like Jump Start, Petpet Park, and Poptropica.
I was not happy with any of these: Jump Start really won't let you do anything without a monthly membership (the free part of the game is a joke, designed to get your kids to whine and beg until you spend money). Petpet Park was just boring and wasn't nearly straightforward enough in its game play. Poptropica seemed o.k., but it is nearly impossible for the J-Rex to do anything without constantly looking onto YouTube for the cheats (this is apparently what all her friends did as well), which became a big pain in my behind since I won't let the J-Rex search/watch YouTube unsupervised. To top it all off, not a one of these games were interesting enough to appeal to me and half of the reason I was looking into gaming was because it was something I wanted to share with her.
Then, while discussing gaming as a way to improve the J-Rex 's typing skills, I was reminded of a game that had long ago been recommended to me (me, not the J-Rex) by the J-Rex's sitter: Wizards101. Now, I had been initially recommended this game by a teenager, so I had assumed it was somewhat adult oriented, at least in terms of the difficulty of the game-play. Now, though, I was being told by several friends that they played this game right alongside their early elementary-schoolers, so I had to finally check it out...and it is AWESOME!
So, here's the deal with Wizards101: For the young-un, the chat filter is ridiculously amazing in that it's so strict that I don't ever have to worry about strangers saying anything inappropriate to my J-Rex online. The game-play is very straightforward, classic questing that is easy enough for the J-Rex to follow and participate in independently but still has enough nuances that make it enjoyable for an experienced, older gamer like myself. It didn't take us long to reach the point where we will need to spend some money to visit other areas, but, honestly, the cost per area isn't all that bad and, for something that the both of us have so much fun doing together (not to mention the educational aspect of any questing game in terms of problem-solving, critical thinking, and goal-setting), it will be worth it to throw in a gift card for a holiday here and there.
I admit, it's odd for me to find myself being the one to put time limits on gaming - my memories of all-night dungeon runs still feel fresh, for goodness sake - but I find myself regulating her in all the ways I probably should have regulated myself in my early years of obsessive gaming, and it's teaching me to enjoy mmorping in a bit more healthy way, which is a good thing. The point, though, is that I'm happy, ecstatic even, that my girl is a natural gamer, too, because there is nothing more fun for the geeky mom than discussing the best strategy for killing Scarlet Screamers over breakfast!
No comments:
Post a Comment