Cute little WoW ancecdote

[raydeen]

I was playing WoW a while ago and my daughter (6 years old) was watching me. She loves these games and always asks me to show her what the ghost looks like or the giant spider or whatever, even if it means getting my virtual face eaten off. So I'm running the orphan's week quest and taking my little ward all over creation, explaing what everything is to my lil' girl. At one point, I'm waiting for the zepplin near the Undercity, spinning the camera around so that she can see everything that's going on, and I start doing emotes with my character. I tell my daughter, 'Watch, she (my character) is going to wave to us!', So, I do the /wave command and my daughter thinks for a minute and then asks, 'How does she see us from in there?'. I laughed for about 5 minutes. Makes you wonder just what VR and computer games are going to do to our children's perceptions of reality in the next 10 to 20 years.

[stray]

I have a friend who plays WoW with his kids. At every raid, he tells his little 5 year old son to sit down and make water for everyone. And tells him it's "fun" while he gets up and walks away.

Unfortunately, the kid believes it.

[Mesozoic]

See, Ray's story was cute.  Yours was about manipulative child labor.

[schild]

Kids like doing stuff with their parents. Even if it's getting water. Well, young kids do. The kid probably sits and watches the raids, even though that's not how the story gets told.

As for Rays story, there are really two defining momens from my youth. Well one from my youth and one from a twee bit later. I remember the day my dad brought a Nintendo home.

I remember putting in Mario and I remember exactly what I thought. And what my parents thought. "This changes everything." I still read a lot, I still listened to music, I was and still am able to control my gaming habit. But nothing quite compares. And because I was so young when gaming became a need to indulge in my life, it's why I get so depressed when the gaming industry is in the shitter.

I remember the first game I personally bought. With my OWN MONEY SAVED UP OVER LIKE 8 MONTHS. Mega Man 2. I got it while I was away from home. So I had the box. Had the game.  Couldn't play it. For a full week.

That week felt longer than the sum total of the last 5 years of my life. And I remember every aching moment.

Oh, I suppose there's that third bit. Final Fantasy IV. That was another one I saved up for (I think I was 12 or so). Man, $85 was a lot of fucking money to a kid back then.

-

To re-rail. When I was back in Maryland, periodically, I'd play games with my little cousin. I miss being a kid when I see his face when I'm playing a game. Having no siblings growing up, I used to have some older folks at arcades help me beat boards in games. My little cousin gives me the same look when I help him get somewhere in a game that he can't pass. We're talking through the middle of games I'd never ever play. And for some reason, it's easy as pie. And we're not talking ridiculously kiddy games either. Like Toy Story or some shit. I mean like Tak 2. Which, while definately for kids, is a little more grueling for someone his age than Mario was for me. Some of that shit has logic puzzles that make no sense to an american child! Anyway, kids are amazing because they reflect everything I wish I still had. On that same note, I dislike kids. They have everything I wish I had and annoy me with their pestering. But goddamn are they cute when they look up to everyone else. Then they turn 14 years old and you want to have a tranquilizer gun around at all times.

[stray]

All of my earliest gaming memories took place at arcades. Half of the time, I didn't even know how to play any of them -- But the whole idea fascinated me. It was an entirely different world. I could be at Disneyland or Six Flags, and if I saw an arcade there, somehow I'd forget about all of the other stuff (luckily, my parents would intervene). Every time my dad took me to some movie I really wanted to see, he'd have to pry me away from all the games once we entered the lobby.

At home, the first thing around the house was my brother's Vic-20. The only game that comes to mind is Buck Rogers or something. I never really got to play. My brother was a dick.

Finally got an Atari 5200 after that.....Which was cool, but it didn't exactly replicate the look and sound of arcade games.

Then the Nintendo and SMS came out a couple of years later.

[Jeff Kelly]

From cute family anecdotes to a walk down memory lane in 3 posts. Maybe we should move that to its own topic? I have a feeling that a few more people are going to post stories of their own.

Well at least I will.  :-D

My first gaming memory was watching the big brother of my best friend play phoenix on an Atari 2600. Since then I wanted to own one. Well my parents bought me one for christmas the same year but I couldn't play until december 28th because my dad and my uncle were playing pac man and zaxxon for hours on end. This must have been in 1982 because it was already called 2600 and not just VCS.

The defining video game moment was playing decathlon for the first time. My wrists still hurt today when I think about the countless hours that we have wasted playing that game (especially the 1500 metres were pure grind).

I think a have spent hundreds of german marks in arcades. We never had arcades in germany so I usually blew all my pocket monex on video games when we went on holiday in Italy. I especially remember the addams family pinball. I spent a lot of money on that one and I still know all of the sound effects.

[AcidCat]

I made the mistake of teaching my 6 year old daughter how to play, now she always wants to hog the game! She has a level 6 rogue and a level 7 hunter. I think her favorite aspects are "getting new clothes" and checking out the cute ambient wildlife "ooh look a little bunny!"

[raydeen]

I'm not sure if I can really remember my first defining moment in gaming. I can remember several. Just not real sure what the chronological order is. I remember one of our neighbors had a VCS and I was blown away by Breakout and Air Sea Battle. Space Invaders launched me into orbit when it came out. Actually I remember the original Space Invaders and playing it on a cocktail machine with my little cousin (I was maybe 12 and he was probably 7). We didn't know what the hell we were doing and we actually thought that while one was controlling the player ship the other guy was controllilng the invadeers.

Number two would've been earlier (I thinki). My 3rd grade teacher had Pong at her house and she had someof us over one night for dinner and Pong. It was simple but I wanted one. Friends of ours had another neat early game that was all motorcycles. It actually had two handle bars on the console, one of which controlled the throttle and brake of your bike. We used to beat the crap outta that thing.

I suppose the third defining moment was my first look at Pac Man. I was in an arcade with my dad and my neighbor who had the VCS. I think Dad and my neighbor were playing pinball, and I was playing Tail Gunner, an old 3D vector graphics games. I just remember tiring out after $3 or so of quarters and looking around and seeing this really weird game that actually had full color (a lot of games back then didn't), with these crazy little creatures running around a maze. Had no idea what the hell it was, what I was supposed to do, or what it would become to me and the rest of the universe within 5 years. It really was like some psychadelic trip compared to everything else in the arcades at that time. All my neighbor could say was, 'I dunno, I heard it's some crazy game from Japan'. And then we left. But I'd be back....

Oh yeah, defining moment #4: The first time Sinistar screamed at me and I had no change of underpants.

[raydeen]

I made the mistake of teaching my 6 year old daughter how to play, now she always wants to hog the game! She has a level 6 rogue and a level 7 hunter. I think her favorite aspects are "getting new clothes" and checking out the cute ambient wildlife "ooh look a little bunny!"

I wouldn't dare let my daughter play. My wife would flay me alve. One addict per family is enough.

Mine likes the wiildlife too. She also likes all the little nuances in the way the characters move and act. She goes into hysterics when ny gnome rogue goes into sneak mode. 'Make her sneak Daddy! Make her sneak!!' [chortle] 10 minutes [/chortle]

[stray]

The transition is complete. The OP derails himself.


The part about your rogue IS cute though. 

[bhodi]

RUN, COWARD!

[Lantyssa]

I made the mistake of teaching my 6 year old daughter how to play, now she always wants to hog the game! She has a level 6 rogue and a level 7 hunter. I think her favorite aspects are "getting new clothes" and checking out the cute ambient wildlife "ooh look a little bunny!"

I'm 33 and that defines half my play time in WoW...

[El Gallo]

I have a friend who plays WoW with his kids. At every raid, he tells his little 5 year old son to sit down and make water for everyone. And tells him it's "fun" while he gets up and walks away.

Unfortunately, the kid believes it.

I need to have me some kids.

[Modern Angel]

Remember my fondest gaming moment.

My dad never bought me and my brother presents. Any toy we got (single parent household), any little shit kids went nuts over like candy and Garbage Pail Kids, all that stuff we had to do chores to get. And that's cool. Just how we were raised.

So my Zelda 2 comes out and we beg my dad to go check for it while he makes a run to the store. This was pre-gourmet section with white asparagus at every grocery store; my dad was a bit of an amateur gourmand and, while we didn't have a ton of money, he liked to hit the nicer store 25 mintues away a couple times a month to throw together neat stuff from time to time.

So he does this and he's gone for 3 hours or so. We wait patiently, think nothing of it. He finally pulls up, we start jumping up and down to see if they had it in and he just shakes his head no and tells us to grab some groceries from the car and put them up.

Dejected, we hit the car and start hauling bags in, putting stuff up when there it is: shoved between some bread and some cereal is a shiny gold box. Me and my brother go apeshit, my dad laughs and it's like fucking Christmas. So, yeah it's a fond video game memory but it's also one of the best memories I have of my dad and will be until the day I die because it was so spontaneous and out of character for him.

Incidentally, all this talk of MMOGs and really young kids makes me wonder how playing more than a little bit would affect their heads. Even adults have a tough time keeping the dichotomy between internet/real life behaviors and stuff like that. Not the first time I've thought about it; just bringing it up here since some people have kids that like to mess around on WoW.

[Lt.Dan]

I especially remember the addams family pinball. I spent a lot of money on that one and I still know all of the sound effects.

I spent practically every Friday afternoon at university playing that game.  Even your mention of it causes a cascade of sound-effects and movie sound-bites.

"Hit Cousin It!"

[Big Gulp]

When we first got the Atari 2600 my Dad became the Asteroids mastah, to the point where "the kids Atari" became my Dad's primary means of unwinding (along with beer) after work.  Of course, the joysticks for the 2600 were an abomination so my old man cuts 2 foot square sheets of thick plexi-glass and bolts them to the bottom of the joysticks so you have a stable lap platform. 

Of course eventually the novelty wore off for him, and now he contents himself with whatever new fishing game comes out for the PC every year.  But when video games were brand new my old man was absolutely obsessed by 'em.

[Driakos]

Of course eventually the novelty wore off for him, and now he contents himself with whatever new fishing game comes out for the PC every year.  But when video games were brand new my old man was absolutely obsessed by 'em.

My dad love them too.  Till I started winning.

The day the SEARS (generic Atari 2600) version of Combat (Target Fun?  Tank Combat? I can't remember), clicked in my head, was the end of gaming with my dad.

"Video games are stupid."

He probably kicked the dog or something too.

[Xanthippe]

When I was in high school, Pong came out.  It cost a quarter to play, for 3 balls.  To put that into perspective, a movie cost $2.75.  (You got two for that price, however - the main feature and the second movie).  I was hooked with the first quarter I put into the thing.  Pinball machines had little allure for me after that.

I let my 7 year old daughter play WoW this year.  She now plays on the second account that I purchased for my kids.  My 10yr old son is too busy on the PS2 and Gamecube; he doesn't particularly enjoy the grind, he wants to be powerful NOW.  He was 6 months old when I first got my N64.  I'd put him in his babycarrier and sit him next to me while I played Mario 64.  He loved to watch Mario. (He started playing at 2).

Anyway.  Here's how my daughter plays WoW when I'm not playing with her. (When I play with her, I make her level; otherwise I'm doing what I like to do in the game, which is either level a toon or be a crafting/AH mogul). 

She keeps every robe drop she gets.  I have a 300 tailor, so I make her stuff to wear also (festival dress, wedding dress, etc). 

She has one of every pet I can get her - cats, prairie dogs, snakes, and so on.  (So far, no pricey whelps or oozelings).  She learned how to get a chicken in Westfall, so she does that too.

She likes to take off her clothes to go swimming in Stormwind (since all her toons have a "bathing suit" on).

She likes to ride around on my mount on my toon.

She walks through Elwyn, killing all the wolfs to prevent them from attacking the rabbits.

She likes fireworks, elune stones, rosepetals, and snowballs.  I send her all that stuff and she plays with it in the central area of SW.  Occasionally she finds someone to play with.

She likes to make campfires, and whistle at people walking by.

For some reason, it's very entertaining for me to watch her play.  She comes up with ways of having fun with the game I never dream of.

Her highest toon is 11, I think.

[fatboy]

I have a 9 and 7 year old that watch me occasionally.  However, I don't typically play when they are up -- I have to wait until after they go to bed.......gotta keep that wife faction up.....   :mrgreen:

Although they don't understand all the nuances of the game, they do enjoy watching me.   My daughter does not like when I play my Undead Warlock....that is just too "freaky" for her.....

[bhodi]

You've seen this, right?

Learn(ing) to play
from here

[Der Helm]

I need to have me some kids.

I just want to help :-D

[Trippy]

I need to have me some kids.

I just want to help :-D

I don't think La Gallina would approve.

[Wasted]

My 3 year old daughter often demands of me that we go 'kill some monsters daddy", its normally oblivion I load up and seat her on my lap while we go through a dungeon together.  Every time I kill something I hear a very satisified "got him".  When my 5 year old son is waching he warns me diligently 'your red is getting low' every time my health is down.  Its normally a good half an hour before they get bored and go do something else.

[Big Gulp]

I just want to help :-D

Not submissive enough.  They also come from a westernized country, and therefore know how the modern world works.  I'd personally go for some dirt poor peasant from Cambodia or something who you can chain to the stove and throw down a straw mat in the corner with a bowl of drinking water.

[stray]

My Cambodian relatives listen to nothing but Tim McGraw and Santana. The only thing they'd do that the "modern world" doesn't do is beat you over the fucking head with bamboo sticks.

[Big Gulp]

My Cambodian relatives listen to nothing but Tim McGraw and Santana. The only thing they'd do that the "modern world" doesn't do is beat you over the fucking head with bamboo sticks.

Of course, they've been corrupted by easy living.  Shit, I wouldn't let my Cambodian (or Congoese, Uzbeki, whatever) wife even see the plane.  A roll of duct tape and a laundry bag does wonders.

[Ironwood]

So, I come to the thread for 'cute anecdotes' and I end up with kidnapping and duct tape.

Heh.  Gotta love f13.

[Endie]

So, I come to the thread for 'cute anecdotes' and I end up with kidnapping and duct tape.

No, kidnapping is where you grab her then the family pays to get her back.  This is where you give your to papa-san up front.

"Of course, honey: this is what all the western girls do..."

[Ironwood]

No, that's Ransom.  And Mel Gibson isn't a big fan.

[WindupAtheist]

I always had games around.  My dad had a home Pong from before I can remember, and a Combat console where you steered the tank by moving two joysticks.  Then we got an Atari 2600, and it was just a family thing, not a toy for the kids.  Then it was the NES.  (Mom talked him out of buying a Sega Master System, whew.)  That was more of a thing for us kids, but he still played.  My brother and I are probably two of the only kids to ever beat Contra while playing with their dad.  Hell, he'd take the control and put the code in for the thirty lives half the time when I was screwing it up.  Then it was the SNES.  He scoffed at buying "another Nintendo" until we showed him Final Fight.  Then we couldn't get him off it.  And when he discovered the joys of FPS, holy shit.  Doom, Quake, and Goldeneye.

He kinda lost interest around the end of the PS1 era.  But he and mom still play the shit out of that old SNES.  Dr. Mario and Tetris for the win.  My little brother (just turned 13) has a PS2 and Xbox in the "family area" and an NES way older than he is in his bedroom.  He watches G4 a lot, and when they reference some old game from back then he'll dig it out and play it.

[OcellotJenkins]

My first gaming system was the TI99/4A computer in the early 80s that had a cartrige slot for games.  Most of the games were rip offs of Atari games (Munch Man instead of Pac Man etc.) but were fun as hell. 



One of the happiest childhood memories I have though is of the day my folks purchased an NES for me back in the spring of 87.  I recall a major shortage of the consoles all around my area after Christmas that year.  When the walmart in our shit water town finally had one in stock I was busting Jerry, I tell you I was just busting.

[Xanthippe]

My daughter has discovered Booty Bay.  She swam down there on her 11 hunter.  She walks around doing the Chicken emote to horde, and watches them get beat up by bruisers after they kill her.  She thinks it's hilarious.

[caladein]

My daughter has discovered Booty Bay.  She swam down there on her 11 hunter.  She walks around doing the Chicken emote to horde, and watches them get beat up by bruisers after they kill her.  She thinks it's hilarious.

I think I'm in love... :P.

[Merusk]

My daughter enjoys her hunter too. She made us level it up to 10 so she could have a pet "like dad's".   She just runs around Elwynn forest killing low-level stuff as it pleases her.. but hasn't quite remembered that she needs to keep feeding the pet.  I think she's on cat #4 now.


Tangent:  The Google ads for this thread confuse me.