What My Six Year Old Has Learned From CoX

I started reading this thread and didn't notice the OP date. When I noticed there were 20 pages I thought out loud "A Family that Plays together Stays together"... I must applaud you and your family it’s simply wonderful to read Good-Positive stories.


<Insert applauding vigorously icon>

All of that is awesome, Wyll. I love the fact that she's taken on all the good aspects that you'd kind of expect of a girl who loves superhero stuff and her choice of the Flash is a great one (maybe you can direct her to Jesse Quick or XS as female speedsters? I don't know how aware she is or wants to be about gender types at ten). You really need to get a Captain Marvel t-shirt or something to match her.

Now, on that....I began a project for her about a year ago now...and it's still going, at a frustratingly difficult 96% done with one or two minor quibbles that derailed the entire thing, along with some real life dramas that saw all of that being put aside for the time being. It will be done, I promise you.

Great to hear from you and SF again....keep gettin' the bad guys!



S.

I have enjoyed this thread from the beginning.

Recently, I had a five-year-old visitor watch me play and then ask to create a hero for them. Once we had stopped the Outbreak plague, jailed several dozen gangbangers and visited Miss Liberty, my visitor had one last request, totally out of the blue: "I want to fly to the top of City Hall and salute the American flag."

This we did.

Little kids and CoH are awesome.

It is too bad that Sister Flame is not in the AE arc business at this time, but I can only suggest my plotline again: Just as Sister Flame reveres War Witch, what if there were a young superheroine who revered Sister Flame, but was captured? Sister Flame would certainly go to her rescue, and would probably have as much help from the superhero community as she desired.

Still, Sister Flame mentoring her younger sister is a great thing to learn in an update. Thanks for what is certainly my all-time favorite thread here in the forums.

I've enjoyed reading this thread for a while now. But not been able to comment prior due to separated forums. And with the serverlist merge, maybe i can say hello sometime.

You have a really amazing daughter and you seem to be a really great father. Reading this almost makes me want to have a kid of my own

As a proud father of a two year old girl, this thread has always been an inspiration to me and I hope that one day I can team with my little un in the same way.

So far she's sat on my lap and made my characters jump up and down by hitting the space bar but I'm doing her best to train her out of her latest habit - pressing the big red ON/OFF button while I'm in the middle of TFs.

Glad to hear that everything is still going well.

Greetings folks.

I know it has been a while since my last update, but Sister Flame was playing competing soccer all summer and that was her pure focus. I spent more time outside on the pitch this summer than I did in front of a laptop, let me tell you....

The good news is that Sister Flame and her seven year old sister have been back at CoX totally hardcore most weekends for the last few weeks. As a true father of daughters, but role has been relegated to "minivan driver": I get to take the girls to the mall, drop them off and wait for them, but under no circumstances am I allow to let any of their friends know we are related. This translates to me watching the girls play CoX on my two laptops while I ponder why I, the payee and fund earner of the house, is watching from the backseat.

Anyways, on to Sister Flame. Last time I checked, Sister Flame was closing in on level 35. She has been teaming a lot in Brickstown lately ("couldn't wait to get out of IP" was her words) and she is enjoying the missions she is finding. She also really likes the Rikti War Zone. Something about whupping aliens really appeals to her.

I also found Flame has a wonderful sense of humor that she loves to share with her teammates. One recent example is a teammate went AFK to make tea, so Sister Flame proceeded to do the teacup emote in response. If someone says "taking the dog out", Flame takes out her German Shepard.

I also discovered that Sister Flame has become a bit of a helper lately. She has been encounting a fair number of new players and when asked a question on Local, Flame answers them politely (if slowly. She's not a good typer or speller). I am pretty proud of that aspect of her online persona. She has even teamed with a few lobbies to run some of their missions with them and lead for awhile. I would love to see the other person's reaction if they knew the strategic flame blasting toon they were following was a ten year girl.

I need to take some time to mention her seven year old who has no handle, but I will call her Princess Rose. I thought Flame's progression on CoX was incredible, but I was truly shocked by Rose's performance. She has only been playing CoX seriously for about six months, but here is what she shown me she can do:

- type and spell like a 15 year old
- annoy people at Miss Liberty by asking to team with them (I showed her how to use the Team Reaquest panel)
- master the F keys as well as most emotes AND channels
- lead teams to victory on missions

If that wasn't enough, I also learned she knows how to "game the game". This weekend, I noticed some of her missions looked familiar and repetitive. I took a closer look and boggled at what a saw on her screen:

Hydra from the Sewer Trial....

I asked my little rose what missions she was doing. In her high pitched, little girl voice she told me the following:

"Some kind of sewer thing. We go in, fight our way to the big monster, beat it and gain a level. I did it eight times so far. You get some kind of reward too, but I just click anything. It is pretty easy now I know what to do."

As it turns out, my little Rose had been doing the Sewer trial over and over to gain levels for the last few weekends. She even had a few people on her friend list that team up with her to do it when online.

7 years old, knows how to ace the Sewer trial. Wow.

So, in closing, we are all doing find and the ladies still blow through Pocket D to see War Witch. They are wondering what all the 50s are doing there and think it is some kind of party.

Regards

Wyll

P.S. the girls long term goal is to hit a high enough level to enter the Recluse Victory's portal in Atlas Park. It has been teasing them since the low levels and they are convinced something awesome is there.

This last post, and the OP are so unbelievably beyond totally awesome! Thank you for sharing.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

This is outstanding stuff, Wyll -- you've been writing a primer about how to use a video game to play with AND educate your child! And it's also an excellent example of a parent directly supervising his children when they're playing around in a world primarily designed for grown-ups. Not that you need me to say these things, since you've said them yourself! Just singing your praises, here.

Your daughters have caught on to the absolute truth about this game: it's here to be played to HAVE FUN! Your description of Flame's attitude towards powerlevelling and min-maxing made me laugh, because that's how I've always approached CoH. I think she could teach many "veterans" a thing or two.

I hope your kids continue to keep playing and sharing this game with you for a long time!

W4E

I'd been hoping to see this thread pop up again sometime. I also have a daughter, she's 5 years old right now and just starting to become interested in City of Heroes (read: if she happens upon me while I'm playing, she forces her way onto my lap and takes control of my character. Usually to find the nearest body of water to swim in)

She doesn't have cute names for the enemies yet, she mostly just calls the villains "crappy" or "crappys" and tends to call Longbow "superheros". Earlier today I rolled up a new villain blaster that she immediately took control of. She saw a "sick RIP" that was doing the puke emote, ran up to him and said aloud "are you ok?" he replied by punching her. She screamed and made our character run off. Shortly afterwards she saw another group of two RIPs who were shaking down a random NPC. She said aloud "I'll save you" and started attacking them.

She currently knows how to move the character around, attack with the mouse, she recognizes the fly and walk buttons. Her favorite task yesterday was taking over my character that had been parked in Dark Astoria, flying her up to the top of the map, and clicking walk to make her fall to the ground, and then walk around for a while.

"With great parenting comes great entertainment."

(at least, I think that's how the saying goes...)

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Great to see this thread again! We recently gave our 9 year old a F2P account and will surprise her with the VIP starter kit this weekend since she got an excellent report at school.

But the real news I have is about her 4 year old sister, whom I shall dub "Horsey". Well when she saw that her sister had an account, she demanded some playtime too! So after her sister had finished we let her on my account to see some toons her sister and other kids had made on Pinnacle. We got distracted by something and we come back to find Horsey is making a character! We were stunned and amazed that a four year old could be doing this, and on her own! We let her at it, helping her only to type the name in. She goes in the tutorial and actually manages to get past the part where she has taken down 4 Shivans before she gets lost and loses interest.

Later as I play, she asks to see a particular toon when I'm done. Well I figure why not? From what we can gather, it's another of the toons made by one of the kids that has been ignored for over a year on Pinnacle. (Not many of my creations feature a lot of pink, so it was easier to narrow down.) So I start showing her the selections on that server already and on the second one she says "That's her. Can I play her daddy? PLEEEEEAAAASE?" I ask "Well is it okay if I watch you?". "Sure daddy." Is the reply I get.

And so my 4 year old proudly logs onto a level 7 Blaster in the Hollows and starts to explore. I'm amazed at her grasp of the 3D world. She can navigate around buildings, through tight alleyways, and jump onto rooftops all on her own! She can even rez at the hospital with minimal instruction. (Combat isn't her best area yet.) Now mind you, she only turns to the right, but she gets where she wants to go, even if she has to turn full circle 2-3 times to line up the path right.

Later she manages to tell me she wants to play where she saw her sister playing, so I help her get to Atlas Park where she explores until bedtime. She hasn't been on since, but I imagine when she see her sister on again...

Aww, that's awesome! My brother actually learned how to read on "Monkey Island" so it's always nice to see that games are still helping kids learn.

My two girls have been working on their processing speeds with their reading since they started playing, which as made their teachers really happy.

I love this thread. I'm particularly pleased that it's resurfaced just as my daughter turns three. She's already interested in what I'm doing and likes to watch as I fly or fight although as hardly any of my characters wear pink, she's not that interested yet. Although I may have to make something for her, just so she can watch and help press the keys occasionally.

Ah, it is so cool to see a new post in this thread.....

I'm going to make it my mission to transfer over my level 50 tank (who, btw, has had his action figure posing with what I consider the 'Official' Sister Flame action figure) to meet and play with her, Wyll.

Don't worry, I have never ever forgotten my promise to you either. I've had many many delays but I intend to keep my word to you and to her. Expect an early Christmas present, that's all I'll say.....



S.

Thanks for update Wyll, always fun to read about your daughters antics in CoH


I myself leared much of my english from playing games like Monkey Island, Kings Quest, etc

RV is not a problem so long as you make sure to turn off broadcast, local and tells before letting them head in.

Hey all,
I just thought I would chime in with everyone else and say thanks for the update!!

Your daughter has developed quite a following which I think is pretty great.

I would like to post a suggestion for my fellow posters here.

There are times when this community can come together like no other so here goes the suggestion.

Since Wyll has teased Sister Flame about something special in RV.. I would like to suggest that the players of the server *make* it something special.

Have Wyll let everyone know when he will be letting Sister Flame on and into RV and when that day and time happens.

Have a full team of Heroes standing by to make sure no one bothers Sister Flame while she is inside. Then can them help her spawn the AV's and even help her defeat them of course.


Just a suggestion of course.