What My Six Year Old Has Learned From CoX
By
2Negative,
Posted on: 2008-02-19 08:05 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Great Story. My son also started playing just before he turned 5. My son has a speech and learning disablility but he totally gets computer games. He still can not read but small simple words however he can match the names on the compass and get the right train stop. When he first started playing I would mention it to teams but usually they didn't believe me. He always waited for the team to attack and played his toon for the most part correctly although he doesn't tend to know when he is in too deep. So he tends to draw more aggro than he should. Best thing for him was when I made him a poison MM so that he got to learn about healing and ressurrecting people. He got the whole team concept right then and there. It's amazing what he can learn from just doing something like this game. Some people didn't believe his age until we did a SF one night and I had him on Teamspeak. He doesn't like teamspeak because one of the female players in our group said he sounded so cute. He didn't like that apparently.
I also got some interesting words from other parents. I got called by a mother because my son was talking about all the games he plays at school. She called to tell me my son was lying about what games he can play and that he plays them on the computer in his room. To which I replied excuse me but he does have a computer in his room and he does in fact play those games. She responded well we looked at the store and our computer doesn't meet the requirements, how can your son have one that does. I asked her let me guess you probably have an Xbox and Playstation but have never bought a new computer. I was right. So the moral of this story folks buy your kid a computer not a console they learn much more and the typing skills will never hurt them.
Later he had a school project of what his hobbies were we made a poster board and he wanted a screenshot to show his Bots and his MM off. We also took pictures of him at his computer with his headset on. That's when the teacher told me she thought he was watching me play not that he actually played. Also made it obvious it is his computer since it is adorned with hotwheels stickers and toys all over the place. Oh wait that could be a devs office too nevermind.
So my sons favorite AT is the MM loves his pets too. His favortie Hero is also a Fire/Fire Blaster. Something about those fire graphics I guess. Although his Ill/storm Troller is a close second thanks to of course Pets and well what kid doesn't like snow.
Course now my son is getting expensive. He plays WoW and his favorite toon is a Hunter aka PETS. He has tried Star Wars Galaxies, and Pirates of the Burning Seas (his current favorite). Plays Hellgate:London thank god its free.
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Wonderful story, and just goes to show how diverse our community really is, even down to age!
Regards,
Ex
Remember people, there is a reverse to this.
My 11 year old brother shares my account (I'm forced to do this, but I do get to claim first rights to anything sugary he gets). I gave him Champion to run around on, and every now and then I take a look at the mockery to this game he does there.
His highest level is an 11 Emp/Energy Defender monikered ROAD BRAKER.... yep, he was 10 and misspelled "break". Huge body, default face, robotic arm with black tights and robotic boots. It is truely an eyesore. And his other characters are just a downward spiral into the abyss of ugly.
But after reading this, I'm thinking of letting my youngest brothers play. Problem is, they're twins, and normally work together on computer games due to being small for their age (9). So I'm not sure how well they would work, but if they pulled off anything good, it'd be the costume. I go to them for ideas. But unlike some of the other youngsters in this thread, they call things by their proper names. The only time they gave something a name (and they watch me alot when I play) was when they called the Outcasts the "Rainbow Crew" before I corrected them.
*edit: Woah, first post after Red name.
I feel fulfilled*
To right the countless wrongs of our day, we shine the light of true redemption, that this place may become as paradise. What a wonderful world such would be....
I'm sorry what was that, I couldn't hear you over my TRAGIC PAST!!
Maybe Road Breaker was already taken?
Heroes : Angrem (50 Stone tank), Exo Inferis (50 Fire blaster), Exo Proteus (50 ill/emp), IceVengance (50 cold defender)
Villains : AtomBomb (50 Rad/Kin corruptor), Aleks (50 SS/Inv brute), StoneLethal (50 EM/Stone brute), Davroz (50 Bots/Dark mastermind)
When I visit my brother, I have to play CoH so my nephew can watch.
Psy-Kid, Vanguard, Paragon City Search and Rescue
www.pcsar.net
My son has also played this game since he was six. His older sisters play, also, but neither are as persistent as he has been. His oldest toon is about to hit fifty. 
When he first started, he'd tell people his age, but because he could read any and everything, and always had a high level vocabulary, AND was good at the game, no one believed him. I told him I'd rather he didn't tell people his age, anyway. Of course, I think people would have believed his age the day his young emp defender got "resurrect". He was so excited, and wanted to try out his new power right away. So he gets on broadcast and asks if anyone wants to die so he can resurrect them... His teacher didn't know what to make of all the stories about superheroes. In one story, he described how he side-kicked his sister to get her to help him in a mission. The teacher had written "That isn't nice." So...we had a little explaining to do.
On balance, his experiences have been very positive. I do have to watch out, because the filter can't filter out attitudes, or mean actions, but I have a wonderful group of friends that have, on occasion, grouped together solely to help him do a hard mission, or earn a badge (yes, he's a badger). And once, the filter made things a little harder...he'd made a character that was very colorful and had the word "rainbow" in his name. I didn't think too much about it, until someone approached his freshly minted toon and asked if he wanted to be in a sg...turned out, it was a very special sort of sg...the guy asked my son "You do know, it's a *** sg, right?" My son had no idea what the guy was talking about, and just went along..til I came over to see what was going on. I said...um...yeah, I know what word that was that was filtered, and no, you can't join his sg. *Cue a short explanation of "gay"* Also, I told him, please remake this toon without the "rainbow"
Thanks to the name change option, my son's main toon is no longer easily identifiable as a "kid" (hello, eight feet tall, garish colors, and a misspelled name? Oh yeah. Kid. 
) He now looks like any other (albeit tall) male toons, sorta "Matrix"-y, even tho my son has never seen "The Matrix". It's been fun to watch the evolution from a kindergartener's concept to that of a fourth grader. It has also been enjoyable to team with him, and watch his creativity go to town on his character's background stories. We are big believers in background stories; every single one of our kids (not to mention, ourselves!) writes a story for every toon. Recently, my oldest daughter got a compliment from someone who said it was the best bio he'd ever read. She was very happy. She's also an excellent writer.
So, yeah, COH has been a wonderful family experience for us.
My 12 year old finally got her own account for City of Heros for Christmas. She's been watching Mom and Dad play for years and the shrieking excitement was photo-worthy when she opened the envelope with her account info.
So far, she really likes to make new outfits, go skiing, and dance in the Pocket D. As much as I *hate* The Hollows, I figure we'll go back in just once so she can run Frostfire and play on the slides. It's been really nice having a new set of eyes to see Paragon with again, although the constant "Mom that guy is really cute!" comments make me glad I can lean over and toss a pillow at her.
She loves teaming and prefers to go in a big group for everything, even just to Wentworth's. I'm not sure if that's teen-girl-pack mentality or just her wanted to show everything to everyone. The family teams together fairly regularly or she teams with one of us and some of our close friends. She's not allowed to team (or play) without us and I pulled 'Broadcast' out of her chat tabs totally when she had to spend a bit of time in Atlas. It might have been easier when she was 6
My 3 year old nephew likes to sit in my lap while I play. Although he prefers the noise and color on the blasters, he's content to watch my one of my claws scrappers go through a mission or two before he gets down and proceeds to chase the cats. It took a little while, but he has the "slice", "slash" and "eviserate" noises down and totally expects you to fall down when he makes them.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
The English language is an intricate high-speed precision tool.Stop using it to bang open coconuts. ~Tokamak
Dark_Respite's Video page
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Sister Flame, Hero 2 and BabyMage, COH:The Next Generation?
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You left out Positot.
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Sister Flame, Hero 2 and BabyMage, COH:The Next Generation?
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You left out Positot.
[/ QUOTE ]Maybe we need Chase to make a City of Kids comic 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
My children (girl 8 and boy 12) play CoX both with my wife and I and each other from time to time over the last two years (2 year anniversary was yesterday, W00T! for Base Teleporter!).
They love the costume creator and seem to enjoy having inherited my altitis - they have both used up all 12 slots on at least two servers on both my account and my wife's. Looking at their costume designs is always interesting . None of their toons are much past travel power levels.
The kids are not permitted to team or chat with anyone but each other unless my wife or I give them permission (usually meaning they are also playing with Mom/Dad). I have had to warn Global Friends that if they see "me" or "my wife" on Guardian or some other server and whoever it is won't reply to tells, its just the kids following the rules.
For his 12th birthday, my son recently requested a WoW account (and for Dad to use a trial "come back" account to transfer the 250+ gold left on his old druid ). From time to time he still plays CoX though. So he's not totally lost to the dark side yet.
Things they have learned from multiplayer online games:
-Typing skills...and abbreviations ("ty", "grats", etc.)
-The importance of teaming when you can't handle something
-Reading skills
-Mousing skills and Hand-Eye Coordination (somehow the kids have also inherited their mother's ability to play CoX with a laptop touchpad <shudder>....thats just wrong on SO many levels)
-"Ask your Daddy" skills.... ("Daddy when will you get to level 50 so I can make a Peacebringer??")
-Why Daddy bangs the mouse....
-Wings are cool....so is Hover....and Jet packs are the awesomest except for Peacebringers (definite Flying Monkey Children material here)
-Jumping like a maniac while running in circles is socially acceptable in some places....as long as its not in the house
-The importance/annoyance of long passwords (see Typing Skills above).
-Why "I can do whatever I want without adult supervision" won't fly....
All in all I am a little bit in awe of how fast my children have picked up their various computer skills, many times on their own....neither of them have ever known a home without a computer or two and the Internet is just part of the computer as far as they are concerned. My daughter has always had DVR's on at least one TV in the house, I can still remember her getting mad at my Mom while "visiting Grandma" because she couldn't "Watch Dora Again!" while my Mom tried to figure out how to explain there was no rewind on the TV.
To them, all this technological sophistication is not being a "geek"....its just being a kid.
I can live with that.
Besides, along the way my wife became a "Gamer Girl" at least as far as CoX goes She and my daughter are proud to wear their "I Pwn Boys!" T-Shirts....
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This thread gives me baby fever...
... please don't tell my fiancé.
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Man, me too.
Maybe I'll just borrow my 9-year-old brother for a few weeks this summer 
This thread is excellent and really hits close to home for me.
I have 8 and 11 year old boys who have been playing since launch. My 11 year old uses his allowance money to maintain his own account and purchase upgrades, etc ( he gave me 10 bucks for the wedding pack just for the tux options ) :P, while my 8 year old uses his mother's account and a third computer I built specifically so we could play CoX as a family.
We have a blast logging in and being evil or smacking around the baddies! lol
It is great to have a game that I can share with them that allows them to be creative and learn while having fun.
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Sister Flame, Hero 2 and BabyMage, COH:The Next Generation?
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You left out Positot.
[/ QUOTE ]Maybe we need Chase to make a City of Kids comic
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I'd totally read those.
@ShoRyu Kusanagi
The Unoffical Anime Junky of Justice
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Sister Flame, Hero 2 and BabyMage, COH:The Next Generation?
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You left out Positot.
[/ QUOTE ]Maybe we need Chase to make a City of Kids comic
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Considering there's two little girl gamerz on their way in the next 6 months in my SG alone, you betcha.
And sorry about leaving out Positot - my memory disappeared when I got pregnant :O
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Sister Flame, Hero 2 and BabyMage, COH:The Next Generation?
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You left out Positot.
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To any of our great community artist reading this PLEASE do something with this.
Something like a cute drawing of a team COH kids smacking around some Clickey Clacks
Updated my sig to honor this awesome thread.
--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
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I wish my 5 year old would learn to play herself.. she just forces me to make tons of bizarre lookin characters with embarrassing names (skywalkr? puuke? meowgirl?) and then I have to run around and actually play them for her. *shiver*
8 foot tall neon green/red/purple/blue/yellow zombie catgirl archery blasters named rosabelle ftl. FTL!!
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That's my (almost) 5yr old son, in a nutshell. He's getting better about costumes, but he still likes making Huge body characters and cranking the body sliders all the way up. :/ Better than just hitting Random, I suppose.
Still, he's getting to the point where he can come up with names that don't look like someone just slammed their head on the keyboard. When he started making his own characters, I'd get messages from my global friends asking if Id' been hacked by a gold farmer. 
So, if you see "Zoo Man Joe 100" or something like that running around, jumping to the zone ceiling with his GvE Pack, its probably my son.
(Dang. Now this really makes me want a 2nd decent computer so I can re-activate my 2nd account and duo...)
That is an unbelievable story!! Thank you for sharing!!
Kenja's Logitec G15 Masters Guide
Kenja's Concise Commands and Emotes Guide (I10)
Kenja's Links Guide for Badge Collectors
Visit SalsaVille!
Try teaming with four toons half your level and half your height for one of the V-Day missions.
No, I'm not kidding in the least. Good team, though.
Bravo getting your 6yr old to play. Can you help me to get my 26yr old GF to play?
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Sister Flame, Hero 2 and BabyMage, COH:The Next Generation?
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You left out Positot.
[/ QUOTE ]Maybe we need Chase to make a City of Kids comic
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Considering there's two little girl gamerz on their way in the next 6 months in my SG alone, you betcha.
And sorry about leaving out Positot - my memory disappeared when I got pregnant :O
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That's it, now I gotta get Bashie and Xander in there somewhere...
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Sister Flame, Hero 2 and BabyMage, COH:The Next Generation?
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You left out Positot.
[/ QUOTE ]Maybe we need Chase to make a City of Kids comic
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Considering there's two little girl gamerz on their way in the next 6 months in my SG alone, you betcha.
And sorry about leaving out Positot - my memory disappeared when I got pregnant :O
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That's it, now I gotta get Bashie and Xander in there somewhere...
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Got to have our poopcasso boys!
Oh, gods I hope BabyMage doesn't try that....
I gotta say I am surprised by the feedback of the thread so far.
It seems to be that CoX is a pretty "family fun" MMPOG. Like I said, I've played quite a few, but not one where various family members and ages found equal enjoyment in it.
I like the idea of using CoX as a reward and yes, I have taken it away as punishment. Forget about allowance. Not being able to do Frostfire just breaks Flame's heart.
She's quite proud she dinged 20 and has her cape now. Today, she was teasing her older sister about her two costume slots (plus her SG colors). Her older sister (10 years old) was _not_ impressed. However, they get along pretty good. One time, the eldest even tried to draw Sister Flame for her sister.
Thanks to all who gave us a shout out on Freedom today. Flame thought it was funny to see all the yellow text.
The family that plays together, stays together.
The Elementals - Brother Frost and Sister Flame
Who Is Sister Flame?
Arc 118690 - Sibling Rivalry (Sister Flame) Tweaked 09/15/09
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Sister Flame, Hero 2 and BabyMage, COH:The Next Generation?
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You left out Positot.
[/ QUOTE ]Maybe we need Chase to make a City of Kids comic
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Considering there's two little girl gamerz on their way in the next 6 months in my SG alone, you betcha.
And sorry about leaving out Positot - my memory disappeared when I got pregnant :O
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That's it, now I gotta get Bashie and Xander in there somewhere...
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Got to have our poopcasso boys!
Oh, gods I hope BabyMage doesn't try that....
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>.<
I gotta think of better nicknames for 'em than Poopcasso.
Yay.
Go go good team.
Based on my experience, twiddling with the profanity filter not gonna work in pvp tho.
***
One critical aspect of immersion for children (and/or cats) is the visual component of the game. Always thought that entering certain missions/experiences in the game should lock you into a more realistic pov. As you scroll your camera outward and far away, you enter more of a systems perspective, which tends to make things more abstract and less child-appealing. Thus, I'd be curious to learn what sort of camera/graphics options children seem to enjoy best.