(My) Kids playing FFXIV, or is 9 too young?Follow

I thank you all for your replies and I'm very grateful to find very heartfelt words being shared.

I've thought this over after reading every word in all of these replies and I'd like to share what I've found. Normally I glaze over threads (sorry...) and pull out the key points but this is a topic that is very near and dear to me. As a child her age I was playing video games near constantly. Games back then weren't what they are now. The gamer side of me is all for it. The parental side of me is on the fence.

My relationship with her has always been very open and positive. Any time someone at school has talked about 'something dirty' she's always come to me first and foremost and asked me about what they said, why they said it, what it means, and is it a good or bad thing? In return, I made her the promise that if she is old enough to ask the questions she is old enough to receive adult answers. Now of course I don't go divulging every detail about everything, and she knows that (we talked about it). She's happy she can come to someone and ask ANYTHING, and she appreciates that, unlike a lot of other adults in her life, she isn't given 'little kid answers'.

Discipline has never been an issue. She does what I ask, perhaps not timely in all cases such as cleaning rooms, but she does it and I'm confident after talking to her that she understands my reasons or at least understands that she may not really know why I'm asking something, but that it's important and she needs to do it. So when I tell her that she can only play XIV with me when I'm on I trust that she will do just that. I'm also of the type that if I'm in a linkshell or FC, I myself don't have a tolerance for extreme foul language or topics even when it's just me, let alone my kid. So I feel like that situation will be handled well.

Where the blurred line comes in is reigning us in. I'll play all night long. I'll play for 18 hours if I'm off. I know it. I don't because I recognize my tenancy to do that, but I've still done it from time to time. How can I trust myself to reign her in? I feel like if her and I play together and she really takes to it, I can see us setting out to do big things all the time and not going to bed and making adventuring an excuse. She'll go right along with it.

Then there's the problem of exposing her addiction. If she becomes addicted and grows beyond me game-wise, that'll obviously be bad, too.

So at the end of the day I've asked myself this after carefully reading all of your replies:

Do I trust her? Yes.
Do I trust myself to set rules towards playing with only me? Yes.
Do I trust myself to set strict time guidelines? No.
Do I trust myself to not become addicted and fueling an addiction for her? No.

So then comes the question, "How do I come to trust myself with setting and adhering to time guidelines and addiction prevention?"

I don't honestly know. If I set time restrictions on her, I will have to follow it myself and I don't really want to do that. If I try to throttle her, I'll again have to do the same for me.

Do I want to share my love for FFXI/XIV that much? Yes. How can I have the best of both worlds? I don't know.

I don't know if you are playing on PS3? Are you playing with your kids? I have a couple of suggestions that might help you. My 7 year old daughter was leveling up by herself with a kid-friendly controller setup.

Character Configuration > R1 over to the tab that says "Cross":
- Set the Cross Hotbar Controls to "Toggle"
- Set the Crossbar display type to "D-pad + D-pad/ Buttons +Buttons"

I told my daughter that pressing R2 would put her in Battle Mode. With the D-pad + D-pad, and the cross-bar toggle "ON" the D-pad shows up on the same side of the screen as it does on your controller.

On the D-pad I set Left Target and Right Target to these, which can be found under, Actions and Traits > General:



These can be added to your Cross-bar. You can also make a User Macro for Nearest Enemy:

To do this, go to System Menu >User Macros. Then select any of the empty slots, select an Icon for your macro and type in /targetenemy



Now just go to your cross-bar and set that User Macro to one of the slots.



Now you have Nearest Enemy, Next Enemy and Last Enemy, as easy to use buttons on your D-pad Cross Bar. Over on the Button side, I just put another copy of the Nearest Enemy Macro for "X" and then the first three class Abilities actually auto-fill the other buttons as they are learned while leveling up.

So R2 is Battle Mode and press it again for Town Mode. That's how I put it and she was off and running.

Finally, if you wan to play with your kid and help, I suggest a Mouse and Keyboard as well as the Controller. You can actually use the Mouse to point the way on screen - which is far betting than trying to describe it out loud. You can give some timely assists if you want as well. ;)

I must say I may use this for myself as well. Some that can be useful for me. Thanks

In my non-parental opinion, at age 9 she should be playing Final Fantasy console games like we all did at that age. The on-line world, which yes, can be great, is also a cesspool. I wouldn't allow her online til she's older.

signed /budding helicopter dad

Your kid doesn't belong on this game. They're too young, and most young kids are annoying. They should be worrying about school and playing outside with kids. Keep your kid off games until they're old enough to understand not-having-a-life.

Some of the text from NPCs is a bit too mature.

For instance... one NPC told me about how he heated his Rivets. If he didn't use the ash of fire elementals, they would get as cold as a dead (insert naughty word for 'woman of the night')'s crotch.

This and more, only in FFXIV!

Filtering shout is a must for children that young.

This right here accurately describes my own dilemma. While I'm not nor would I ever ask anyone to divulge private information on a public forum, I'll share with you all that I have aspergers syndrome. tl;dr, I have a propensity towards being solitary. Age has taught me that people tend to be self-serving, but this is a debate for another time. That all being said, I prefer to spend my time indoors. On a game. Where I can ignore people I don't want to talk to yet still have a semblance of socialism. Yada yada.

She isn't like that. She loves physical exercise. She swims, participates in gymnastics, etc.

I suppose what I'm getting at is, yes, I agree, my view will be very skewed regardless of the outcome. Lest one side says, "No, she is just plain too young to really dive into the game mechanically, narratively, and socially", and, "If I supervise her she'll be alright".

I feel it best, with the input given here, that I don't go purchasing an additional copy so we can play at the same time. I will head all of this information for the time when she IS old enough and has a better grasp at things discussed online with anonymity, but until then she can just make a toon on my account and play for an hour a day or so. If she really takes to it and in order to play myself I need to get her her own account, then I know that she'll be restricted on time and only be allowed to buddy with me.

I'm not worried about her education -- She's in a gifted studies program and doing really well. She's athletic enough that I don't believe she'll sit down and play for hours upon hours. During the time that this thread has been open I put that idea to the test by sitting her in front of the Playstation with a game I know she likes such as LittleBigPlanet and she played for half an hour and went to draw something.

I'll have to work on the self-confidence in allocating those times and sticking to them for her as well as setting that good example. Who knows?

Not to sound like a parrot since everyone else has said it but 9 is way too young for a mmo. But with that said every child is different some kids might be able to handle it you're the parent so you're the best judge of that. At any rate if you do allow it I would highly recomment monitoring while your kid plays it. Not only for its addictive nature but the fact that mmo communities largely go unchecked and uncensored and she'll be exposed to things that you probably wouldnt appreciate.

My kids are 9 and 8 yrs old and have asked to have a character on XIV. We are tossing around if we want to do it or not ourselves. Our actual primary concern is fighting over who gets to play the character as we will not be making two characters for them. It just doesn't make sense for the amount of time they'd play. But to be clear, our kids have been allowed to play video games since they were 4-5 yrs old. They are active children so I'm not worried about them becoming sedentary.

Now to your concerns about setting limits, that is your responsibility. You may treat her like an adult when talking to her about things, but setting limits are your responsibility. I don't let my kids stay up until 12-1a. They're not allowed out of their rooms (minus bathroom) past 9p. Why would I allow them to play games as long as me? It's just a set of defined expectations. And from what I can tell by you talking about the girl, she takes your expectations and follows them.

For the people concerned with hearing/seeing fowl language, if the kid is already watching the game, then it's no different than if they are playing it. We let our kids watch us play games. They are still exposed to the same things. And since game time would be supervised, it's not like you can't explain that the child can't say X, Y or Z.

My best suggestion would be to do PS3 version for a kid. Don't give them access to the keyboard. Turn the chat to Battle log. And let them play. Grinding is not difficult. And since the hunting log tells you what level to do things at, it makes a pretty simple guide.

@Melody: There is a difference between watching and playing a game. If there wasn't, you wouldn't have mentioned possible fighting over who gets to play the character.

Children are impressionable and have the ability to absorb way more information than adults as I am sure you are aware of. Sure, there is a language censor in-game, but there is not a name filter and that kind of thing is much different, because those types of players crave attention and expect others to call them by their perverted names when communicating in parties or raids for example.

Of course every parent has their own methods, and even though my son is learning how to play video games, I do not expose him to foul language or perverted "names" that no person would say to their parent or especially in a work environment and not expect to be fired over.

Not abusing anonymity online is the biggest lesson I plan to teach my son.

I started playing Everquest when I was 9 because my older sister played. I feel like I turned out okay.

it really boils down to, are you comfortable with your child playing online, where sometimes the community can prey on the vulnerable, will she be playing with family or friends, does she easily get offended ( not direct but what is said in general, the internet can be a nasty place sometimes )

the game itself is absolutely fine, Teen rating is there solely for the purpose of online, soo i really boils down to the parent understanding the child i guess, i was playing MMO's from an early age, but i was responsible to a degree where my parents trusted me a lot.

if you're really on edge, you can disable the chat box, which my limit the game unless she's in a linkshell or free company of real life or known friends, which i think will be totally fine.