Call of Geneva

I recently read an article where a kid is made to read the Geneva Convention, and adhere to it when playing first person shooters (specifically Call of Duty).

Firstly, I want to applaud his parents in taking an original and unorthodoxed approach to proactive parenting, in the realm of violent video games. Too many parents take a hands off approach to this, and hold the game developers, not themselves, accountable for what their kids play. Kudos.

That being said, other than being a nice historical footnote in the kids daily gaming regiment, the Geneva Convention applies almost solely to the treatment of PoWs and civilians. I fail to see how, if at all, this will impact their sons gaming experience (maybe I simply haven't played the same iteration of Call of Duty that their son plays, and that one allows him to abuse civilians and PoWs). Now, if the article had discussed the boy playing Civilization or Fable, I'd see a direct correlation between the parental concern and the response.

In my opinion, this idea is ultimately a failure, because it does not impress any change in the childs "behavior" towards this video game. Perhaps if their son pick up Turok for the PS2, they'll be pleased to see that he doesn't execute the surrendering bi-ped dinotroopers. Huzzah.

My suggestion; if you're child is entering the realm of online multiplayer first person shooters, focus on his behavior, not gameplay. Place rules on how he talks to others (some of the most vile trash-talking I've ever heard came from 13 year olds). Forbid him from having insulting or vulgar sprays (images a player can paint temporarily onto a surface in game), forbid him from teabagging, corpse humping, or firing his weapon into other dead players.

Other than that, the best parenting option, when it comes to first person shooters, is to not let your kids play them.

Know your role.

I'm currently very excited about my lowbie warrior, Roland Dresden. He's the one I posted about before, wearing E-platemail. Anyways, as a result, I've been playing him more than Saru, even though buying his armor made me broke again.


Roland is level 16 at the moment. His armor and weapons are max, fully runed and fitted with insignia, and using both normal and elite warrior tomes, I've taught him a few powerful skills he would have been otherwise unable to learn for quite some time. So, quite obviously, when he team with with people his level, and runs quests and missions at his own level, he kicks huge amounts of ass, and dominates his foes.


So, a few days ago, I ran a mid-level mission, D'Alessio Seaboard. Ended up on a team with a lvl 20 Monk (the leader), plus his two heroes (lvl20 splinter barrage, lvl20 minion mancer), a lvl 12 Monk, and a lvl 14 Necro (I'm lvl 15 during this mission). As soon as I accept the invite to the team, the leader asks me to ping my build. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. He's being aware of how his teammates work, but he's also trying to make people alter their builds. I thought about griping at the him, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. I ping the build (basically the same thing I run FoW with), and the leader finds it acceptable. Meanwhile the low lvl necro pings his build, and it's abysmal. I mean, I usually don't tell people what to run, but why the hell does a necro run a build with Rain of Fire, Phoenix, and Conjure Flame, with 0 ranks in Fire Magic. To my surprise, the leader tells him the build is fine.

So, we enter the mission, and I immediately start to like the leader less, cause not only does he start ordering me around, he's calling me "war". It's not like "Roland" is hard to type. Even worse, when he's ordering me around, he ends up saying stupid things that aren't helpful, like "stop moving". How can I tank, or even fight, if I can't move to follow a target or engage a new one?

This particular mission has almost exclusively undead foes, among them, Skeleton Sorcerers. They tend to spam blinding flash, rendering me useless. After fighting several battle where the monk fails to remove it from me, I start to ping it to remind him. He responds with, "don't have rest con". Dude. You're going to tell me how to play, and double check my build, but you're not going to bring any condition removal? What the fuck? Guess what, you're splinter barrage ranger is useless too when she's blinded! Apparently, I run monk heroes more competently than you play your own monk.

We keep going, and once we reach the 90% mark, the leader starts to talk to me directly:

Asshole: Do you know what to do?
Me: Um, pretend I don't.
Asshole: Run ahead of the minions.

DUDE, SHOVE IT! I'm sorry the NPCs minions are dying. Minions were a shitty choice to run against undead, since you can't exploit undead corpses. Even if you could, I'm out DPSing the whole damn minion army, Flesh Golem included. So don't tell the lvl 15 Warrior (with Elite Platemail, wielding a Deldrimor Sword and Deldrimor Shield) what to run, don't tell him how to tank, and don't tell him how to play. I could have soloed that whole damn mission, if only I had had condition removal (Mending Touch, Antidote Signet).

So, we complete the mission, get the bonus, skip the cutscene, and hit the next town. The leader asks who's going and who's staying. At this point, I very politely, and with proper grammar and spelling, decline to join them in the next mission. He promptly kicks me from the team.

...

I don't know who beat you as a child, or raised you in such a manner that you consider any of your behavior socially acceptable, but you're a tool, plain and simple. You lack the common sense to adjust skills based on the foes you'll be fighting (notice how I swapped out Sever Artery and Gash for the mission, since we were fighting undead, while you kept the MM), you run a prot monk but don't include a single skill for condition removal (as much as I like getting bonded by a monk, it's kinda pointless against lvl 14 foes in NM), yet try to order the team around like you know shit.

Cheater McCheaterson

It usually doesn't bother me if people cheat in video games. It's their choice if they do, and it's more important for a person to enjoy a gameplay experience than to abide by my gaming "code of morals". Infinite ammo, infinite money, infinite health, whatever. Gameshark, secret codes, glitches, it's all the same.

That being said, don't fucking brag about something you cheated to achieve. It's that simple. If you haxxored your way into victory, it really doesn't count. If you used aimbot to crush someone in CS:S, you didn't win, the aimbot did. If you use a glitch to make yourself invulnerable to enemy attacks in the Eden Trial, you didn't actually participate in the Trial, you were just kinda there. If you use gameshark to do god knows what in pretty much any game, it means nothing.

It's like watching the demo video of a game and talking shit about how good you are, like you're actually playing. No, you're not, someone else enabled you to live vicariously through them. You're letting another entity give you victory, whilst you claim the credit, as if you helped, or your presence mattered.

I've run into a lot of people lately to whom cheating is like a creedo or a maxim. It bothers me that they will boast of their accomplishments, or tout their victories, when in the end of the day, they're the kid who plays Duck Hunt 2 inches away from the screen, nothing more.