18+ Age Restrictions

[Xaefan]

Question,

 

Why the 18 year old restriction? That seems a bit... well...

 

Derogatory. I mean, I was in my XI LS when I was 14, and while I wasn't the most mature of persons, I definitely wasn't the -most- immature.

[ArmachiA]

^ There's a few guilds that have an 18+ age restriction for legal reasons. As adults, when minors are in our guilds we become responsible for them and some guilds have had very bad experiences with that. My guild has a 16+ age restriction, but even then it's iffy, as 16-17 year olds are still considered minors.

 

Remember, most of the time it's not a question of maturity, it's really just if a parent wants to press charges THEY CAN.

[Asyria]

I can't speak for anyone else, but to me it's not derogatory, it's a simple choice.

I wouldn't join a guild that wasn't 18+ personally, simply because I enjoy playing with people who are around the same point in life as I am. While I RP freely with everyone no matter their age (as long as they're decent RPers), I prefer to hang out with fellow adults OOC-ly, just as I prefer to hang out with fellow adults in RL.

 

As when I was a teenager, I preferred to hang out and RP and play with fellow teenagers. I think it's perfectly natural.

 

And yes, there's also the legal issues.

[Xaefan]

Ah, LOLsuits.

 

However, putting a sticker like that on your guild is just going to imply that you're having raunchy e-sex and stuff like that, if you'll pardon my reach. Saving your ass is all well and good, but "18+" ain't gonna save your ass. Stupid parents have been getting their way past their stupid kids like they do.

[Asyria]

While it's mentioned that public ERP isn't tolerated and no one cares what is done in private in the requirement, someone who thinks that every 18+ guild is 18+ because they engage in raunchy e-sex is probably not the kind of person the guild wants anyway.

[Goliam]

While it's mentioned that public ERP isn't tolerated and no one cares what is done in private in the requirement' date=' someone who thinks that every 18+ guild is 18+ because they engage in raunchy e-sex is probably not the kind of person the guild wants anyway.[/quote']

 

Quoted for Maximum Truthiness.

[Monadi]

I think age requirements are perfectly valid. I'm sure there are some family-friendly guilds out there that would be happy to accept minors without complaint.

 

I don't think it's particularly appropriate to complain about a guild's rules, however. The leaders of Baltazar's may have their own reasons for their choices, but they shouldn't need to defend them.

 

Like voice communications, age limitations are one of those topics that we'll all have to agree to disagree and choose a guild that reflects what we personally want and need.

[Xaefan]

I'm not complaining, just questioning. Curiousity only kills cats, remember?

 

... OH NO, FLUFFY! WHAT DID I DO?!?!

 

...

 

But, no, seriously, it was just a question. Ignore me. Good luck with the hunt for members.

[Kashemia]

Hoh wow, sorry, I wasn't around yesterday, so didn't get a chance to answer the question before now.

 

As ArmaichA pointed out, it has nothing to do with maturity, it's a question of not wanting to deal with legal problems in case someone makes an innuendo or something like that. While we're a relatively mature bunch, so it shouldn't be too bad, we don't want to have to censure our guildchat. That's all.

 

And I completely agree with Asyria, believing that every guild that is +18 are about ERP is rather silly.

The fact that we don't care what people do in private is hardly the same as being an ERP guild either.

 

 

So yes, I'm sorry to disappoint you people, Baltazar's Favor is NOT an ERP guild, so you won't be getting any hawt Vahsyl action

[Frederique]

Don't judge me...

 

But when I was bored a few years back I decided to join a 18+ ERP guild. Apparently, it was really popular on that WoW server. Ravenholt I think.

 

I thought I might find some mature players. I was in the guild for about a week before I went MIA.

 

Three months later I was suspended from WoW for a day because my character was in the guild (which I hadn't played since going MIA). Said guild's second-in-command was actually 14. It was in the news, USA Today or something like that, too. It made me laugh.

 

Sadly, there's no way for anyone to be sure someone's really 18+.

[Asyria]

True, there's absolutely no way.

You're not 18 and want in? You lie.

However I think it's reasonable to trust people will be honest and what 18+ says is the guild requires a degree of maturity.

 

As for judging you, well... I l-led- ERP guilds in the past. My first experience in such a guild involved people who actually worked in erotic litterature for a living and others who were simply mature and, shall we say, very adult. All in all, it was a fantastic experience, and outside of the E we had tons of great quality RP, so I've wanted to repeat the experience. Of course I never quite found that same quality and abandoned.

 

Nowadays I don't seek that kind of guild anymore but I still seek more mature roleplayers, for various reasons.

 

As for that 14 years old.. I haven't heard of that one. I only heard of one who was 16.

It begs the question.. What were her parents doing???

[Frederique]

Maybe she was 16, I'm not quite sure. Abbort Tabboo it was called or something... can't remember...

 

But yes, there is a good amount of fun RP among ERP. And I'm sure a lot of it goes on beyond ERP guilds. Um, guess that's obvious. Hee hee.

[ArmachiA]

Oh Wow, you were in the Ravenholt guild? That was infamous for awhile and Blizz started cracking down on all sorts of ERP guilds. One of my server (It pretended it was a school, school days ERP) got shut down about a week after that, they tried to restart as a different school (...) but Blizzard promptly shut them down.

[Brynhilde]

Yeah, people can lie. But what counts is that the guild looks like it's at least trying.

 

Stormguard has the 18+ requirement for the reasons listed in this thread; we don't place a limit on violent or sexual content (within reason), or profanity.

 

If someone under 18 joins, their parents find out and contact us (as happened to us back in FFXI once), at least we can say, 'Hey, your kid signed an agreement saying they were over 18. What else were we supposed to do?'

[Kashemia]

Yeah, people can lie. But what counts is that the guild looks like it's at least trying.

 

Stormguard has the 18+ requirement for the reasons listed in this thread; we don't place a limit on violent or sexual content (within reason), or profanity.

 

If someone under 18 joins, their parents find out and contact us (as happened to us back in FFXI once), at least we can say, 'Hey, your kid signed an agreement saying they were over 18. What else were we supposed to do?'

 

Exactly! When you give a +18 restrictions, you've set a warning that themes might be mature, and that we're not responsible if you decide to lie to get in.

 

One thing I just realized, or... Thought about anyway... I think there might be some misunderstandings too, due to differences in cultures (I might be wrong though). As far as I know, Mature ratings in USA is often given due to nudity or sexual content. In Europe, or in Denmark at least, it has much more to do with violence and blood showing. So when I for instance call our guild mature, it would probably have more to do with the possibility of violence, whereas it seems like some people think that a +18 must be an ERP guild.

I might be completely wrong, it was just a thought I had ^^

 

Anyway, I think an important thing to note is, that while a guild has a rule saying that you must be 18 or older to join, it doesn't mean that "mature" things WILL happen, that there'll be sex and hardcore violence everywhere. It's just a sort of safety net for many, I think, a way to say that IF it happens, we're in the clear. Yeah.

[Brynhilde]

Mm. Cultural differences do complicates things, as most stuff classified as (I don't know how your ratings work) 18+ or something in the US will likely be only a 15 here in the UK. But ya gotta be consistent.

[Knave]

The guild I was with in WoW had an age requirement of 18+ but we were not an RP guild so the ERP tag never got tacked onto our name. It was more of a way to find others in the same age group (mostly late twenties with some forty years plus making up our core) and keep our reputation of being mature and laid back. We did, however, allow a few players who did not meet the age requirement in. There are some pretty mature fourteen year olds out there! But of course, we did make some.. ahem, adult jokes here and there but our guild leader would keep everyone in line to avoid defiling innocent ears (or eyes if they read it?).

 

My two cents, I don't like the Mature = Adult = They Must ERP connotations. I blame society. *firm nod*

 

As far as I know, Mature ratings in USA is often given due to nudity or sexual content.

I don't think that's always the case but it's most likely true to some degree! I see a lot of Mature video games are just violent (Does Dead Space have suggestive themes?) and The Sims gets a Teen rating even though it does say on the box "suggestive themes" and nudity even though they blur it.

 

Just going to go to bed now before I make an idiot of myself..

[Kashemia]

Well, age is often a hard thing to judge maturity on. I've met some very mature 14 year olds, and some 30 year olds that acted like teenage girls. But having a restriction can still help I think, in finding people around your own age...

[Xaefan]

In America, it's more mature-themes to say the word "FucK" than to stab someone in the chest until all you see is a pool of blood.

 

Also, I didn't mean to open up such a large topic of discussion... Also, I didn't move it out of the thread.

 

HMM!

 

But, anyway, I wasn't implying anything in general, it was merely a question of taste. Setting an age standard for a guild is a double-edged sword. We should have a not s****y ESRB system for guilds. Like E guilds are LOL FAMILY FRIENDLY, and M guilds are more accepting of violent happenings and amounts of cussing and the stray nudist.

 

But, the ESRB sucks, so.

[Kashemia]

Yeah, I agree that the ESRB system doesn't really fit roleplay... Hell, it doesn't fit a lot of movies either <.<

 

Also, the rules are not to say that if we discovered someone in the guild was 16 or 17, they'd be kicked... It IS more of a way to cover all bases, so that IF someone gets upset, etc... I feel like I'm starting to quote myself too much

[ArmachiA]

It makes sense to have some kind of age restriction on a smaller guild, you want to play with people your own age and if your a small guild and your only going to have 4 or 5 members, makes sense to make sure that happens. I don't think you're doing anything wrong.

 

CB will house members from 18-48 at launch, so I'm more comfortable letting in a 17 year old because they're close in age to the 18 year old. I'm not sure how much I'd interact with the younger member out of the game, but I would know there are people near their own age they can interact with.

 

I don't know, it would be odd having a guild that was 25+ and letting in a 16 year old.

[Renaise]

I personally believe in taking it on a case by case basis, I have known 16 year olds to be a lot more mature and sensible than some 50 year olds I know.

 

Thats kinda why I like an interview process

[Seraphine Felstar]

One of my first end game shells had a average age of about 23+. There wasn't a lot of mature discussion on the shell because everyone was busy with end game events/progression and all the chat was focused around game mechanics. One of the officers decided that his 13 year old child was old enough to play FFXI and be in the linkshell. He definitely had his parents permission but it wore on everyone else quickly. He was constantly chattering, demanding people help him, and would have fits if things didn't go his way. During our first dynamis run with him he successfully tanked the entire run after ganking tons of gear from people who had earned them with "Oops" as his only comment >.>

 

When the issue was brought to the attention of the parent, he refused to believe or understand why it was a issue with any of the shell members. He insisted that he would just watch his child more carefully, but it didn't help. Eventually rules had to be made just to accommodate this one person and it was frustrating for everyone involved.

 

Conversely my end game shell has an average age of 26-27+ with several people who are well into their 40's. We talk about work, taxes, our children, game mechanics and yes, sex. No, we're not having sex at all but we joke about it and post image on the forums (like motivational poster kinda stuff) that aren't appropriate for children. Everything we say is just joking around and no one takes it seriously, but for kids it might be a bit confusing or misleading. We don't have an age limit and to be honest when people under 18 join the shell they normally get bored anyway. Who wants to hang out with a bunch of old people when we start talking about music from the 80's and why we hate our bosses? - Since the few teenagers who have joined leave, my guess is no one

 

To make a long post even longer, I'm a mom and I watch my kid like a hawk. However, I know a couple in my linkshell that have a daughter who is one week younger then mine and they don't watch her at all. More then once I've heard about them yelling over ventrillo for their four year old son to watch the baby so they can keep chaining exp >.> It's really rough for me to constantly be having to watch her and never getting a moment to myself, but I'd rather myself be inconvenienced and know I'm being a responsible parent. Not all parents are responsible and would rather blame the evils of the internet and other people for their child's behavior. The rules are here to protect ourselves as much as the children (yep, teenagers are children no matter how mature they are).

 

Age requirements are not a bad thing, nor does it mean everyone is talking about something naughty who join. It's just letting people know what the mentality of the shell is and to make it easy on hyper sensitive parents who aren't really watching their kid as carefully as they could.

[Soren Miren]

I'm in the same camp as those who just feel like its more appropriate to play with people in the same age category. While I've employed a loose age requirement for A.E.T.H.E.R., it isn't really meant to define what sort of content we introduce in RP or to protect us from any angry parents. The only 'angry parent' issue I've ever had is when a guild member in WoW complained that our gchat conversations were too raunchy for the two year old sitting in his lap to be reading. /boggle

 

That being said, in that same WoW guild we managed to acquire a, get this, twelve year old. Tweve. As in the same age as Fyrian's younger brother obsessed with his Wizard 101 and the (thankfully) restricted chat therein. I mean this was just out there, I don't know why we didn't kick him sooner considering the kinds of blatant immaturity he was bringing into guild chat. Maybe there was some humor in it, or it could also be that the guild was finally in its death throes by that time. Either way, lesson learned there. Eesh.

[Kashemia]

Crystal, you're always amazing at explaining things. Just wanted to applaud your post, since it's exactly what I've tried (=failed) at saying for the past many posts.

 

And about responsible parents, that reminded me of a youtube meme I recently saw... The first video I saw was of a 12-year old crying, saying that some posters had ruined her life, and then her dad coming in and yelling something about the cyberpolice. Apparently some people from 4chan or something had harrased her, and at first, I felt really bad for her, I know how horrible some people on the internet can be... Then I found the reason why they had done it in the first place, a video where she talks about "haters", saying that she would "pop a glock in their mouth and make brain slushie" or something (Sorry for my terrible butchering of english expressions, I probably said that ALL wrong <.<). While I still don't condone the harrasement of a 12-year old, or of anyone in general, it was pretty obvious that the parents blamed the internet, pretty much ignoring that their daughter behaved like a total brat. I don't think you should keep your child off the internet, but I think it's important to teach them that even there, you should act reasonable.