Teenagers keep trying to invade my guild

[Echo of Soul]

The only problem with such an age difference is how you behave in chat. My guild is made up mostly of 30+ people and even if we're very immature it's a different kind of immaturity than that of let's say a 17 year old. Performance wise younger people are often better.

[Nevrex]

This is not about how mature or good you are at the game.

I think what some people want is just to hang out with others who are at the same age group. You know, just like in real life.

[Alski]

"Darn kids! Back in my day, we had to WALK to the raids! Yeah, that's right! WALK!"

Oh, don't mind me, i'm just making fun of the vets

i'm surprised anyone made it to your raids, if i saw someone walking to Blackrock mountain i would of dismounted and killed them.

[Xantrus]

i'm surprised anyone made it to your raids, if i saw someone walking to Blackrock mountain i would of dismounted and killed them.

Mind controlling them into the lava was more fun.

[Halicia]

In my experience people between age 20 - 30 are the most erratic and unreliable or prone to drama, especially guys.

It seems that men don't really grow up and learn to be chill until after their 30ies.

Yeah, the teenagers tend to be prone to burst drama, or just general incompatibility with any raid group with ppl over 21 in it... but once you filter the good ones, they tend to be fairly stable longterm.

The 20-30 year old bracket though... when they "have issues" its longterm things. Divorce, New Kid, New Job, Moving, final years of College & Postgrad. Most of our longterm "cant play wows" have been in the 20-25 bracket.

The serious DRAMA tends to come from the older sorts as well.

But in regards to the OP... if a certain demographic is attracted to your guild, have you asked yourself what it is about your GUILD thats attracting them ?

If they're attracted to the raid, maybe older players just aren't interested in the way your raid is handled. I can speak from experience that there's PLENTY of older players raiding, as ours is filled with them. Maybe they just arent looking for new guilds anymore, heh.

[Blackmist]

I'm with OP on this. Kids are snotty little brats who think they know best and fuck off at the first sign of trouble.

Also one of them threw up all over my toilet walls at the guild meeting because he couldn't drink for shit.

[Mhorrg]

Train them.

I got this buddy. he's 20 something now but when we first met in WoW he was 13 or 14 and I was in my mid 20s. He was kind of annoying, pretentious. A smart kid who knew he was smart.

Over a decade me and my guild mates shaped him. We improved him. We turned him from a pretentious pseudo-preppie into a crust punk. We improved his personality, his musical taste, his sense of humour.

Now we've been friends for over 10 years and we're planning to hang out IRL at some point soon.

I wouldn't have this friend if I decided not to invite 13 year olds into my guild.

[Xantrus]

Also one of them threw up all over my toilet walls at the guild meeting because he couldn't drink for shit.

Don't invite 12 year olds!

[General Junos]

31 here, husband's 32. We're married, have plenty of responsibilities including a kid on the way, but we both still play. We also still raid. However, super casually. Once a week for three hours. Most of our friends and guildies are 25+, and they also have tons of responsibilities and adulting to do. Hence, raiding so little. It works for us. We can't push Mythics (and we don't WANT to) like we used to because of RL. Some guildies do, and they do have multiple characters that raid. Most do not. So, yeah, -most- (probably) of the reason older people like us don't play is because we're busy adulting and can't play 24/7 like we used to when we lived at home. I know I can't, lol. Do I miss it? Sometimes. Usually not. I'm not the same person I was when I no-lifed Vanilla raiding. I can't sit at my computer for much longer than a couple of hours anymore. Hooray growing up~

[Statix]

I don't care if people are 16 or 46, as long as their performance equals the content's requirements.

[Arcanines]

Tbh I feel a bit bad about 16-17 year old players, most guilds slap 18+ or 20+ or 21+ or w/e and insta decline their apps purely based on age. They really have nowhere to go.

I can confirm guilds atleast from my XP that are like that go nowhere. When I joined my current guild, they didn't know I was at the age of 17, it since then has never been a problem for me and or the guild. If anything, they use more time using my age as a thing to use as a joke.

[Glaziola]

"Darn kids! Back in my day, we had to WALK to the raids! Yeah, that's right! WALK!"

Oh, don't mind me, i'm just making fun of the vets

Actually very few had to walk, you now summoning stones

[Eurhetemec]

I think it's weird people are focusing on something the OP totally did not say.

Lots of people be like "OMG TEENAGERS R GUD @ TEH GAEM".

The OP didn't say they weren't. So what does that have to do with the price of eggs?

The issue is mentality. Teenagers and early 20s people, and I speak having been one, thanks (indeed, when I started playing MMOs I still was, very many aeons ago), have a different mentality to older people, and often have some really serious problems with taking stuff too seriously, having zero patience, or being kind of empathy-less monsters (until they suddenly realize the hurt they did, then they're suddenly incredibly broken up), or just generally being very short-sighted and thoughtless. Doesn't mean they aren't also good or kind or whatever, but it does make it a bit taxing to deal with them when there's any kind of potential drama.

Yes older people can be all these things, but let's not lie and pretend they aren't several hundred percent more common when you're a teenager, eh? If you still are a teenager or early 20s, well, dude, you literally have no idea how much more sane you will be in later life. None. I promise you*. Even if you seem sane now - you will be saner.

Anyway now I'm the one getting off-topic!


The OP asks specifically "what happened to the Veterans?". Well, some of us are still here - my wife and I are still playing. We were playing day 1 (I was playing open beta), we were playing other MMOs before that. But we're not congregating like we used to, because most of have quit for fairly long times at some point, or just played very little, because of jobs, lives (inc. illness/injury), kids, etc. etc. I told an old WoW buddy I was playing Legion recently, and he was all "How do you have time!?". I tried explaining that you don't need that much time to have fun, but he couldn't really process it. Most of our guilds are dead zones because of this. And the guilds the kids have are all either social or ultra-serious raiding.

This change has been coming for a long time though - back when I started WoW in 2004, most of the people I knew were mid-20s or older, and we laughed at the "kiddies". Now even those kiddies are late 20s or older, and we're mid 30s or older, but it seems like a new generation were continually coming in. Back in WotLK, we were the only people in the guild I was in then over 30, and most of the others were 21-24. Even then it was obvious that younger's people ability to create, sustain and enjoy pointless drama was massively higher than ours.

Maybe I was like that back then though? I think it's likely. When I was 21 and playing Dark Age of Camelot, the GM of my guild changed my Officer title to "Drama Queen". It was half a joke but also I think at least half true. Total respect to the younger players who can and do avoid drama and impatience and are wonderful people all the time, though - just so rare. I actually think kids 13-16 tend be better behaved than ones aged 17-22, in MMOs, at least.


* = People who remain eternal man-children with no real-life friends, posting dank Pepe memes and living in mom's basement at 30+ are exempted from this promise - but it takes a real amazing lack of effort to be that guy.

- - - Updated - - -

Tbh I feel a bit bad about 16-17 year old players, most guilds slap 18+ or 20+ or 21+ or w/e and insta decline their apps purely based on age. They really have nowhere to go.

I do think that's silly and sad, I have to agree. 16 year olds and 24 year olds are really just as likely to be dramabombs (the odds drop off rapidly after that). In fact, people who think they are "adults" but totally aren't, so lots of college kids, are the worst dramabombers I've come across, whereas I've played with younger teenagers who were totally cool (they just tend to get sad-upset more easily, rather than being dramabombs).

If I was doing age-barring on a guild I'd be looking more at late 20s or older, and maybe barring people who have never supported themselves financially too (unless they're disabled or whatever), because the absolute #1 worst dramabombers I've ever come across have been male kids in their early 20s who hadn't had to work.

But honestly I don't think age-barring makes much sense. Kicking dramabombers does though.

[Maletalana]

Maturity is a personal trait and has little to do with age

I fucking spit out my coffee at this comment. Are you high?

[prwraith]

When I was a teenager I raided at the highest levels, raid schedule was 5 nights a week for 5-6 hours at a time. You can't commit to that as an adult unless you're single / no life.

[Pull My Finger]

Maturity is a personal trait and has little to do with age

Wrong. In fact, the word alone already tells you that.

[Lady Dragonheart]

Perhaps you should assess what about your guild attracts a younger audience. From there, tailor your advertising and recruiting methods.

As for age, you get numbers all over the place when it comes to WoW. The age of a player means very little anymore.

[izayoi80]

15, 25... they usually act the same, especially in WoW.

I would love to find a guild that had a 30+ age limit, but alas, most of the people my age stopped playing WoW ages ago.

[Mhorrg]

Wrong. In fact, the word alone already tells you that.

In my experience of the world maturity is indeed not tied to age.

Sure, every kid under 15 is pretty much an idiot but after 15 or 16 I've seen nothing that says the older you get the more mature you get. I've met 17 year olds with an infinitely better grasp of reality and morality than some people in their 50s.

[Maletalana]

Did all veteran players stop playing?
Granted, I started playing WoW when I was in my early 20's. That was back in vanilla. I'm 32 now and I'm actually the oldest player in my guild. Not that there are a bunch of kids in there, most are in their mid 20's and there is no guild drama (or else I would have left long ago). We're also having fun in raids and progressing nicely (7/7 hc).
But, since we're progressing well in PvE, we're getting a lot of applications as well. And most of those are between 17-22 years of age. Where are all these kids coming from?
What happene to all the 30+ guys and gals? Got married and made kids?
That is probably the most likely scenario. Back when I was 25, I had my own raiding guild with plenty of people. But then I had time, now I don't even want to take on officer role, or even a minor guild responsibility. I just don't want to dedicate my time. I guess most 30+ are/already have quit the game?

EDIT:
Jesus people I'm not talking about how well they perform in raids. I wouldn't care, hell, I don't play FPS games anymore because I can't keep up with kids reflexes. They have more time to spend in WoW and are usually better than me in games.

But the mentality is way different. Between someone 17 year old and me who's 32. How we approach certain tasks is way different.

I'm 23, and an officer and leader in my guild. I have been playing WoW for about 8 years now. I consider myself a veteran, even though I am sort of young, age wise. I will admit the other officers in our guild are older, probably close to 30. Our main tank is a mom with 5 kids, and her husband is a melee dps with us. The group of about 5 of us that lead the guild are generally older, I think I am the youngest officer.

I guess my point to you is that, there are cases where the younger generation will start playing and joining, but there are also a number of folks like myself that have been here for a very long time as well.

To share for curiosities sake, we are sitting at 4/7 normal only. We have only visited the raid twice, and as soon as we either increase our visit time, be it in hours per day or days per week, we will finish up normal and progress to heroic. There are a plethora of guilds that are prepped and ready to slam into heroic, and that's fine. We can't wait to join you! We just don't have the roster or, for some, the dedication, to wrap up this easy content and move to heroic. There are a few that would agree with me in our guild, that normal is very simple and low gear requirements, yet some (kids) joke around or don't care about getting done.