Hey guys, I need you to make a parenting decision for me.

[Deleted]

yes mate, but slap all filters on you can, and keep an eye on him

not too much, but not too little

[Deleted]

I let my Brother play my account when he was 7, he now has his own account and is doing perfectly fine.

Hes 11 now, and if anything wow has helped strengthen his vocabulary, way of thinking and problem solving. He'll quite happily sit and research his class, work out his reforges and rotations by himself, hes even went to raid quite a number of raids and is the best warrior of his guild.

In my opinion, age in WoW means nothing, Ive met a ton of younger players both guildies and non-guildies that are more mature than most adults Ive played with

I couldn't agree more with you!

[Deleted]

I wouldn't. I would buy him books instead. Give him a different path. Your child could do so much better without WoW in my opinion. At least I know I would of.

I deeply regret that I didn't listen to my father when he kept telling me to stop playing the warcraft franchise. All those years I consider wasted because i could have been doing so much better in school (high school and college). WoW doesn't teach you responsibility. The whole "take things into moderation" isn't really much of an argument.

People may berate me for saying all this but it's what you decide in the end. Just know that whatever you do from that point on, your actions will have consequences, good or bad depending on what you make your child do.

Games and movies is mainly what taught me the English I know today, not school or books. (Gasp, you can actually learn something from games?!) In todays society gaming is ever growing, and you risk being left out of the loop of class mates and the like if you don't play video games, books are becoming more and more a relic of the past and only really needed for study, not to pass the time.

I say buy him an account, but as others said make sure to give him a restriction of how many hours per day he is allowed to play, and that he always have to prioritize school. I have a friend who let gaming get the better of him, fortunately he saw this as well and went to something called "game over" for three months to help him tag it down a bit so he could focus more on the important things in life again.

Games, like with everything, must be taken in moderation. Like the Swedish saying "lagom är bäst".

For what it's worth, I started playing WoW when I was 13-14, (I'm 21 now), my brother introduced me to it and it even brought us closer together as siblings. I have also made a lot of great friends thanks to WoW, and met loads of interesting people within Europe. I can't say I have anything but good things to say about my experiences with the game.

[Howard Moon]

I would encourage him to take on more productive activities, but that's just my opinion.

That said, my dad introduced me to games on our Commodore 64 back in the day, so who am I to talk :P

[Deleted]

he is old enough at 13 - I mean jon snow joined the nights watch at 14

[Deleted]

I would encourage him to take on more productive activities, but that's just my opinion.

That said, my dad introduced me to games on our Commodore 64 back in the day, so who am I to talk :P

And look where that got ya. Owning your very own wizard in Diablo 3!!

[weirdman]

I feel like this thread needs a poll.

At any rate I say yes. For many of the reasons already mentioned. I feel that not only does wow help develop a young minds reflexes, critical thinking and problems solving. Honestly it is such a social rich environment that it would foster development of social skills at a much better rate than anything else. Not to mention in a game the pressure of peers in school and the over abundance of physical abuse from bullies is removed as well as becoming the social pariah of the school. In most guilds I have been in everyone talks to everyone about a variety of different subjects. This leads to the other point of being exposed to whats happening in the world i.e. news, sports, foreign affairs. Additionally there is the chance to play with people from other countries and help to unite our bitter broken world.

I say yes.

[Keakee]

Do it. I grew up watching my dad do Oynxia and Molten Core, and asking questions constantly. About half a year after release, he let me and my older brother(8 and 11, respectively) make characters. We didn't do much, and had time limiters on everything we did, but it was amazingly fun. If you're worried about time spent, just use the parental controls. And believe me, unless he's been home schooled, he's heard everything that trade chat has to offer.

In fact, if he wants a leveling partner, drop me a message! I'd be more than happy to show a newbie the ropes.

[Deleted]

And look where that got ya. Owning your very own wizard in Diablo 3!!

The glory this brings is truely understated!!

Their own WIZARD!!! in DIABLO 3!!!! There, much better

[Deleted]

Video games taught me how to be a teamplayer and a leader at the same time.
13 is not a terrible age to start playing, I was only 4 months into 11 when I started playing, and yeah I was a complete tard back then because I had noone to teach me how to do stuff properly.
One of my friends played WoW a few years ago, he got to 2.1k 3v3 arena rating at age 12/13, and that's not to say that anyone can get that rating.
He was a fast thinker and a good communicator, if not abit cocky.
He started playing at age 10 or 11 too, recieved lots of gameplay tips from his big brother (who I played with before) and myself, and within a year he was better than both of us in PvP.

At that age your kid probably wants to 0wn up in sum BEEGEES instead of doing coordinated PvE, that -should- be out of his attention span.
Not to say that it is, but with CoD existing today I can't see how new teenagers would want to do some things as slow paced as raiding.

[Deleted]

13 is old enough to play the game. You can always put restrictions on playing time etc.
The only thing that would worry me would be the chat, which again i'm sure you can restrict. But it's just the same as being in the playground at school, you can't shield them from bad language for ever. If it bothers you though i would just warn him to not give out his age while online.