What's right with games like Guild Wars?

I'm currently 33 years old, and love to play Guild Wars. I started my gaming experiences on a computer called the Commodore 128 -- some 22 years ago (believe it or not). I've played games from Ultima I - Final Fantasy 10 along the way. However, I did get a life; get married, and two wonderful little girls along the road. So here's what I'm wondering.

Do you think that a game like Guild Wars could actually bring families together? Is it possible that the very things that media says is wrong with games, could actually be right with games? What type of real world examples would you site?

Here's an example: I have a person in my guild right now that totally made me think about this post. He is a divorced parent, and as a solution for him to meet up with his boy he actually purchased his son a computer and a copy of Guild Wars. Now they actually play online together on a regular bases. I thought this was the coolest thing; wish my dad would've played GW with me...

I'm looking for more stories like this. Instead of hearing what's wrong with the gaming industry, I want to prove through logic and real life circumstance that maybe gaming isn't so bad for the family life. Maybe, just maybe it solves things. Do you have a story you can share?

i once tried to teach my dad to play battlefield vietnam.

he has the worst aim

Hahahahahahaha!!! Hella funny! anyway im 13 and my parents dislikes v games but i play anyway.

LOL

I taught my father how to play America's Army, and even though has almost three times the hours logged in, I'm soo much better than him.

It helps me talk to my father a lot more, and it's a lot of fun when there's nothing else to do. Though, playing with my brother is a different story (annoys the hell out of me )

My mother also plays games like Resident Evil 4 and Manhunt . Yes, that's right. Manhunt. So, I do play a lot of video games with my parents, and its so cool knowing that sometimes, your parents could beat you in a video game (yeah, right )

Deleting double posts is easy - go edit/then choose the delete option

Gaming gets bad press because bed press sales more then happy stories do..simple fact

k cool thx a lot

My dad who is in his late 50's now has been a gamer longer than I've existed. He got the NES on release, I was around 2-3 at the time and got me hooked on gaming. In fact it was the biggest encouragement to learn to read due to him playing a lot of RPG's (walls of text) and him getting fed up with asking him to read it out to me.

He doesn't play Guild Wars, but I still know he's a gamer even after moving away as we reccomend games to each other and him being in a job where he has the money to literally drop a k or two on games/consoles on release.

The only games my mum plays is online solitare (who doesnt) and some online gambling stuff

my dad trys to play FPS like BF2 put just rage quits after 10mins

What's right is how you don't have to grind. You could play 5 hours a week and be able to get through the storyline in a reasonable time.

My Step dad, my step brother and myself play together. They don't play as often as I do, but we always help each other out. It's quite fun.

Frankly, the faster society learns to accept and integrate mental pathways with technology the better it'll be off. Then we can work on the bad habit of destroying our planet.

Note: integration does not mean become cyborgs, simply adjust the natural brain patterns through regular usage.

Yay Commodores! I started with a Vic 20. My husband and I play GW together, as do a few couples in our alliance. My sister and her husband played CoH together. When all our children grow older they will most likely turn into little gamers like us. :-) I know my husband is looking forward to teaching ours how to be good players and give him some good competition.

my guild leader is a couple playing together...

so i guess as long as we understand each other, it can be a very harmonious process..

hehe i started games on the TRS-80

My dad got rediculously good at Diablo 2...

I don't have a personal story to share, but my high school principal plays WoW with his sons, who live in another state. And apparently he's ranked or something. I don't know how WoW works. But the physics teacher did convince him to allow us to bring consoles to school, but with strict rules on the games though.

I am likewise married with kids..And yes I agree that there is a good side to games. I often let my son who is 7 play GW (supervised) Usually in the Int Dist since there is less spam and often kinder people. He REALLLY enjoys the time we spend together playing games. But the main reason I posted this was because I was raised by my grandparents and we often played card games together (bridge & spades) Once I got married and moved away and put down my own roots I didn't see them as often as I would like, SO I bought my grandparents a computer so we could chat...which led to playing card games online toghether against other people. I lost my grandfather about a year ago and I am so apprecaitive of the time that we spent playing games online together. SO YES!!! there is a plus side to gaming as long as it is done in "proper" doses :P


Coridan A

When I was young, me my dad and brother played the first online game ever, our modem was a old rotary phone the you dialed then set the reciever on the modem, no computer screen, just a teletype. The game was called 'sink the bismark' the server on the other end would send you coordinates and some basic information, and print it out on a piece of paper, then you would type some basic commands like movement or fire coordinates, then hit send and wait like five ot ten minutes for a response to see if you hit the ship, or where close. Like the game battleship.

I started out on the Commodore 64 myself, and it certainly kept my brothers and I from starting arguments as much(though sometimes it started them, lol). We've owned all the nes systems since, and we all own computers now that we're grown. Our mutual interests in types of games, and the internet itself, allow my family to stick close together. Computer games are a good way to get a family together, just like many other activities. But because of the 'extreme' players(people who play waaaay too much) they unfortunately get a bad name.

My cat watches me play. She's quite fond of me beating the snot out of trolls. She doesn't like them much. Does that count?

My husband and I both play, but we like different genres, and he's not that much of a gamer.