So, how old do you think someone should be to play this game?

Wow! Just wow.

The fact that this comes from someone claiming to be older than a teen makes it even more incredulous.

After the first couple of weeks in GW I have only dealt with guilds that have an over 18 only rule. We have one exception in our guild.

Of my 2 officers, one is over 50 and the other is mid 30's (i'm leader, age 25). The eldest of the officers has a nephew and asked if he could join despite being only 13. Thinking that being the relative of the respected long time guildie (over 2 years) they would be somewhat mature I accepted the into the guild and kept inline by the officer if needed.

I regret letting them into the guild and have kicked them a couple of times when I can't put up with the immaturity anymore. Sadly, despite leading the guild with an iron fist, I can be a bit soft sometimes when people start begging to get back in.

I guess it's up to the older gamers to teach the younger ones how to behave by setting an example and keeping strict rules for them to obide by. My method seems to be working anyways as the young'un definitely shows a bit more respect than they used to.

Thankfully it's really easy to separate the mature people from the immature people. Just have to take a quick look at their spelling after a party invite and kick anyone that uses a "z" where it shouldn't be.

Can say this is the PERFECT thread for me to give a reply, I'd say 18+, Kids cant really play this game well especially the pvp side which requires more thinking than pve.

PS: 13 year olds just cry ingame for stuff no thanks take your Q.Qing on a singleplayer shooter
- Ganni

Okay, I may have worded my post wrongly and give the impression "all" older people have the "baggages". My post was not intended to insult "older" folks (because Im one in the bracket).

The point is, games and playing are really geared for young people, to teach them something, as nature use play to teach young animal litters for survival skill. I know it's stretching it too far in relation to GW, but play is actually tool to teach the young. In fact, it is the nature of why playing is important.

It was in this vantage point I look on games and play. If there is to be any gaming and playing, the young people have the most right to it. It's like High School Baseball team and Major League, where the game is viewed in many and different level.

My take.

18+

Unless your a pimp like me.

I'm sorry Grim, but I still strongly disagree with you. Young people have no more right to a play a game then anyone else. It just sounds like a stupid prejudice to me.

Perfect example of why generalizations are made about youth today.

I know. I carry a few screwy ideas. But no insult was really intended. If I did, I apologized for that.

Anyway, I agree "immaturity" exist in all age level, which even the mature fall in from time to time too.

My take.

I think generally if you know how to be courteous and helpful, you should play GW.

I'm 14 going on 15 in a few months, I have been complemented as having the maturity and mindset of an older person. Unfortunately I see few the same - most players in GW I know are generally in college or past. Why? I don't know, but admittedly much of my age group is idiots or people who would actually ENJOY playing WoW - the horror...but in all seriousness, I'd like to know why there are more "older players" in GW than in any other MMORPG. Do the other youths fall into WoW's grasp? Are they too ungrateful to understand how great GW is? Are they just all jocks? I don't know.

As said above, maturity relies not on age but on wisdom, experience, and learning ability. Personally I was always eager to learn as a child, and still am. My father is a very intelligent, yet trusting and carefree person.

Oh and by coincidence, I was born in the 90s. Oh noes, I'm immature! :O

But back on topic, there is really no limit, it depends on the person.

That is definately stretching it way too far in the case of most electronic games, even most games.

Poker is not intended to educational. Pictionary is not intended to be educational. Unless you are playing something like a quiz show game, or a maths game (I remember this awesome maths game I played when I was "young" a good 14/15 years ago now) games are NOT educational. You learn more from reading a book than you do playing games, because books help increase your vocabulary.

Games are for entertainment. PC games are the same. And if you look at it in a certain way then the "older" players have more of a right to it than the younger players because they work, many of us work long hours, and sometimes in unpleasent situations, and when we have a little bit of free time then we can certainly say we've earned the right to kick up our heels a little. Kids, what do they do? They go to school, spend less time there than adults do working, and when they get home they have minimal homework to do if any - since the feeling now days is that homework somehow harms kids.

I'm not going to follow that line of argument any further because I think it is as ridiculous as yours, but seriously. Entertainment is for all. If the people playing the game are old enough and mature enough to understand that it is a game and that sometimes they will be playing with other people, and that they should behave in a pleasent manner - then there is no reason to discriminate on the basis of age.

EDIT: It is unfortunate that a significant number seem to like to make it unpleasent for all around them.

As long as the person is mature, I'm all in for it. I had a 11-year-old play and he never caused problems... while I saw some 20+ that had the maturity of 5-year-olds.

It's been the general tone that age has little to do with it because of more valued factors, such as maturity. I don't think any new discussion can come of this without repeated ideas/arguments or flame wars.

Your post just showed that you are still too young to understand life.
It's only your body that gets old but, "hopefully", not your mind, you'll learn what I'm talking about later on in your life.

Take care and have fun ..... always!

/Angelica

You can get asshats in any age.

I think that the generally worst audience is the 9-15 age though.

20-somethings for the win!

Well since there is drinking in this game I don't think it sets a good example for kids. So I would say 21.

But tbh like a teen? I think we heave heard all of what is said over the internet when we are in Junior high. Nothing new.

so your saying 13 year olds have no thinking abilities to play an RPG?

to me this is a game to calm down stress.


NOT a game to discrimatate younger persons.

15+ imo. 15 is old enough to understand about the world, and not be offended/influenced by swearing (of which I'm guilty of, and frankly won't change, because what if I find people who DON'T swear offensive??), suggestive comment, and rip-off in game trading. These are all part of guild wars atm, for good or bad, and 15 yo's can at least handle themselves without their mummies and daddies getting angry.

But I'm biased. I hate kids. I'm never having any, ever.

Oh and @Knoll, only America has that stupid drinking at 21 rule. Most places it's 18, and in a lot of European countried it's either 16 or is non-existent. Seriously, who the hell lets their children DRIVE before they're allowed to drink? The mind reels... Let alone your suggestion which is DRIVE before they're allowed to fake drink in a computer game...

mm Age doesnt matter for most ppl i Think.. I got loads Mates in gw that are 12-14years. Just i think ppl dont like young ppl cause they have had some mates or guildies. they doesnt even have knew how old they are. they just act so childish they think they are like 13 and then they think every 13 is like that.. My mate started playing Gw 10 years old and He does fine.

I really love these kinds of posts, because you all just know when this person is about 29ish they will remeber this post and just whack themselved in the head.

I'm 34 and not exactly a geek, this is my only online game.
I do not have a problem with the age of people playing this or any game but some concepts in GW are harder to grasp for younger players. One of these concepts is patience. Ask anyone that remebers how long it took to load and run a program on a Comodor64 about skiping cut scenes or waiting for an opposing party in AB.

The younger generation has been recieving things at high speed all of thier life and seam to lack the dicipline to sit and wait. The need an instant gratification, speed farming, power leveling, ect...
This is not true of everyone under a certain age, but there is a large number for whom this is true. Same can be said for us older players that have kept up with advancements and adjusted to everything running quicker and smoother.

Wheather or not a person takes the game to seriously has little to do with age and more to do with personality.

/agree. After meeting so many people in this game it is a solid fact. There is always the occasional mature 15 y/o and the retarded 20 something that make you guess what happened.

Maturity>Age... There's mind over matter arguement. I am 14 years old and at times, I do act childish but I'll be damned to not have seen everyone that's supposedly "older and better" act like d-bags. The older people that I've played with over the times generally have been more relaxed than those of my age group. The "kid" range certainly brings out those without patience, those that are ignorant, those that are just plain stupid, but you cannot label every single one of them as undeserving to play a game. You have a choice whether or not to play with them.

The young ones scream about everything. No, I do not want to hear your squeaky little voice over vent or see your pathetic desecrations of the English language in game chat. No, you are not 'leet,' unless by 'leet' you mean a pathetic little child. Though I have fun baiting them in Halo 3 and pushing them to temper tantrums. They're so easy. On forums, too. It is incredibly easy to troll someone into saying something retarded simply by talking about stuff I have no clue about and making false generalizations.

The old ones are assholes who talk about their pathetic lives all the time. No, I don't care what you said to your girlfriend or what job application you failed, or what you did yesterday. No, I don't care to listen to you and your equally pathetic friends talk to each other about what pathetic things you have been doing. Just leave the game and talk amongst yourselves with your odd-sounding (often from Texas) voices elsewhere, thanks.

In short, I hate everyone by default, and generally need people to prove themselves before I care about their opinions.

I don't think that age has much to do with it, although I think that a certain degree of maturity and knowledge of etiquette does make it easier to integrate into the community. Anybody can learn to be polite and respectful to the other players around them (although I will admit that these traits are more commonly seen in older/more mature players).

The youngest person in my guild is 18 or so, although we wouldn't be against the idea of younger guild members if they were polite, friendly and willing to contribute to the team dynamic in a positive way.

I'd go with 18 like it says on the user agreement. I've met a lot of players in the game and I can kind of tell how old they are by their style of play and how they chat. I don't have anything against young players per se, I just would rather not play with them. I applaud any guild that has an age requirement.

It's been my personal experience that it's younger players who are always begging for stuff - help with quests or missions, materials, weapons, dyes, tomes, gold, etc. Lack of etiquette.

Plus they seem to spend way too much time playing this game. It makes me wonder when they get their homework done or if they ever read a book.

I guess it is not really the age that counts. It is how you act in the game. When someone say, "18 years old and up," I guess what it meant is someone who acts like 18 years old and up.

Yesterday, I was playing with my Nighfall character which I brought to Lion's Arch. I was in the Thirsty River mission together with a PUG. Suddenly, an E/R run ahead of us (showing off most likely) and died. The party leader asked, "the the ---- are you doing?" And the ele responded with "i'm doing fine so shut up..." suddendly everybody is in this dirty talk already and our whole team was wiped out and I lost my Survivor title.

I don't know how old they were. But i'm sure i saw a bunch of kids during that time.

I'm 38.

Yeah, some college students cry after losing some silly PvP and /wrist.

old enough to know how to make girls theirs

I'm 32 and I act like a crazy baby sometimes.
People usually think I'm a silly kid. I don't swear or make rude jokes, I just act really goofy sometimes.
I'm sure there are 15 year olds who act older than I do. XD
Guild Wars though has the most asshats out of any game I've played. Asshats isn't my word for them, it's the word I've heard others I've talked to about GW use to describe them. Used a lot too.

If only they could XD

I disagree, you may not remember there is a difference between 13 an 15 year old, but there is, I know you may say my view is bias but if you are a techer, father or anything else like that you will see it to, it may only be 2 years but, in that period of time there is a major change, and most people by 15 have finished their 'hormonal changes.'

I agree eveyone has the same right to play the game, unless you are neglecting your kids to play the game

if anything they maybe calling you stupid kid now..lol

i don't want to offend you either..but
sad to you maybe..people of all ages play this game..obsessively, if you don't play obsessively you wont earn gold for all the pretty armor and weapons.

ROFL @ sterotypical 30+ nerd....coming from a 15 yr old that doesn't want to be stereotyped..as a 15yr old nerd..

13+

<filler>

I've meet some cool 13y olds, and some dumb 20+'s. Mind you that can be the other way around as well. Most people in my guild are 25+ I'd say.

Well, Guild Wars does obviously have some violence. Stuff dies and so on. There isn't much in the way of gore, so it's not terrible on that front, but I'd still say 13+ (approximately).

With regard to the online community, you don't really have to deal with it if you don't want to... but it's generally much easier to get by if you're 18 or up in that case. Some people have age restrictions on their guilds, and so on.

I don't believe both age and maturity has anything to do with the interactions between humans. It is more or less the personality of the person that matters in these interactions. However, it is possible to label people by their age or their level of maturity in search for superior companions, but the truth is, these labels are not absolute, which we cannot solely use it to make our decisions to who we want to keep on our buddylist or who to be in our guilds.

Let us first consider the age factor. Age is no more than a number that represents the time a person has spent in this world. Relevantly, it is possible to believe whether this individual has a good amount of experience or not by knowing the time factor, which in this case is age. We can see that by assuming the experience factor, it is easy to believe the target will behave accordingly to fit our standards. Nevertheless, the amount of experience one has does not guarantee the assumed output, since there's really no insurance that this person is able to learn from his or her experience. Consequently, the age factor is really an ignorant way to filter out certain unwanted groups, but it is not guaranteed to satisfy one's needs in search of a companion.

Now let us consider the maturity factor. As we know, it is impossible to determine people's maturity level as there's no clear indication to describe such subject; age doesn't reveal one's maturity. More importantly, despite the fact that both parties in an interaction may have a high degree of maturity, it is still possible for them to reach the point of conflict as they may have different objectives or different belief. My point is, human conflicts are common, and maturity, in this case, does not guarantee these conflicts can be prevented. In other words, I believe that maturity is not enough to suffice a standout relationship between humans, but instead, it is really the features each of us has that determines whether these companionships will succeed.

Both age and maturity can be interpreted as mere labels like the ones we have in the game: professions. There's no guarantee that a fire Elementalist will perform better than a fast cast Mesmer who uses fire spells, but people will most likely pick the Elementalist, because it is believed that Elementalist is better. That is a profession discrimination, and in this case, we have age and maturity discriminations. Truth is, these discriminations were never able to determine what's really suitable for the party in the game or one's buddylist and even the guilds we are in, but they are more or less just an easy idea to follow, so people can save time. In simple terms, these discriminated objects may have not caused these conflicts, but instead, we have people discriminate against these objects just because it is believed to be the ideal act. One person discriminates another, and another person will discriminate back to the person who started this, which will result in a neverending cycle. The ultimate question can be asked at this point: if humans knew that by creating conflicts, the conflicts will eventually reach back to humans themselves, why do humans still act in such manner?

If it was up to me: 30.

Would spare me a lot of headache and would certainly force ArenaNet to refrain from "bored child support" decisions like inventing more stupid titles every year (or stuff like the Hard Mode), just for those 13 year old "I've got only 1 character and s/he's the greatest"-title-and-item-grinders.

Some people mature faster than others, some people dont mature at all. go figure.

I personally like to play with people in there late twenty s and up, there(and mine) attitude is mostly laid back, less elite s crap, less whining,less blaming, overall more relaxing and fun. That goes for any game not just gw. Although im not saying that should be the agelimit.

I play a lot fps and have nothing but bad experiences with teens, in clans guilds and ingame.

mzzls

As a good parent, I would never dream of neglecting my children. I drop them off at Pre searing every morning.

That post wins this thread