From Anikin and Calevin
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 8:49 pm
Howdy folks,
I hate to actually speak the words, but Anikin and Calevin are gone from Atys. Anikin-player is 10 years old, Calevin-player is 45. Our time here was part of an extended experiment in parenting wherein he and I interact in worlds where I am not stronger, more capable, better informed and have years experience on him.
We arrived during "The Troubles" and were marooned on the island. We went to level 80 or so without cats, and to 100 alone and stranded in the Tryker lands, seeing few others and with no guild besides our "House of Flying Yubos" (which is still a great name, actually we almost named our new kinship "House of Flying Yew Bows", but in the end went for something more aligned with the lore). We trekked a whole lot, noodled around a lot and made friends. If Anikin could have gotten XP for watching over diggers in Dyron he would have made 250 in a week. Then some friends disappeared, the tide began to ebb. We moved to DoK and discovered a new group of people both Anikin and I will now miss.
From my perspective there were great successes and only a couple of failures. Anikin's typing has greatly improved, he learned how to compare swords by calculating DPM, I got to coach him through a lot of social situations and provide (somewhat) controlled exposure to stuff he is going to learn about anyway. I got to see him taking charge of what he should and shouldn't be exposed to. When (EoA) guild chat would get a little excessive, well okay lets be honest here, massively inappropriate for a 10 year old, he would just turn it off. I suggested the approach, but he was in charge of implementation, I was really impressed.
Without blame to anyone, the dependency of players upon guilds for cats was the downfall of the experiment. As an adult with a whole lot of life experience, it's absurd for me to be subject in any way to teenagers who, for all the maturity to which they might have claim, simply don't have the years of mistakes to reference that I do. But I let that happen, and it won't happen again on any world.
Compounding the problem was the well known law of physics that says a 16 year old *will* be annoyed by a 10 year old, the 10 year old being everything that the 16 year old is trying not to be. And I am afraid that a 45 year old listening to teenagers talk about drinking with such visceral immediacy just looks a little cute and is more than a little tedious.
In the end it did not work for Anikin to continue on Atys, and while I prefer much about Atys to where I now go I must follow him to where we can work together.
But all that is only part of what I came here to say. I also came to say that just before I canceled our accounts I was billed for another month and so let me just add this...
We, the players of Cho, fought for every OP as a team and that sense of team that is the only real thing of worth you will take to Aris. There is a reality in your "Cho Faction" that can never begin to occur in your incidental game factions. Stick together, work together, I have read these forums for months and don't see a cohesiveness of community which can withstand what we built on Cho. If you don't let the illusion of faction get in the way of the reality of our bonds as a community, you can come to Aris not as beggars but as those who can redefine and even claim the future of that world. They will band together at first to try to stop the tide, but I don't think they can stop a determined Cho population from taking a reasonable percentage of the OPs. Forget about Kara and Kami when it comes to your friends from Cho, support them and let them support you.
This is all as prelude to saying, if there is an OP battle this Saturday or Saturday week I will be there, maybe Anikin as well. And if there is not, why not?
Calevin
I hate to actually speak the words, but Anikin and Calevin are gone from Atys. Anikin-player is 10 years old, Calevin-player is 45. Our time here was part of an extended experiment in parenting wherein he and I interact in worlds where I am not stronger, more capable, better informed and have years experience on him.
We arrived during "The Troubles" and were marooned on the island. We went to level 80 or so without cats, and to 100 alone and stranded in the Tryker lands, seeing few others and with no guild besides our "House of Flying Yubos" (which is still a great name, actually we almost named our new kinship "House of Flying Yew Bows", but in the end went for something more aligned with the lore). We trekked a whole lot, noodled around a lot and made friends. If Anikin could have gotten XP for watching over diggers in Dyron he would have made 250 in a week. Then some friends disappeared, the tide began to ebb. We moved to DoK and discovered a new group of people both Anikin and I will now miss.
From my perspective there were great successes and only a couple of failures. Anikin's typing has greatly improved, he learned how to compare swords by calculating DPM, I got to coach him through a lot of social situations and provide (somewhat) controlled exposure to stuff he is going to learn about anyway. I got to see him taking charge of what he should and shouldn't be exposed to. When (EoA) guild chat would get a little excessive, well okay lets be honest here, massively inappropriate for a 10 year old, he would just turn it off. I suggested the approach, but he was in charge of implementation, I was really impressed.
Without blame to anyone, the dependency of players upon guilds for cats was the downfall of the experiment. As an adult with a whole lot of life experience, it's absurd for me to be subject in any way to teenagers who, for all the maturity to which they might have claim, simply don't have the years of mistakes to reference that I do. But I let that happen, and it won't happen again on any world.
Compounding the problem was the well known law of physics that says a 16 year old *will* be annoyed by a 10 year old, the 10 year old being everything that the 16 year old is trying not to be. And I am afraid that a 45 year old listening to teenagers talk about drinking with such visceral immediacy just looks a little cute and is more than a little tedious.
In the end it did not work for Anikin to continue on Atys, and while I prefer much about Atys to where I now go I must follow him to where we can work together.
But all that is only part of what I came here to say. I also came to say that just before I canceled our accounts I was billed for another month and so let me just add this...
We, the players of Cho, fought for every OP as a team and that sense of team that is the only real thing of worth you will take to Aris. There is a reality in your "Cho Faction" that can never begin to occur in your incidental game factions. Stick together, work together, I have read these forums for months and don't see a cohesiveness of community which can withstand what we built on Cho. If you don't let the illusion of faction get in the way of the reality of our bonds as a community, you can come to Aris not as beggars but as those who can redefine and even claim the future of that world. They will band together at first to try to stop the tide, but I don't think they can stop a determined Cho population from taking a reasonable percentage of the OPs. Forget about Kara and Kami when it comes to your friends from Cho, support them and let them support you.
This is all as prelude to saying, if there is an OP battle this Saturday or Saturday week I will be there, maybe Anikin as well. And if there is not, why not?
Calevin
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