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[PA Comic] Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - Vis A Vis My Lawn
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The only relation to 'pick up' sports is convenience of play time, which has nothing to do with the topic in the slightest. The game can not end just because someone has to go, the game does not pause, the game is full of people who aren't there just because they like the kid, the game isn't just between children all of the same age, the game has rules everyone has to work with, the game requires the involvement of all the players or it wastes at least 3 people's time... and the list can easily go on.
Parents made the kid. It's the parents fault too. As a gamer who doesn't care about kids, how parents choose to handle their kid's time does not excuse wasting mine. There's literally not an argument there, it's just what the scenario means. The hostile method is for nobody to care about anybody else's situation.
I would expect the hostile method, so I never actually cared too much about someone's real life booting them from an online game I was in. However, in this case, a LoL post was made in an effort to 'care', avoiding the hostile method. And then PA made this comic, which is a direct response via reinforcing the hostile method! Absolutely retarded.
Fair enough, i missed the point in the rant.
But you are also being inconsistent with the argument you are putting forward you say that "Games do matter, but they are not as important as family" which everyone agrees with. But then you say that 'Kid has done nothing wrong by leaving peopke hanging in a game" therefore while you say that leaving games is indeed bad behaviour, you claim that the kid is doing nothing wrong.
I may see competitive games as more important than most because i did competitive sports in college so i kind of give more importance to things that people dont really consider important.
In my personal experience if your kid is not mature enough to understand the importance of not leaving people hanging, he is not mature enough to be playing such games. And thats 2 different worldviews of parenting, but then again people do have different views of what its success therefore parenting is catered to that. For me i was raised under the banner of respect to others over everything else.
Unfortunately for your parents, I guess they're responsible for your actions and attitudes too.
And so, you don't care about the other player (the kid), but the kid and his parents are supposed to care about you and your precious ELO? As I said, it's obvious who's being selfish here.
Nice. Thanks for raising the level of discourse in this thread.
Your college let children wander onto the field and play with you? Weird, man.
In all seriousness, the comparison doesn't work. If you really want to make the "organized team sport" argument, then you should only be playing with a dedicated group of players, not random queuing with children.
If you want to play a pick-up game, you can't get mad when someone takes off in the middle. If you want to be that "hardcore", then get yourself a dedicated team to play with.
Fair enough, and I agree with the idea of the kid not being mature enough for LoL if the kid doesn't understand the importance of not leaving people hanging, but there's a difference between a mismanagement of time once, and the kid repeatedly queuing up for a game when he doesn't have the time to commit. Mistakes happen, but repeated immature behavior would suggest he's not mature enough for LoL.
However, your banner of respect idea doesn't work. Or at any rate it's loaded. You seem to suggest that by staying in the game, the kid is respecting the 9 other players, which is commendable. But in doing that, the kid is disrespecting his or her parents. Either way, the kid is disrespecting someone. And obviously, parenting comes before games.
Nowhere in my post(s) do I state that a 'Kid has done nothing wrong by leaving people hanging in a game.' A thing that I have said is that obeying ones parent takes precedence over the leaving people hanging. The same as if it were an offline, meatspace encounter. While it sucks that other kids/others have to stop what they're doing if they lack the means to keep it going, doing what the parent says takes priority over that.
With that in mind, it is absurd for a parent to punish their child for being obedient to what they told them to do.
I never said the kid should stay playing, i merely said he should be punished for leaving (by taking his account or uninstalling the game).
Of course the parent final word should be held to the highest authority until the kid is old enough to be responsible for his own actions (old enough to get a job).
Right. It's the parent and the child.
I don't have kids because I don't want to deal with situations like these. Don't pretend that they have no responsibility or relevance in it. And don't pretend that you aren't just making excuses for them.
You're misunderstanding entirely. I expect trolls and annoying unreliability in PUG games. 100% expected. What's just obnoxious to see is defense for it. I literally care as much about the defense of the parents role in this as they care about my time. Is this not fair? It better be. There's nothing unreasonable about that.
..As opposed to being told I have to deal with your children. No, really, I don't. Tough luck.
They really, REALLY don't (the parents, I mean).
So, when my sister-in-law started going into labor in the middle of a LoL game and had to leave, it would be obnoxious to you to see me defend her decision to abandon the game? I guess your precious unranked PUG match is more important. Maybe she shouldn't have played LoL at all during her last weeks of pregnancy, you never know when you're gonna go in labor, right?
Or I guess that is a good enough reason. But kids aren't, because screw kids!
You know, once I was playing LoL and I just had the runs out of nowhere, and guess what I did? I went to the bathroom! In the middle of a game! The nerve! But I guess you're right, you don't have to deal with this stuff. Next time I'll crap my pants.
In short, yeah, when you play PUG games, you have to deal with people's children. It's PUG. Deal with it.
No one is trying to excuse the parents or the child from some responsibility here. It's an unfortunate situation all around.
Kid is unhappy that he has to stop playing.
Parent is unhappy because kid is not doing what he's supposed to be doing.
Other players are unhappy because kid drops out.
Everyone bears some responsibility for the situation. Not trying to absolve the parents or the kid. Although, the kid (if anyone) has some absolution, since he's a kid.
There's another thing about organized sports that people are missing. Sometimes kids get taken out of organized sports because their grades aren't good enough - either taken out by the school, or taken out by the (good!) parents. Maybe that kid who gets taken out of a sports team for not keeping his grades up was the best player on the team. Doesn't matter. The grades are still more important, and the parent isn't being "disrespectful" to the other players by pulling the kid out. And you'd better believe there are asshats that would argue against pulling a kid out for more important reasons than the sport. Tough luck, them's the breaks. Real life should always trump games, regardless of the game.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
I've seen it stated multiple times but it seems there is a degree of tunnel vision on the LoL obsessed people's side is that the letter really doesn't address everyone's best interests, just the people playing LoL. Most of the letter is a selfish plea with parents so that their game isn't ruined without regard for the authority of the parent. The letter is firmly directed at 9 stranger's best interests alone.
Me too. Which is why I actually do something about it. I rarely play team oriented online games with strangers. Because they aren't reliable. Instead I play with people I know and can trust to be reliable regardless of age.
So if you don't want to deal with what's always going to be an unreliable group, in this case strangers, do something about it instead of demanding that children cease to behave like children.
This attitude is basically what creates trolls. Don't add to that problem.
Teach your kids to respect other people and their time.
Nine other people are in the game, they didn't ask to play with your shitty kid, don't make it worse for them.
If you just want to look at facebook or something, give them a minute to finish.
If he's being irresponsible with his time, and committing to things he shouldn't, take his game privileges away because regardless of what you or your kid want, those other people shouldn't be inconvenienced by your child and your ignorance of what they are doing online.
I was a competitive gamer as a teenager and I don't see pick up games as important in any way. Gaming is just like everything else in life...another inconsequential activity that some people take too seriously. When you're PUGing....shit happens.
This is a good point.
I may not play LoL but I play plenty of shooters online.
Playing with randoms you going to deal with a good amount of droppers, rage-quitters, and not so skilled people.
That's pretty much just the name of the game.
I mean that's the entire reason most people start clans to begin with, so they have a more reliable player pool.
The people matter, the game doesn't. If they are taking it too seriously, that's on them.
This line of thinking flabbergasts me. It's not that parents don't care about other people playing their game. It's not that people behind the screen are not important. It's that the game doesn't matter as much as you think it is important. You lose the game? Sucks. Can you play again? Yep. A little butthurt didn't stop you from playing that game again with the risk of having leavers, did it? Because it is just a game -- not the Olympics. A game that you probably won't care about 20 years from now. Name me one game, one game you had where you ABSOLUTELY HAD TO WIN at the expense of pissing your parents off. Enlighten me.
The people behind the screen are real as they come -- but not as immediate, not as important as the REAL people on the other end as well. Did they choose to fuck your game up? Not deliberately. Please stop saying that parents are teaching them wrong by leaving a game. It just so happened that there are more lessons and activities that are more pressing than winning the game at hand. You have to PRIORITIZE family before other people, not because other people are not important, but because they are closer to home -- literally speaking. It's just common sense.
If the fate of the world hangs in the balance because of my niece's game, I'll gladly her finish. But until then, I'll try to take control to set them straight on their priorities.
Doing otherwise is setting yourself expectations which will be crushed.
If you desperately care about your ratings get a team and play in an organised fashion.
Again, no one anywhere at any point in the thread has said that.
Saying that parenting comes before a video game isn't saying that either.
Maybe your kid is highly scrupulous, and being made to ruin the experience of 9 other players will have a big effect on her. Maybe she'll just feel awful about it, and apologize to her gaming friends for it later, and the lesson she will take is that she should be careful about scheduling their time in the future.
On the other hand, maybe your kid has a mean streak, and for one reason for another starts to think that it's okay to inconvenience or hurt random strangers. Sure enough, she comes to dinner obediently, but now you've taught her that it's okay to be mean to random strangers or outgroups so long as they're an outgroup, or if it's convenient for me.
And of course, if you're only cutting off your kid from their games when it's convenient for you, rather than all the time, she will notice. She knows you too. And then the lesson she may take is "Right and wrong are determined only by the convenience of whoever has power."
There is no general case for parenting. There is no right answer that applies to every family or every child. Know your kid, and do what you know is best for them rather than what is easiest for you.
Wasting other people's time, regardless of whether you think the activity is worthwhile, is a shitty thing to do.
Don't teach your kid that it's okay to do shitty things to other people.
If that's a problem for you or your kid, don't let them play online at all.
Don't teach your kid that the people on the internet "aren't real" or don't matter, because that is why we have a culture of trolls who hide behind the anonymity of the internet and have no respect for the people they interact with.
You know I could spin this kind of rhetoric just as easily and say "Teaching your kids that they can get anything they want as long as they complain enough creates douchebags so you have to set boundaries."
Truth be told, a kid growing up to be a uncaring douche is a combination of things. And I don't know if "quitting out of a video game early" is very high on that list.
Like, that's been my whole point here.
Someone leaving a game you're in has nothing to do with you. Why do some of you insist on acting like it's a personal insult?
If I told some of you to stop posting here, because you're wasting my time, would you? Hell no, nor should you! How you choose to spend your time is none of my business; you are free to post or stop posting as you please. You want to spend it playing LoL, or posting here about it, that's your right, and anyone telling you that you're wrong to do so is a Grade A jackass.
Conversely, someone leaving a game, for any reason, is their business, not yours. It's not about you. It's not some grand troll or insult. It's just a thing that happens, and you roll with it.
You want to be that serious about it, get yourself a team that want to play it serious with you and stop pubbin' it. You've got no more right to get angry about a kid ditching to do their homework than I do if you choose to stop debating this with me.
Sorry mr Parent you had to have your sex interrupted by Midnight Water requests. Sorry you had to scrape up gallons of vomit out of your car. But you know what.... you signed up for that, dont act like it's the Kid's fault, he's just doing what a kid does. Those Midnight Water requests you fulfilled, that Vomit you scraped up - thats you doing the Parenting you agreed to do when you decided to be a parent! You're the one fulfilling a debt for a decision made, not the kid, the kid did not choose to create himself.
Now if you did a good job parenting, then of course your kid should and almost certainly will love you back and appreciate it, but to hold that parenting up as some sort of 'argument chip', to keep it 'on account' in a mental ledger that you then expect the kid to somehow feel endebted to, like Tycho seems to be doing here, is just disgusting to me.
I'm not saying it's the end-all turn key solution, but it does all add up, and it's one thing you can do to prevent your kid from being a douche, not just in the future, but right now.
If you're the type that can't let your kid sit for an hour to play a game, or if your kid is bad at planning ahead and is prone to screwing over 9 other people, or plays when he shouldn't, don't let him play online at all.
As you say, your kid doesn't need to get anything he wants. You have the authority here. It solves both problems.
A totally not exhaustive list of some things people need to learn:
- people matter
- taking responsibility matters
- not all things are equally important, both from individual and from absolute perspectives
- life randomly happens, whether or not you schedule for it
If I tell a kid I am responsible for to CALL THE AMBULANCE THERE IS AN EMERGENCY I AM DEALING WITH THE SITUATION AND I NEED HELP and they decide that it needs to wait 10-20 minutes or else it would be inconsiderate to the 9 other people who have committed their time and energy to the current recreational activity, then that kid is wrong, no matter that kid's consideration for those 9 other people.
If a kid is called in for disciplinary action and they just started playing a game on their mobile phone, having the disciplinarian wait for 5-10 minutes out of consideration for the others in the game would be deeply inconsiderate to the disciplinarian.
A PUG game is a recreational activity, and inconveniencing 9 other people's recreational activity is unfortunate for them, but recreational activities are just recreational activities. There do exist plenty of things much, much more important than them. Try adopting the "I can't leave because I'm inconveniencing other people" towards any other recreational activity, and it becomes apparent how ridiculous that becomes, and that's before any notion of learning consideration for parental authority comes in.
Just think: "I'm going to be 30-60 minutes late to XYZ because I'm playing beer pong with these 5 other people."
If they queue'd random, they sure as hell took their chances.
Pins!
First of all, the open letter had its issues, but its not without its merit. If you bother to read the damn thing it explain some stuff really well and does give really good suggestions. However I do feel when it came down to what to do it was where it kinda went wrong and where people have issue with. Now the comic seem to only focus on that last part and while I get that they are trying to be funny I do feel like this is a good issue to be debated over and talked about rather than the joke it got which really put this whole discussion back a lot as people argue parenting (and my god is that a touchy subject for people)
I feel like the open letter had its point in that your child is playing with 9 other people and they made a commitment to do it. Now if you let them finish the game or cut it off that is your decision as the parents. BUT I feel that in doing whatever decision you choice to do that you enforce in your child time management. If you have to pull your child away from a game for say dinner/chore/hw then you should have a talk with your child as this is an issue, but do be reasonable if you just thought up of something that needs to be done and ask them to do it and they are in the middle of a game unless its an emergency it can wait until the finish the game no need to be a dick to your kid about it (granted if its something you told them to do for a while now they have no excuse). If they can't handle it then cut them off from the game, I know the open letter was avoiding it but that is really the best course of action. Simply don't let them play until they learn to manage their time correctly.
I'm speaking from experience on this part as I had issues myself during high school where I was really absorbed in games (granted my parents was part of the cause but that is beside the point) and my parents was simply too soft on the matter. They punished me here and there when my grade suffered but they were too soft and let me play once my grade went back up. So I got by high school due to some natural intelligence and went off to college, where I could no longer cruse by and due to finally free from my long time tug of war with my parents I completely crashed in college to where I failed out and only at that point did I finally realized my issue and I manage to fix it and get back on the right track but was a very painful experience for both me and my parents and sadly not everyone manage to make it out of the deal for the better.
I guess my main point to this debate is pulling them off the game some time simply isn't punishment enough, if its a repeated offense then more needs to be done about it as the child clearly doesn't care about the people he/she is playing with or the you because they keep repeating the issue when they know they have dinner or other things to do. (granted this is very situational, really depends on the child's response and tone and attitude on the whole matter) And why simply pulling them away you really didn't solve anything, the child hasn't learned by its a bad thing to start a game when they know they can't finish a game and possibly (I can't say its for certain) develop a mentality that people online don't matter and what happens online don't matter which is not good. Colleges now day do check their applicants facebook and social media now days, there have been people who been denied admission to school they should be able to get in due to content they have online.
And finally reading all the responses here and on reddit and my issue with the comic in general is that people think the parents is always right. I'm sorry but your not always right, you are human just like the rest of us and are capable of faults just like the rest of us. The mentality that whatever I say goes and is always right to me is very worrying. Kid's opinion and attitude on life is heavily influenced by their parents, kids don't know how to act, they learn by observing the people around them and I feel its a every bad example to set. You want your kids to be open minded, to learn, and to grow so set an example for them by learning and educating yourself, back up your parenting with good reasoning not fuck you I'm the parent do what I say.
Anyways that is my two cent on the issue.
Children, by their very position in the grand circumference of human existence, don't know anything about anything at all under any circumstances. The reality is that children have no perspective and thus are required to be given perspective by their betters because it's not something you just acquire when you "recall" to the "Nexus" to buy your "boots" and some more "wards".
Many of my close friends are now married adults with families or the budding seed of a family in the spring-time of its lifespan. Their parents, like mine, were the type who said "Be home and indoors when the street lights come on your're grounded until you're old enough to collect social security" and nary an argument was levied. We knew that Mom and Dad were responsible for the laws of our little world and we didn't fuck with their shit. Home by what hour or else? Turn off Contra and eat your peas? I'm down. We may have voiced our distaste at one point or another but we knew the consequences of such vehemence were often not desired and as a result we usually chose to wave off punishment by simply acquiescing to their demands. Unreasonable? You're damn right. Parents don't have to reason with their children. That's not the system. Children have no grounds in which to base their reason. People who think that children DO have some kind of sage-like wisdom regarding the severity of their endeavors are either children themselves and therefore the argument is invalid or they themselves have never had children and have not matured properly.
Teaching your kids responsibility is all part and parcel of parenting. Being a responsible parent, however, does not include knowing the rules of your kids' favorite video games and being sure to adjust your administrative duties accordingly. The media through which your kids seek recreation has no bearing on the system. Whether they play football, debate for the speech team, practice tap dance, or have a small band, all of these things are subject to adjustment by Mom and/or Dad. If they say your studies are failing because of column A or column B then whatever measures they choose to improve your future are theirs to inflict and the only job the kid has is to say "Yes, Mom and Dad."
Does that make them dictators? You're damn right it does. Because they are. Parenting isn't a democracy. No one is elected. There is no committee. Filibustering for fifteen more minutes of time in Summoner's Rift isn't a god damn option. It's time for dinner. It's time for bed. It's just time to stop playing the damn game because it's been four hours and you're eyes are going to melt if you don't take a break. Spoiler Alert: Your kid's life and the lives of the nine other people he's queued with in League of Legends aren't going to cave in on themselves because they had to leave a match early.
I play League. I'll tell you that 99% of the games where a player causes you to lose a match fall into every other category BESIDES a child being called to dinner. And if you're at a rank where that is still an issue for you then you probably shouldn't worry your head about it, anyhow, because you're not going pro anytime soon. You're a casual player. And that's okay. Because that's what the entire population of MOBAs is. Casual players. And sometimes casual players have other obligations or responsibilities to attend to and that's just how that works. I'm not going to call them "REAL LIFE" responsibilities because I don't know if I agree with calling something tangible that you do with your body and mind in space a "not real" activity. However a Ranked League of Legends match lies very low on the totem of "Important Shit" in everyone's life save for the players who are quite literally playing professionally for their livelihood.
That's reality. I know it can be heartbreaking as a child when you're winning your thing and Dad says "time for bed". But Dad knows better than the kid will ever know, ever, forever. That's how that works. Your parents have seen shit. They've been through the wringer that is life and starting a family and supporting it and raising children. A nine-year-old telling his parents what's up is silly at best.
I agree 100% with Jerry on this one. Yes, we all love games. We're all nerds. But we also must respect the fact that they are games and they have their place. Looming over the will of your parents like a mailed fist waiting to strike is not that place. Hobbies and recreation reside well below dinner time and homework time and bed time and even bath time. That's the life of a child. We all lived it and none of us became bums because Mom turned off the xbox right as we got our kill-streak.
How quickly we forget.
Jerry actually discusses the entire letter in the newspost, and agrees with the part about teaching parents how LoL or some other game works, and that it involves other people. That will give the parent information that he or she will then use the way he or she sees fit. Jerry's problem is the LoL kid is telling other parents how to do their job.
Of course the comic isn't as nuanced and thorough. It's a comic strip. It takes the strongest or craziest elements and makes a joke. It's here to entertain us. The newspost is here to inform.
That isn't the case.
USE THAT AUTHORITY to teach your kid not to commit to an online team when they are not able to see it through.
If they can't handle that responsibility, don't allow them to play online at all. Ever. They can come back in a few years when they are ready.
The parent doesn't have to deal with the kid on the game at bedtime/choretime, the rest of us don't have to deal with your shitty kid who hasn't learned to plan ahead.
Win-Win.
Ditto for adults who say "omg have to leave for work in 5 minutes" when they knew that before they queued up. Emergencies are fine of course, by all means please GO. But just because it's a recreational activity doesn't mean it's okay to waste people's time unnecessarily. I don't play if there is a good chance I'll get interrupted. It's just common courtesy.
I agree with it and I do understand the comic is suppose to be funny and represent an extreme, however its very worrying to me how many people stand on that extreme craziest element even though its meant as a joke.
And by the way, try to remember that video games did, after all, start out as a children's toy. Certainly children are not the only ones who play video games now that whole generations of people have grown up with them, and I would never be one to say that there's anything wrong or immature about grown-ups playing games, clearly I'd be a hypocrite if I did, but at the same time if you are taking your gaming so seriously that you can't put up with some minor annoyance from playing with or against a 10 year old now and then, it's probably time to take a step back and get some perspective. Sure, we've all run for the mute button when our ears are assaulted by some pre-pubescent mic screeching; we've all spectated teammates and felt despair as the certain knowledge that the person playing that character is sitting on daddy's lap to reach the keyboard set in. Deal. The price you pay for it being socially acceptable to keep playing with children's toys your whole life is having to occasionally interact with a child. If you don't encounter more frustrating and obnoxious behavior from adult teammates on a regular basis, consider yourself one of the fortunate few.
Also, if you care about your ratings you can view kids leaving as a distributed random effect, such that the collective net effect on the non-kids scores should be approximately zero (or even positive on the group as a whole as the kids will probably lose more matches than they otherwise would)
The issue with LoL is you are unable to find replacement for people who leave, many other group activities you can find some one else to fill your roll even say mmorpgs dungeons you can reque to fill your party however lol and moba in general doesn't allow that which makes leaving much worse.
There's no lasting effect to losing a game of LoL because a 9 year old bailed (or because of any other reason for that matter) either. No. Stop it. Don't even start. Anything you could possibly say to argue that there is a truly significant and lasting impact of having your PUG LoL match screwed up will only make people long to live a life so blissfully carefree of actual important concerns as yours... and maybe even make them suspect you are in fact a kid yourself because they can't imagine a grown-ass person with real responsibilities having such a halcyon existence.
Horrors. Does LoL have some system I'm not aware of where steel clamps materialize and confine you in front of your monitor when a match starts?
My heart bleeds.
By having bamboo shoots shoved under your fingernails? Or by having points docked from whatever esoteric karma rating system LoL uses or something like that? It's the latter, isn't it? Sounds to me like your beef is with the LoL developers for creating a system that punishes people unfairly (and apparently utterly fails in its purpose of carrot-and-sticking the playerbase into decent behavior anyway, since LoL still has possibly the most notoriously toxic community of any currently popular game).