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[PA Comic] Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - Vis A Vis My Lawn
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
[PA Comic] Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - Vis A Vis My Lawn
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/02/11
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Nice strip, excellent writing and artwork as always
Which considering it's the League community is kinda shocking.
It was just submitted by another player. So it's probably a combination of kids in the community talking on the forums and the poster themselves likely being fairly young.
So another possibility would be don't play your once-in-a-lifetime unpausable multiplayer videogame experience at a time which you know you're about to have to fucking leave holy shit
You can't know for sure. I might have an hour of free time, which is usualy enough to play a match of Dota 2. But the match can also sometimes last for more than an hour, or someone can disconnect and the game will be paused for 10+ minutes.
I think the letter starts of somewhat reasonably, but devolves at the end.
"Let him finish the game. This sounds like you're letting your child walk all over you, but please just let the game finish normally and follow through with step 2."
What? why would a parent give a care about some other person's "League of Legends" score? Nah, parents don't have to let their kids finish video games. The parents should absolutely have the right to say "No, I don't care, turn it off. You're eating dinner with us."
I agree with Tycho 100% on this. It's a game; it's not as if you're a doctor who is scrubbing in to save a human beings life and I am saying "come eat your veggies", it is recreation. It will still be there after you eat, and most parents will be willing to let you go back to it when you can demonstrate that it does not dominate every moment of your day because they won't have to worry about you starving to death like some idiot at in internet café on a starcraft binge, or failing school because you don't do homework.
It's about the food, yes, but it's also about learning to be a human being who can survive. I'm not raising a dependant, I'm raising a functional human being, and if that means that in order to get their attention I have to flip a breaker in the basement to completely power off their sources of entertainment and we eat by candle-light, so be it.
Also, isn't that what Leavebuster is inadvertently meant to do? Teach time management and responsibility before starting a game so you don't start one you can't finish? How about the kids check in with their parents before queuing ranked? If the parent wants their kid to do their chores or spend time with the family, they have every right to say "Sorry no more video games today." It's called being a parent.
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I totally understand real life happens and it's important, and I'd say it's more important than a Non-Ranked Match, it sucks when that stuff happens, but it's not permanently affecting you in any meaningful way. You just surrender at 20 or whatever and count your losses (it's nice that Heroes of the Storm gives you an AI character replacement, even if they're as dumb as a brick.) For ranked play, that's a little more "serious" and tempers can flare up, sure it's game, but it's something you're invested in and in theory are doing to RELAX or HAVE FUN. Not something you're able to do when you're getting bent over backwards by the enemy team and dropping in hard earned (through skill or playtime) rank. At the end of the day though, it's still the kid's responsibility to be responsible BOTH to other people AND to events they have prior commitments too. Sometimes a crazy long match happens, if it does, and it's not life or death (like having dinner at a certain time or being in bed 10 minutes earlier) just let your kid finish what they were doing. If your kid is actively queueing up for things KNOWING he won't be able to even commit the bare minimum amount of playtime, THEN they should be punished.
I also say this all as a non-competitive MOBA player. Hell, I played from work, and I knew it was a gamble, and I had to leave any number of matches because people came in my office or whatever. But I also exclusively played Non-Ranked matches when there was a chance I'd have to leave so as to avoid royally fucking anyone over.
All of that aside, if you're still like "Fuck you, it's a game, stop taking it so seriously, etc." teach your kid responsibility to other people who depend on them. If your kid is actively dicking people over by being irresponsible, PUNISH THEM FOR DOING SO. Please don't raise kids that're not going to be dependable, just because it starts in an online game doesn't mean it won't carry over into other more important things like work deadlines, being there for friends/family when you say you will, etc.
The argument that "it's just a game, so there's nothing wrong with wasting people's time there" sounds stupid to me.
At the same time, this letter should be aimed at child gamers themselves. They know when they are going to eat or go to sleep, so it's their task to manage their time and not start the game they can't quit at any moment without fucking up 9 other people.
This is my favorite "new style" art yet, by a mile. You can almost feel your screen melting from the rage in panel #2.
Obviously so are people in the house, so it doesn't mean you can put off dinner cause of your leagueing. But one way or the other, they should learn to responsibly not start team games when dinner is near. Just because your medium is "fake" doesn't mean you can't be a very real dick to other people with it.
I agree with this and don't. In theory it works, but it sort of goes into this "Well, who should be raising your kid? The community or the parent?" deal.
"Daddy, can I have a sleepover at -"
"YES OH DEAR GOD LET ME PACK YOUR WEEKEND BAG."
The parent is not shitting on anyone. The kid, as the player, has done that by starting a game he (whether knowingly or by negligence) cannot commit to. He does not get a reward for doing this, any consequences he gets from screwing over his team is, frankly, a well deserved part of the punishment.
Pins!
Why can't we have both?
Parents have enough of your shit to worry about without having to worry about your video game etiquette. If a kid has to get off the game in the middle because their parent said to, that's on them. It's like blaming the electric company for disconnecting someone from League that didn't pay their bill.
Not always. It really depends on what the parent is doing. If the kid has chores, dinner, homework, bedtime, etc. that's legit.
If you as a parent need to use the computer to watch a funny cat video your sibling told you about over the phone, or if you need to check your eBay auctions so you can snipe bid, etc. Then you're definitely shitting on your kid and being an asshole. That's more or less what I meant, and it was more so directed towards parents who aren't technologically savvy. For example, my friend and I were playing a game together, but had to take like a 15 minute interlude because his dad needed to check his eBay auctions (yes, some households still only have one computer where nobody owns smartphones or tablets, I'm surprised as you are.)
I agree with you there. Nothing wrong with a joint effort.
Considering Tryndamere is the name of a fictional character, I am fairly certain that Trynadmere is not real and illusions to the contrary are probably a bad sign.
First off, Tryndamere is a name and psuedonym used by the founder of Riot games, so technically, it is a real person so bad example using that name.
Second, the character is fictional. That doesn't mean the player BEHIND the character is.
I think the letter's being taken in the wrong context here. Sure that particular player is complaining about people leaving the game but ultimately what he's stating is true in that the leaver is affecting 9 other people in a competitive environment. Even in a non ladder environment it's frustrating. I'm in complete agreement with LINKTM and Redthirst's comments.
Yes it's on the child but it's also on the parent. To me, a healthy parent-child relationship involves compromise and communication otherwise you as a parent are acting like a dictator. The characters aren't real but the players behind them are. What if your ally only has time for one game? It is now significantly less fun because of a disadvantage that's outside his or her control. I find this comic unwarranted and frankly I'm more and more disliking PA. "It's just a game" as an argument should not apply to competitive multi-player games as it's responsibility to the other players that you have agreed to by entering the game. I'm not saying start up a game 10 minutes before whatever. That's on the child to LEARN better time management and on the parent to TEACH better time management. That should be the message taken from the letter not this inconsiderate possessive thinking that this comic portrays.
Yeah, except that's not at all the situation being laid out here.
The open letter straight up says, "If your kid ignores the above rules and starts a game close to (bed/dinner/chores/etc) time, let him off the hook until he finishes the game. Then and only then punish him." To which I say, "No. You do not get a cookie for breaking the rules. The rule is there so you don't ruin it for everyone, and now you broke it, so you just ruined it for everyone. No 'Dad can I just' nuh-uh. No. You can go to bed."
The Open Letter to Parents, however, addresses exactly this, about establishing rules for managing time, like not starting a LoL game within one hour of a set cutoff time for playing games so it doesn't get over.
However, it then explicitly says that if the kid shows poor time management, or breaks the rules, that you should let them finish the game (In bold caps even!) - skip dinner, skip chores, stay up late, whatever. The letter spends twice as long explaining this as it does establishing the validity of boundaries, on the justification that it's to shelter them from the consequences of letting down team mates, thus teaching them responsibility to others.
Shelter from consequences is the opposite of teaching.
That's why it's no different then pulling your son or daughter out of a little league game in the middle of it.
As for the parental respect from the letter writer, it should've been fairly obvious that the letter writer was an adult who was merely frustrated at being punished for being unlucky enough to be placed with children whose parents had no conception of the fact that their kids behavior impacted 9 other people or simply don't care how their behavior impacts others.
This isn't about the kid, it's about a. teaching the kid respect for others, and B. teaching the kid that people behind the screen are real people that need to be treated with respect. Of course with parents like you it's no wonder that the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory exists.
How about: no.
Real life is only more important than "non-ranked" videogames?
Again, how about: no. (and a healthy dose of: really?... Really???!)
This. 1000X this. Videogame mission/quest completion, ranked or not, is at about position, oh, 2375 on the list of "things I give a shit about as a parent". "Is my child obeying me, right now"? is in the top 10. Every time.
You don't "compromise" w/ a 10-year old or teenager. You set boundaries, then enforce them. There is a time for discussion w/ more mature children, but it isn't in the middle of them disobeying me in favor of a G-D computer game.
How about this: if you as a ranked videogame player don't want to deal with the potential of pub players having to leave unexpectedly, don't play with them. Set up a clan. Vet your team to eliminate likely unreliable players and those who aren't capable of self-determination of their schedules (like, say, children).
This was after a pattern of me getting too absorbed in a game, so I can't blame him. Now that I'm a parent, I'd likely do the same thing.
We balance this with my son where if he's playing PvZ or something on his iPad, we let him finish it up before we eat together. But if he knowingly started something that would take an hour when dinner is being cooked? Sorry, you're shit out of luck on that one.
The response to this is a fifty-foot, gold-plated, "so what?"
There are people that take everything seriously. Doesn't mean that a teenager is the arbiter of perspective when it comes to these things.
Because everyone involved is not the same age as the kid being called home for dinner. Because the people playing might only be able to play a single match at that moment in time, and the inconsiderate kid ruined it. Because somebody wanted to play a game in order to have fun and relax and now they're doing the exact opposite of that.
It depends on what that real life thing is. When you're entering a ranked game (or an MMO raid or whatever) you're signing a personal contract with other human beings to commit your time to said event/activity and give it your uninterrupted attention in order to provide maximum levels of "fun". Unexpected things happen in the real world, and if you need to bail then you bail. But, if you know you've got dinner, or Grandma is coming over, or you have a Pizza being delivered, you probably don't want to queue up for a ranked match that people play COMPETITIVELY and your actions (or lack there of) will hurt 4 other individuals on your team.
I'm pretty sure the consequences are "Hey, you're parentaly banned from League of Legends for the next week." Sure, there's that extra bit of "oomph" if you ban them from League of Legends AND make them logoff immediately, but I'm guessing just missing out on a single game and being inconsiderate to the people they were playing with is significantly lower on their totem of punishments than "knowingly playing the last League of Legends game I'll get to play for the next week because of my poor time management skills and respect for my parents' pre-scheduled activities/life events/rules."
To me this is why games can't be considered E-sports If your kid was playing baseball or soccer or even bowling and you happened to live next door to the field/bowling alley they happened to be playing at you wouldn't pull them from their game in the middle of it and say "HEY, TIME FOR DINNER FUCK YOUR TEAM". Yet League of Legends is now the most played game in the WORLD, but people still treat it like "Who gives a shit, you are on the computer, not participating in an actual game with actual people".
Expanding on the analogy a little more, would you let your kid go to the park to play pickup basketball with friends just before dinner? What if they said they might be late, or straight up said they would definitely be late? If you think you would say "sure" anyway but still insist on pulling the plug on League I think that's messed up. Now, if you say you wouldn't let them go to begin with then you shouldn't be letting them play League right before dinner either. It's really inconsiderate to the other players, and while you are effectively teaching them family takes precedence you are also teaching them not to give a damn about others and bad sportsmanship.
I agree with the "Don't start what you can't finish" line of thought and that real life comes first, but I always found the insistence on eating as a family really weird. If a child has to do their chores or their homework then sure, but why the emphasis on the dinner ritual?