Parents are inherently selfish. They very thought "The world needs another one of me" is selfish. So it's not surprising that a lot of parents don't think past "Fuck yall, the kid better obey me."
That said, the article is pretty fair up until the "let them finish the game they started 5 min before bed" part. I would have said "Please be aware that while we know you have to pull the plug to enforce order, we'd also like you to take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again." If your kid keeps starting games they can't finish and you don't stop the behavior you're adding to the overall shittiness of the world. I'm sure it's very important to have your kid silently glowering at you from behind their brussel sprouts. Learn a few things about the game your kid is playing and you can have that without allowing him to be a dick to others.
The image in my head is a kid running over to a table where people are playing chess and knocking over all the pieces. Then, when the parent catches up to them, the only thing they're mad about is that they told the kid to stop running. K, you're the boss, enforce those rules, but the second time your kid does it I'm going to be pretty torqued at you, not him. I don't expect you to care about my stats, I expect you to care about my time and your child's lack of respect for others.
Parents are inherently selfish. They very thought "The world needs another one of me" is selfish. So it's not surprising that a lot of parents don't think past "Fuck yall, the kid better obey me."
They can be selfish AND correct, which is what they are in this situation. And it's not like the LoL gamers who think their time and precious stats are more important than anyone else, to the point of being angry at their teammates when they drop in a VIDEO GAME, aren't also selfish (hint: if you are playing Ranked with Randoms, you are either scrub tier or you are slumming it with the "normals").
The Elo ranking system easily resists one or two losses based on dropped games, besides. Your ranking will normalize even if you sustain a couple of unwarranted losses, especially if the cause is being randomly assigned a person who drops (for any reason). Elo has OTHER problems (defending a higher ranking has a disincentive to playing against lower ranked opponents if your skill has deteriorated against the total player pool... in other words, if you don't play, you keep your rating, even if you suck now), but this isn't one of them.
The image in my head is a kid running over to a table where people are playing chess and knocking over all the pieces. Then, when the parent catches up to them, the only thing they're mad about is that they told the kid to stop running. K, you're the boss, enforce those rules, but the second time your kid does it I'm going to be pretty torqued at you, not him. I don't expect you to care about my stats, I expect you to care about my time and your child's lack of respect for others.
Except it's nothing like that at all. The last time I checked, in international chess play, your moves would be recorded on a turn-by-turn basis (so you can study them afterwards), so nothing of value would be lost. You'd just set up the board to the way it was before. And ranked matches between folks in chess do not occur in a "pickup game" setting, either. People who play in chess tournaments don't have random teammates who can be pulled away by their parents at any time for dinner. They go to organized events at set times, which presumably one would schedule in advance. And if they WERE pulled away by a parent... it would be a win, in your favor. Since chess is a two-player game.
This thread is filled with bad metaphors, it seems. All we need to do is have some new account here start spouting off a car analogy, and the cycle will be complete.
First, I said nothing about ranked chess. The activity in the metaphor is meaningless. It's the idea that the child's obedience is important, but his respect for others is not. So screw chess, it is two friends playing a casual game of M:tG. Their game has no meaning to the world, and they will forget it and start another when they finish. It doesn't matter. What matters is that the kid doing it once is a kid being a kid, but failing to stop the kid from doing it a second time is on the parent. Does the number of people affected or the activity even matter? If your child acts up in a theater, it's just a movie, right? How is that kid going to learn to listen when you tell them they can't have Whoppers if you don't loudly shush him every time he asks? If your child is repeating an action that negatively impacts others, one of your responsibilities as a parent is to stop that action.
Second, I didn't say they weren't correct. I said the original letter asked for too much. I also flat out said it wasn't about the stats. You ignore that and go right into trying to explain ELO to me. If you're going to quote my post, read my post and don't cherry pick quotes to follow the narrative in your head. Your post reads as if you're just looking to pile on the League players, which is fine, a lot of us are goosy and I'm certainly a grumpy old troll. It ignores the fact that letting your kid give others a bad time is also goosy, and while the open letter asked too much, it was in the spirit of helping you make an informed call about your kids' activities.
Third... uh... what did you actually disagree with? You picked two lines to nitpick, and explained to me how ELO and professional chess work. Aight, but you didn't touch on a single point. So maybe I wrote it poorly.
Here's my whole thought in one paragraph, no dumb metaphor to wade through: It would help me in my interactions with your child if you understood the game you are allowing them to play is time consuming and involves many other people. I understand you need to lay down the law, but it would be great if you could allow them to finish the game if at all possible, and if it continues to be an issue I ask that your punishment include preventing them from repeating their actions. Also, I'm sorry about what I said about their mother, I'm sure she is a classy lady.
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
madpoet your analogy STILL doesn't work, because you ignore the fact that "the disobedient child" is one of the two people playing the game of chess. And any adult who got mad at a parent for saying, "I'm sorry to interrupt your game of chess, but my child needs to go to bed now" would be a completely asshole. Can you imagine some adult carefully explaining to a parent that the child's bedtime doesn't matter as compared to the importance of chess? Would any adult even have the chutzpah to try that in person?
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
And any adult that can't hear "Look, I'm just trying to get in a game of chess, please don't let your kid start playing unless they can finish the game" after it's happened a few times is being inconsiderate to the people they allow their child to interact with. I don't care about the first time, I care about the tenth.
I used that example because I don't feel it's relevant that the kid is playing. It's relevant that the kid is disrupting. And perhaps the adult doesn't realize the kid is disrupting, so here's some more information that the parent can use to better judge what's going on. Maybe 3 more minutes is okay, maybe it's not. If it is, great, if not, please stop it.
Madpoet on
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
And any adult that can't hear "Look, I'm just trying to get in a game of chess, please don't let your kid start playing unless they can finish the game" after it's happened a few times is being inconsiderate to the people they allow their child to interact with. I don't care about the first time, I care about the tenth.
Instead of like, saying themself, "you know, I keep playing with this kid who can never finish games - maybe I should stop playing them with this kid!" Nope, it's all on other people! The chess playing adult can't be expected to make logical decisions on their own! The important thing is that other people's parents make important decisions based on pleasing the adult chess player, so that they never have to make any decisions!
Dude, your truly dumb analogy just gets dumber the deeper you dig. Give up while you're behind.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
So the parent's unwillingness to prevent the kid from being a douche is okay, it's on the person they are playing against? You keep wanting the analogy to be about the kid playing. It's about the kid being an asshole.
If a parent is unwilling to prevent their kid from being an asshole, they are also an asshole. If they are unwilling to listen to someone explaining about what their kid is doing to help prevent them from being an asshole, they're also being an asshole.
Yes, parents should make decisions with other people in mind. If they let their kid cry in a theater, they're an asshole. If they don't stop them from kicking my chair on a flight, they're an asshole. Let them run around in my store and throw shit off the shelf? Super asshole. There are plenty of situations where anyone but the most super absorbed baby cultists agree that the parent needs to step in and stop the behavior. Just because a child is only causing a tiny bit of harm by their actions doesn't mean it's okay for the parent to have a complete unwillingness to deal with it.
This isn't "How dare you tell me to raise my kid!" this is "How dare you inform me of the consequences of my kid's actions!"
Madpoet on
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
So the parent's unwillingness to prevent the kid from being a douche is okay, it's on the person they are playing against? You keep wanting the analogy to be about the kid playing. It's about the kid being an asshole.
If a parent is unwilling to prevent their kid from being an asshole, they are also an asshole. If they are unwilling to listen to someone explaining about what their kid is doing to help prevent them from being an asshole, they're also being an asshole.
Yes, parents should make decisions with other people in mind. If they let their kid cry in a theater, they're an asshole. If they don't stop them from kicking my chair on a flight, they're an asshole. Let them run around in my store and throw shit off the shelf? Super asshole. There are plenty of situations where anyone but the most super absorbed baby cultists agree that the parent needs to step in and stop the behavior. Just because a child is only causing a tiny bit of harm by their actions doesn't mean it's okay for the parent to have a complete unwillingness to deal with it.
This isn't "How dare you tell me to raise my kid!" this is "How dare you inform me of the consequences of my kid's actions!"
None of those things has anything to do with the actual thing that's being talked about here.
You choose to play a game with a child, and then you get angry at the child for that. This seems logical to you? You're talking about "baby cultists", but what every post you've made describes is how you are a cultist of yourself, and the rest of the world better damn well revolve around you or it's fucked.
Well sorry friend, it's never going to revolve around you. I'm not sure how long you're going to live fighting against that truth before you accept it. Maybe never? It's hard to say!
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Yes, parents should make decisions with other people in mind. If they let their kid cry in a theater, they're an asshole. If they don't stop them from kicking my chair on a flight, they're an asshole. Let them run around in my store and throw shit off the shelf? Super asshole.
I don't disagree with this quoted part. It also has NOTHING to do with the conversation at hand. What are you even saying? Is the adult supposed to monitor the child at all times to make sure they don't start a match of LoL? Who said the behavior is repeated? What if it's a different child that starts a game and disconnects every time you're stuck with a leaver?
LoL is the most popular multiplayer game, it's gonna have TONS of PUG disconnects of ALL nature.
None of those things has anything to do with the actual thing that's being talked about here.
The actual thing being discussed here is League, specifically a game mode where the player does not have a choice of teammates or opponents. Many people said to just let the kid play. I said to consider allowing them to play, but the more important part of the letter was that parents should be informed of their child's activities and how they effect others. This made people upset. The gall that I would suggest that people know what their kid is up to. So yeah, I look at the post and say "wouldn't it be nice if a few people read this and kept their kid out of my games!"
I choose to play a game that children can play. It sucks when they ruin it. So I agree with the idea that if parents knew their children were ruining games, some of them might stop their kids from doing it and less of my games would be ruined. I don't expect them to care about me or my numbers, but I hope that they'd care that their child is being disruptive. It is likely that the parent doesn't realize there are other people involved and thinks turning it off hurts nobody. Being mad at a parent the first time it happens is silly. But when after an explanation my time is completely disregarded and the parent allows it to keep happening? I think that's worth being grumpy about. You haven't read a thing I've said if you think I'm angry at the child. I'm only disappointed that a parent only cares about their immediate interaction with the child and not how their child is effecting others.
The examples I gave relate because they are cases where a parent is expected to stop their kid from a certain behavior, giving lie to the idea that parents shouldn't consider others when dealing their child. And there's the disconnect. I'm over the "let the kid play" part. It's not expected, pull the cord. What I care about is the "acknowledge that your child is disrupting others" part of the letter. If there are other priorities, cool. Just acknowledge that your kid's actions have hurt someone a tiny bit, and maybe consider that in the future.
Well sorry friend, it's never going to revolve around you. I'm not sure how long you're going to live fighting against that truth before you accept it. Maybe never? It's hard to say!
Am I self centered? Sure. Is the problem addressed here tiny? Totes. I'm really not sure what truth I'm supposed to accept... I'm a short, hairy, old dude with little to no social skills. I own that shit. The world won't mourn me, nothing I've created will outlast me... I don't matter in the slightest. Does that mean my opinions are inherently wrong? I'm a little shocked that there's so much opposition to "informed parents make better decisions". Honestly, I think I came into a conversation that people were heated about, tried to make a light joke and present my opinion, and it got way overblown. In other words, Friday night on the internet.
I don't really mean to be rude, but the passionate LoL players here are funny. There is so much strawman argumentation going on that we're gonna cover the corn field.
If I was playing a game of chess with a kid in a park or something and their parent said the kid had to leave for dinner, my only reaction would be "Oh okay, cool" followed by not caring at all about the unfinished game cause it didn't matter.
Hell I wouldn't care if it was an adult who did that. It's a pickup game of chess. Gotta go find your kid to take them to dinner? Cool. Gotta go finish the laundry? Whatever brah seeyah. Get a text from a super hot dude who maybe sorta likes you and you gotta leave to craft the perfect response? Best of luck.
There's nothing even especially rude there because I chose to, apparently, play chess with complete strangers. If I got annoyed that strangers weren't treating it seriously the rightful response from anyone would be "Well no shit."
I'm a little shocked that there's so much opposition to "informed parents make better decisions".
More strawmen. NOBODY is opposed to that. Even Jerry said that TEACHING uninformed parents things about the world, games, internet, interactions, everything that has to do with technology the parents don't know about but the kids use is good. Informed parents obviously make better decisions.
The letter, and the LoL geeses here, however, are implying that the better decision is to let the kid finish the game. This is both adorable and worth ridiculing. However, parents here have taken the high road and explained, over and over, WHY they disagree with this and what's wrong about it.
And just to reiterate: The game and its numbers, compared to raising a child, don't matter. It's not even rude or asshole-ish to think so. Games don't matter to begin with. They're recreation, and as soon as they matter more than that to you, it is on you to find people / a way to play them with people for whom it matters as much.
It occurs to me that this is the digital equivalent of a sandlot baseball team being bummed out because little Scotty's mom called him home for dinner, and now the teams are uneven.
Now just picture the little bastards from 'The Sandlot' only parked behind computers, pissing and moaning about how much poon squints has gotten, but goddamn that new kid sucks because his mother makes him follow her rules. Man that sucks, for them, in the moment.
Of course I don't remember the fat kid from 'The Sandlot' going to Small's mom and telling her how to parent her kid because it interfered with his play time.
I apologize if this has already been discussed or pointed out and further I will say I'm in that weird age between being socially considered a kid and an adult, though legally considered an adult so perhaps I'm missing some information. Also to clarify I am only giving my perspective and my opinion based on my memories of growing up and am not trying to say how parents should raise their kids.
One thing I remember from being a kid is how important a sleep schedule and eating schedule was to staying healthy and being ready for the next day. As a kid I would try every trick I knew to avoid going to sleep at my bedtime, but the few times I did I was always really tired at school and sometimes, not always, it was harder to learn. People sometimes forget how important sleep is to getting energy and sorting the memories from the day and for a developing kid it is even more important, because you need that time to help your body recover or grow (if that saying is true about most growth occurring while asleep) and to process what you've learned to be able to learn more the next day. As an adult it is "less" important because most activities or jobs we do don't involve learning but just following a routine, depending on the job, so we typically forget how much we need it and only consider whether or not it means we'll need some caffeine or sugar to processes throughout the day. But a kid doesn't, or perhaps shouldn't for health reasons, have that option of just using a stimulant, which caffeine is, to get through the day, and even if they do the crash would probably be worse for the kid than for an adult. So saying that the kid should have their bedtime pushed back to finish a game can hurt them for the next day from lack of sleep.
And for the meal part, when I say kids need a schedule I don't mean to say that they need a super rigid schedule, but I do remember that having a time when to expect meals did help me know what to do about going out to play or staying in and how much time I'd have. It seemed to help my parents know how to regulate when I could eat snacks so I didn't eat only junk food and kept me from eating at weird times of day where I might be hungry by the time I was supposed to be sleeping. I also remember that family dinners were as a kid annoying, because I wanted to play, but looking back were nice, because the family got together to talk. So if a parent wants family dinners, saying that the kid should prioritize a game over time with the family does not seem like a good trade-off.
I just wanted to give my two cents since these seemed to be the issues that were the most controversial, about when to finish games or let them finish games.
It occurs to me that this is the digital equivalent of a sandlot baseball team being bummed out because little Scotty's mom called him home for dinner, and now the teams are uneven.
Now just picture the little bastards from 'The Sandlot' only parked behind computers, pissing and moaning about how much poon squints has gotten, but goddamn that new kid sucks because his mother makes him follow her rules. Man that sucks, for them, in the moment.
Of course I don't remember the fat kid from 'The Sandlot' going to Small's mom and telling her how to parent her kid because it interfered with his play time.
What makes this all funny to me is that kids having to quit playing games randomly has always happened, so what is it about the game LoL that makes it suddenly worse? I mean, the community around the game has to be pretty darn bad if people can get this upset at one person.
What makes this all funny to me is that kids having to quit playing games randomly has always happened, so what is it about the game LoL that makes it suddenly worse? I mean, the community around the game has to be pretty darn bad if people can get this upset at one person.
Well, it is one of the worst communities out there.
To be fair, the difference is that unlike some truly drop-in drop-out games like some open servers in online FPSes, the teams are "set" for the whole match, so a person leaving early oftens dooms the match for that team and they can't just quit and start another game, they still need to finish this doomed game. As a MOBA player myself, I know it's pretty frustrating to have to waste this time in a doomed match before you can start another.
When I was a kid, my computer was required to be plugged into the light switch. If I didn't follow directions, a hand would go in though the cracked door and *flip*. That's all I needed...
When they flipped the light off and the computer still functioned, I was grounded from my bedroom door hinge pins. (This was a horrific grounding, because it meant I could have privacy, but I had to "unhang" and "hang" my door if I wanted it open or closed.)
My parents were low tech, but they were super effective.
I want to ask : even if you are on the team from which a kid has DC'd for a very valid reason, are you still not playing LoL? Is that not sufficient?
The single fact that the game continues with or without the disconnect-kid makes all the "children will learn to be inconsiderate to others" argument completely void. Null. Nothing there. It might cost your team a victory, but you are still right in there, playing. Counter this thought without coming off like (more of) an insane LoL addict/sociopath. I dare you.
When I was a kid, my computer was required to be plugged into the light switch. If I didn't follow directions, a hand would go in though the cracked door and *flip*. That's all I needed...
When they flipped the light off and the computer still functioned, I was grounded from my bedroom door hinge pins. (This was a horrific grounding, because it meant I could have privacy, but I had to "unhang" and "hang" my door if I wanted it open or closed.)
My parents were low tech, but they were super effective.
I just feel slightly less abnormal now that I know I wasn't the only person who lost "door privileges" growing up.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
My two kids (15 and 17) both play LoL all the time. I do as well.
The childless people here who think you can have eyes on your kids 100% of the time after a day's work and dinner and chores and two other kids and on and on, so that you're sure they don't click accept 10min before bed, are simply too ignorant of the child-raising experience to understand why they are wrong.
I don't blame them really. There's no way I could have grasped it beforehand.
I make my kids DC if they ignore the rules, because LeaverBuster screws them itself if they have to do it enough. That's not generally good enough though, because longterm consequences are hard to imagine. So now I shut off all their machines an hour before bedtime because I don't like fighting with them.
Not because I care about the game they're playing. I don't care at all about your fun when it conflicts with the good order of my house, and I don't want to teach my kids that their fun comes before their obligations, or that it takes precedence over the household rules.
I wish there was a way to age gate LoL, because I hate playing with 13yr old kids too. It's especially annoying in ranked, where leaving impacts me, but
as a parent of teenagers comma
I don't get mad at them. I just think it sucks. I wish it weren't a thing, but it is. Welcome to online gaming, where irresponsible children sometimes screw things up for the rest of us.
I want to ask : even if you are on the team from which a kid has DC'd for a very valid reason, are you still not playing LoL? Is that not sufficient?
The single fact that the game continues with or without the disconnect-kid makes all the "children will learn to be inconsiderate to others" argument completely void. Null. Nothing there. It might cost your team a victory, but you are still right in there, playing. Counter this thought without coming off like (more of) an insane LoL addict/sociopath. I dare you.
Are you arguing that my game time being ruined by a child leaving the match is not worth anything? It's not as if a 4v5 is enjoyable time. Or of the opposite team that doesn't have an opponent anymore. 9 people just got their "invested" time invalidated. This is especially bad for those of us that can only play occasionally, so every match counts.
I want to ask : even if you are on the team from which a kid has DC'd for a very valid reason, are you still not playing LoL? Is that not sufficient?
The single fact that the game continues with or without the disconnect-kid makes all the "children will learn to be inconsiderate to others" argument completely void. Null. Nothing there. It might cost your team a victory, but you are still right in there, playing. Counter this thought without coming off like (more of) an insane LoL addict/sociopath. I dare you.
Are you arguing that my game time being ruined by a child leaving the match is not worth anything? It's not as if a 4v5 is enjoyable time. Or of the opposite team that doesn't have an opponent anymore. 9 people just got their "invested" time invalidated. This is especially bad for those of us that can only play occasionally, so every match counts.
Are you arguing that my game time being ruined by a child leaving the match is not worth anything? It's not as if a 4v5 is enjoyable time. Or of the opposite team that doesn't have an opponent anymore. 9 people just got their "invested" time invalidated. This is especially bad for those of us that can only play occasionally, so every match counts.
Yes I am arguing that your game time is less important than my parenting. So is every other parent on here. And so did your parents before me. Removing my child from the sandbox doesn't take the sandbox away. You can still play in it.
You can't argue against that without sounding like some weird crack addict. Just come out and say it : you don't enjoy playing the game per se; you enjoy winning the game. You aren't as casual as you say you are.
The issue at hand is so specific, it can't possibly come from anything other than selfishness and gaming addiction, which removes rationality from that side of the debate.
Why would you whine over something you have no control over? Take matters in your own hands and find a workaround. You make an informed decision to queue up for that game. You know anyone might d/c at any given time for a multitude of reasons. Are there good d/c's and bad d/c's ?
But the main question remains :
Why would I (or anyone else) take parenting advice from rabid LoL addicts?
I want to ask : even if you are on the team from which a kid has DC'd for a very valid reason, are you still not playing LoL? Is that not sufficient?
The single fact that the game continues with or without the disconnect-kid makes all the "children will learn to be inconsiderate to others" argument completely void. Null. Nothing there. It might cost your team a victory, but you are still right in there, playing. Counter this thought without coming off like (more of) an insane LoL addict/sociopath. I dare you.
Are you arguing that my game time being ruined by a child leaving the match is not worth anything? It's not as if a 4v5 is enjoyable time. Or of the opposite team that doesn't have an opponent anymore. 9 people just got their "invested" time invalidated. This is especially bad for those of us that can only play occasionally, so every match counts.
Then why are you in a public game?
The thought occurs that if you know your kid is actually good at League and doesn't have to play public, forcing him/her to do so might be an effective punishment.
Yes I am arguing that your game time is less important than my parenting. So is every other parent on here. And so did your parents before me. Removing my child from the sandbox doesn't take the sandbox away. You can still play in it.
You can't argue against that without sounding like some weird crack addict. Just come out and say it : you don't enjoy playing the game per se; you enjoy winning the game. You aren't as casual as you say you are.
The issue at hand is so specific, it can't possibly come from anything other than selfishness and gaming addiction, which removes rationality from that side of the debate.
Why would you whine over something you have no control over? Take matters in your own hands and find a workaround. You make an informed decision to queue up for that game. You know anyone might d/c at any given time for a multitude of reasons. Are there good d/c's and bad d/c's ?
But the main question remains :
Why would I (or anyone else) take parenting advice from rabid LoL addicts?
Why are you so incredibly hostile?
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Yes I am arguing that your game time is less important than my parenting. So is every other parent on here. And so did your parents before me. Removing my child from the sandbox doesn't take the sandbox away. You can still play in it.
You can't argue against that without sounding like some weird crack addict. Just come out and say it : you don't enjoy playing the game per se; you enjoy winning the game. You aren't as casual as you say you are.
The issue at hand is so specific, it can't possibly come from anything other than selfishness and gaming addiction, which removes rationality from that side of the debate.
Why would you whine over something you have no control over? Take matters in your own hands and find a workaround. You make an informed decision to queue up for that game. You know anyone might d/c at any given time for a multitude of reasons. Are there good d/c's and bad d/c's ?
But the main question remains :
Why would I (or anyone else) take parenting advice from rabid LoL addicts?
Why are you so incredibly hostile?
You're making the argument that LoL is more important than parenting. You're inviting hostility with that argument. And also mockery, you're inviting lots and lots of mockery.
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I've hinted at the point before, but none of the folks on the other side of the argument have replied, so I'm going to say it outright: I've been in raids where one of our raiders said "sorry guys, getting wife/girlfriend aggro, have to go" and then they disconnect. Granted it's a raid, so we could always pug someone else, but most of the time that just ends our raid. Is "partner aggro" an OK reason to disconnect? If someone said in the game, "I'm sorry, I have to leave because of wife aggro", would you argue with them and tell them that leaving is inconsiderate of the other players? If not, why? How is that situation any different than, to coin a phrase, "parent aggro"?
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I've hinted at the point before, but none of the folks on the other side of the argument have replied, so I'm going to say it outright: I've been in raids where one of our raiders said "sorry guys, getting wife/girlfriend aggro, have to go" and then they disconnect. Granted it's a raid, so we could always pug someone else, but most of the time that just ends our raid. Is "partner aggro" an OK reason to disconnect? If someone said in the game, "I'm sorry, I have to leave because of wife aggro", would you argue with them and tell them that leaving is inconsiderate of the other players? If not, why? How is that situation any different than, to coin a phrase, "parent aggro"?
I'm going home and writing my wife a helpful open letter explaining to her the proper way she should approach our marriage. I'm sure that couldn't possible backfire.
Yes I am arguing that your game time is less important than my parenting. So is every other parent on here. And so did your parents before me. Removing my child from the sandbox doesn't take the sandbox away. You can still play in it.
You can't argue against that without sounding like some weird crack addict. Just come out and say it : you don't enjoy playing the game per se; you enjoy winning the game. You aren't as casual as you say you are.
The issue at hand is so specific, it can't possibly come from anything other than selfishness and gaming addiction, which removes rationality from that side of the debate.
Why would you whine over something you have no control over? Take matters in your own hands and find a workaround. You make an informed decision to queue up for that game. You know anyone might d/c at any given time for a multitude of reasons. Are there good d/c's and bad d/c's ?
But the main question remains :
Why would I (or anyone else) take parenting advice from rabid LoL addicts?
Why are you so incredibly hostile?
That's not very hostile. Your argument is ridiculous, so it is treated as such. Maybe you don't appreciate being told you've got a problem, but this wasn't an especially inflammatory post. Seems to me like you're attacking someone for the tone of their post because you can't refute its content.
Also worth pointing out: Everyone agrees that it sucks that a kid's poor time management skills messes up a pick up game of LoL. Or anything really. Many of us just refuse to accept it as important. Because it isn't. And if a person actually thought it was important they would put in even the bare minimum effort in to not playing with random strangers.
Like I understand. It sucks when someone has to drop from a game for any reason. But it doesn't matter. It matters every bit as much as any other pick up game which is not at all. If my buddy who's super good at history has to drop out of pub trivia cause he forgot he's taking the kids for ice cream oh freaking well.
Okay an anonymous tipster has contacted me and pointed out a flaw in my logic. I like to think I'm a reasonable person and can admit when I'm wrong.
Winning at pub trivia gets you free beer. Winning a pug of LoL does not.
So I will admit that the pub trivia game is more important.
I think the big point is that social gaming is a social contract
and that contract cuts both ways
You are expected to be courteous and polite to others
You are also expected to be forgiving of their mistakes
Sometimes their mistake is "being a literal child who either has bad time management, has overzealous parents, or is trying to skirt parental authority" and then you have to forgive them for that mistake
because they are a fucking child, and you are presumably an adult member of society who understands that children are still learning how to be functioning adults, and that children have to dance to the whims of their parents, good intentioned or not.
If a kid leaving a match because of some reason related to being a child makes you mad, then you are also violating the social contract as such (if we want to gussy it up in those terms) by not forgiving them
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That said, the article is pretty fair up until the "let them finish the game they started 5 min before bed" part. I would have said "Please be aware that while we know you have to pull the plug to enforce order, we'd also like you to take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again." If your kid keeps starting games they can't finish and you don't stop the behavior you're adding to the overall shittiness of the world. I'm sure it's very important to have your kid silently glowering at you from behind their brussel sprouts. Learn a few things about the game your kid is playing and you can have that without allowing him to be a dick to others.
The image in my head is a kid running over to a table where people are playing chess and knocking over all the pieces. Then, when the parent catches up to them, the only thing they're mad about is that they told the kid to stop running. K, you're the boss, enforce those rules, but the second time your kid does it I'm going to be pretty torqued at you, not him. I don't expect you to care about my stats, I expect you to care about my time and your child's lack of respect for others.
Why yes, I am childless, why do you ask?
The Elo ranking system easily resists one or two losses based on dropped games, besides. Your ranking will normalize even if you sustain a couple of unwarranted losses, especially if the cause is being randomly assigned a person who drops (for any reason). Elo has OTHER problems (defending a higher ranking has a disincentive to playing against lower ranked opponents if your skill has deteriorated against the total player pool... in other words, if you don't play, you keep your rating, even if you suck now), but this isn't one of them.
Except it's nothing like that at all. The last time I checked, in international chess play, your moves would be recorded on a turn-by-turn basis (so you can study them afterwards), so nothing of value would be lost. You'd just set up the board to the way it was before. And ranked matches between folks in chess do not occur in a "pickup game" setting, either. People who play in chess tournaments don't have random teammates who can be pulled away by their parents at any time for dinner. They go to organized events at set times, which presumably one would schedule in advance. And if they WERE pulled away by a parent... it would be a win, in your favor. Since chess is a two-player game.
This thread is filled with bad metaphors, it seems. All we need to do is have some new account here start spouting off a car analogy, and the cycle will be complete.
Second, I didn't say they weren't correct. I said the original letter asked for too much. I also flat out said it wasn't about the stats. You ignore that and go right into trying to explain ELO to me. If you're going to quote my post, read my post and don't cherry pick quotes to follow the narrative in your head. Your post reads as if you're just looking to pile on the League players, which is fine, a lot of us are goosy and I'm certainly a grumpy old troll. It ignores the fact that letting your kid give others a bad time is also goosy, and while the open letter asked too much, it was in the spirit of helping you make an informed call about your kids' activities.
Third... uh... what did you actually disagree with? You picked two lines to nitpick, and explained to me how ELO and professional chess work. Aight, but you didn't touch on a single point. So maybe I wrote it poorly.
Here's my whole thought in one paragraph, no dumb metaphor to wade through: It would help me in my interactions with your child if you understood the game you are allowing them to play is time consuming and involves many other people. I understand you need to lay down the law, but it would be great if you could allow them to finish the game if at all possible, and if it continues to be an issue I ask that your punishment include preventing them from repeating their actions. Also, I'm sorry about what I said about their mother, I'm sure she is a classy lady.
I didn't ask; it was very obvious.
I used that example because I don't feel it's relevant that the kid is playing. It's relevant that the kid is disrupting. And perhaps the adult doesn't realize the kid is disrupting, so here's some more information that the parent can use to better judge what's going on. Maybe 3 more minutes is okay, maybe it's not. If it is, great, if not, please stop it.
Instead of like, saying themself, "you know, I keep playing with this kid who can never finish games - maybe I should stop playing them with this kid!" Nope, it's all on other people! The chess playing adult can't be expected to make logical decisions on their own! The important thing is that other people's parents make important decisions based on pleasing the adult chess player, so that they never have to make any decisions!
Dude, your truly dumb analogy just gets dumber the deeper you dig. Give up while you're behind.
If a parent is unwilling to prevent their kid from being an asshole, they are also an asshole. If they are unwilling to listen to someone explaining about what their kid is doing to help prevent them from being an asshole, they're also being an asshole.
Yes, parents should make decisions with other people in mind. If they let their kid cry in a theater, they're an asshole. If they don't stop them from kicking my chair on a flight, they're an asshole. Let them run around in my store and throw shit off the shelf? Super asshole. There are plenty of situations where anyone but the most super absorbed baby cultists agree that the parent needs to step in and stop the behavior. Just because a child is only causing a tiny bit of harm by their actions doesn't mean it's okay for the parent to have a complete unwillingness to deal with it.
This isn't "How dare you tell me to raise my kid!" this is "How dare you inform me of the consequences of my kid's actions!"
None of those things has anything to do with the actual thing that's being talked about here.
You choose to play a game with a child, and then you get angry at the child for that. This seems logical to you? You're talking about "baby cultists", but what every post you've made describes is how you are a cultist of yourself, and the rest of the world better damn well revolve around you or it's fucked.
Well sorry friend, it's never going to revolve around you. I'm not sure how long you're going to live fighting against that truth before you accept it. Maybe never? It's hard to say!
I don't disagree with this quoted part. It also has NOTHING to do with the conversation at hand. What are you even saying? Is the adult supposed to monitor the child at all times to make sure they don't start a match of LoL? Who said the behavior is repeated? What if it's a different child that starts a game and disconnects every time you're stuck with a leaver?
LoL is the most popular multiplayer game, it's gonna have TONS of PUG disconnects of ALL nature.
I choose to play a game that children can play. It sucks when they ruin it. So I agree with the idea that if parents knew their children were ruining games, some of them might stop their kids from doing it and less of my games would be ruined. I don't expect them to care about me or my numbers, but I hope that they'd care that their child is being disruptive. It is likely that the parent doesn't realize there are other people involved and thinks turning it off hurts nobody. Being mad at a parent the first time it happens is silly. But when after an explanation my time is completely disregarded and the parent allows it to keep happening? I think that's worth being grumpy about. You haven't read a thing I've said if you think I'm angry at the child. I'm only disappointed that a parent only cares about their immediate interaction with the child and not how their child is effecting others.
The examples I gave relate because they are cases where a parent is expected to stop their kid from a certain behavior, giving lie to the idea that parents shouldn't consider others when dealing their child. And there's the disconnect. I'm over the "let the kid play" part. It's not expected, pull the cord. What I care about is the "acknowledge that your child is disrupting others" part of the letter. If there are other priorities, cool. Just acknowledge that your kid's actions have hurt someone a tiny bit, and maybe consider that in the future.
Am I self centered? Sure. Is the problem addressed here tiny? Totes. I'm really not sure what truth I'm supposed to accept... I'm a short, hairy, old dude with little to no social skills. I own that shit. The world won't mourn me, nothing I've created will outlast me... I don't matter in the slightest. Does that mean my opinions are inherently wrong? I'm a little shocked that there's so much opposition to "informed parents make better decisions". Honestly, I think I came into a conversation that people were heated about, tried to make a light joke and present my opinion, and it got way overblown. In other words, Friday night on the internet.
Are LoL-players unfamiliar with PUGs?
Hell I wouldn't care if it was an adult who did that. It's a pickup game of chess. Gotta go find your kid to take them to dinner? Cool. Gotta go finish the laundry? Whatever brah seeyah. Get a text from a super hot dude who maybe sorta likes you and you gotta leave to craft the perfect response? Best of luck.
There's nothing even especially rude there because I chose to, apparently, play chess with complete strangers. If I got annoyed that strangers weren't treating it seriously the rightful response from anyone would be "Well no shit."
More strawmen. NOBODY is opposed to that. Even Jerry said that TEACHING uninformed parents things about the world, games, internet, interactions, everything that has to do with technology the parents don't know about but the kids use is good. Informed parents obviously make better decisions.
The letter, and the LoL geeses here, however, are implying that the better decision is to let the kid finish the game. This is both adorable and worth ridiculing. However, parents here have taken the high road and explained, over and over, WHY they disagree with this and what's wrong about it.
And just to reiterate: The game and its numbers, compared to raising a child, don't matter. It's not even rude or asshole-ish to think so. Games don't matter to begin with. They're recreation, and as soon as they matter more than that to you, it is on you to find people / a way to play them with people for whom it matters as much.
Now just picture the little bastards from 'The Sandlot' only parked behind computers, pissing and moaning about how much poon squints has gotten, but goddamn that new kid sucks because his mother makes him follow her rules. Man that sucks, for them, in the moment.
Of course I don't remember the fat kid from 'The Sandlot' going to Small's mom and telling her how to parent her kid because it interfered with his play time.
One thing I remember from being a kid is how important a sleep schedule and eating schedule was to staying healthy and being ready for the next day. As a kid I would try every trick I knew to avoid going to sleep at my bedtime, but the few times I did I was always really tired at school and sometimes, not always, it was harder to learn. People sometimes forget how important sleep is to getting energy and sorting the memories from the day and for a developing kid it is even more important, because you need that time to help your body recover or grow (if that saying is true about most growth occurring while asleep) and to process what you've learned to be able to learn more the next day. As an adult it is "less" important because most activities or jobs we do don't involve learning but just following a routine, depending on the job, so we typically forget how much we need it and only consider whether or not it means we'll need some caffeine or sugar to processes throughout the day. But a kid doesn't, or perhaps shouldn't for health reasons, have that option of just using a stimulant, which caffeine is, to get through the day, and even if they do the crash would probably be worse for the kid than for an adult. So saying that the kid should have their bedtime pushed back to finish a game can hurt them for the next day from lack of sleep.
And for the meal part, when I say kids need a schedule I don't mean to say that they need a super rigid schedule, but I do remember that having a time when to expect meals did help me know what to do about going out to play or staying in and how much time I'd have. It seemed to help my parents know how to regulate when I could eat snacks so I didn't eat only junk food and kept me from eating at weird times of day where I might be hungry by the time I was supposed to be sleeping. I also remember that family dinners were as a kid annoying, because I wanted to play, but looking back were nice, because the family got together to talk. So if a parent wants family dinners, saying that the kid should prioritize a game over time with the family does not seem like a good trade-off.
I just wanted to give my two cents since these seemed to be the issues that were the most controversial, about when to finish games or let them finish games.
Well, it is one of the worst communities out there.
To be fair, the difference is that unlike some truly drop-in drop-out games like some open servers in online FPSes, the teams are "set" for the whole match, so a person leaving early oftens dooms the match for that team and they can't just quit and start another game, they still need to finish this doomed game. As a MOBA player myself, I know it's pretty frustrating to have to waste this time in a doomed match before you can start another.
But AGAIN, it's just a game.
When they flipped the light off and the computer still functioned, I was grounded from my bedroom door hinge pins. (This was a horrific grounding, because it meant I could have privacy, but I had to "unhang" and "hang" my door if I wanted it open or closed.)
My parents were low tech, but they were super effective.
The single fact that the game continues with or without the disconnect-kid makes all the "children will learn to be inconsiderate to others" argument completely void. Null. Nothing there. It might cost your team a victory, but you are still right in there, playing. Counter this thought without coming off like (more of) an insane LoL addict/sociopath. I dare you.
I just feel slightly less abnormal now that I know I wasn't the only person who lost "door privileges" growing up.
She learned VERY quickly that my sister would always let her have "2 more minutes!" to do whatever it is she was doing before dinner/bath/bed etc.
She now asks for "2 more minutes" on top of the 2 more already given. Children are smart. Give them a metre and they'll take a mile.
The childless people here who think you can have eyes on your kids 100% of the time after a day's work and dinner and chores and two other kids and on and on, so that you're sure they don't click accept 10min before bed, are simply too ignorant of the child-raising experience to understand why they are wrong.
I don't blame them really. There's no way I could have grasped it beforehand.
I make my kids DC if they ignore the rules, because LeaverBuster screws them itself if they have to do it enough. That's not generally good enough though, because longterm consequences are hard to imagine. So now I shut off all their machines an hour before bedtime because I don't like fighting with them.
Not because I care about the game they're playing. I don't care at all about your fun when it conflicts with the good order of my house, and I don't want to teach my kids that their fun comes before their obligations, or that it takes precedence over the household rules.
I wish there was a way to age gate LoL, because I hate playing with 13yr old kids too. It's especially annoying in ranked, where leaving impacts me, but
as a parent of teenagers comma
I don't get mad at them. I just think it sucks. I wish it weren't a thing, but it is. Welcome to online gaming, where irresponsible children sometimes screw things up for the rest of us.
Let's not be like them!
Are you arguing that my game time being ruined by a child leaving the match is not worth anything? It's not as if a 4v5 is enjoyable time. Or of the opposite team that doesn't have an opponent anymore. 9 people just got their "invested" time invalidated. This is especially bad for those of us that can only play occasionally, so every match counts.
No your match doesn't mean much at all.
Then why are you in a public game?
Yes I am arguing that your game time is less important than my parenting. So is every other parent on here. And so did your parents before me. Removing my child from the sandbox doesn't take the sandbox away. You can still play in it.
You can't argue against that without sounding like some weird crack addict. Just come out and say it : you don't enjoy playing the game per se; you enjoy winning the game. You aren't as casual as you say you are.
The issue at hand is so specific, it can't possibly come from anything other than selfishness and gaming addiction, which removes rationality from that side of the debate.
Why would you whine over something you have no control over? Take matters in your own hands and find a workaround. You make an informed decision to queue up for that game. You know anyone might d/c at any given time for a multitude of reasons. Are there good d/c's and bad d/c's ?
But the main question remains :
Why would I (or anyone else) take parenting advice from rabid LoL addicts?
The thought occurs that if you know your kid is actually good at League and doesn't have to play public, forcing him/her to do so might be an effective punishment.
You're making the argument that LoL is more important than parenting. You're inviting hostility with that argument. And also mockery, you're inviting lots and lots of mockery.
I'm going home and writing my wife a helpful open letter explaining to her the proper way she should approach our marriage. I'm sure that couldn't possible backfire.
That's not very hostile. Your argument is ridiculous, so it is treated as such. Maybe you don't appreciate being told you've got a problem, but this wasn't an especially inflammatory post. Seems to me like you're attacking someone for the tone of their post because you can't refute its content.
Okay an anonymous tipster has contacted me and pointed out a flaw in my logic. I like to think I'm a reasonable person and can admit when I'm wrong.
Winning at pub trivia gets you free beer. Winning a pug of LoL does not.
So I will admit that the pub trivia game is more important.
and that contract cuts both ways
You are expected to be courteous and polite to others
You are also expected to be forgiving of their mistakes
Sometimes their mistake is "being a literal child who either has bad time management, has overzealous parents, or is trying to skirt parental authority" and then you have to forgive them for that mistake
because they are a fucking child, and you are presumably an adult member of society who understands that children are still learning how to be functioning adults, and that children have to dance to the whims of their parents, good intentioned or not.
If a kid leaving a match because of some reason related to being a child makes you mad, then you are also violating the social contract as such (if we want to gussy it up in those terms) by not forgiving them
because we are adults, and more is expected of us