Thursday, June 16, 2011

Character Looks - Adult Grey Hair

I don't know if this is important or not and I don't know if other game players notice or not but since I am an adult player of the game, Wizard 101, I decided to make sure to give my characters grey hair. I didn't start this until I gained a little bit of experience with navigating and playing the game, so I have a couple of characters from my "noob" days that are not gray-haired but that I have caused to be mainly inactive. I don't want to lose the resources and items I gained from these first characters so I am gradually sending these resources to my newer, grey-haired characters and will delete the former personas pretty soon. I may keep the strongest original character for gathering resources and keep the friend list feature shut off when using this character in game play. I haven't quite decided yet...

I am in very strong agreement with The KingsIsle/Wizard 101 concept of safe play online and the efforts of this gaming community to look after the best interests of our youngest game players. Since I am behind a monitor and relatively anonymous during gameplay, I felt it best to attempt to display at least one signature feature that might be interpreted as an adult one... the grey hair.

Additionally, I keep my "add friends" feature TURNED OFF most of the time so that players have to chat a bit with me before adding me on a friend list. I try to let people who are interested in befriending me know  that I AM NOT A KID... and I hope other adult players have thought of similar ways to let gamers know a little about themselves beyond the restrictive and anonymous environment we are all in when we play Wizard101.

I just wanted to put these concepts "out there" for people to think about.

I really enjoy this game and wish KingsIsle/Wizard101 developers, creators, promoters much success and longevity so that I can keep playing and having a blast with this game. I think that anything players can do to increase safety, alleviate gameplay and character interaction confusion is good for the longevity and experiences at Wizard101. In fact, for adults of the game - who are supposed to be the responsible people - I think we have a duty to ensure that we are doing everything possible to maintain or even increase safety during game interactions.

Now, this isn't to suggest I mean to say all adult players need to turn off their befriending list feature and make their characters have grey hair all the time... I am just mentioning what I am doing to help promote a safe gaming experience around my characters for those who play and are at vulnerable ages.

Any thoughts on this matter from readers?





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