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?

Wizard 101 Safe Chatting

I'm no kid and I find Wizard 101 both entertaining and challenging. The graphics are decent eye-candy and the questing is difficult enough to keep kids, teens and adults all engaged and in wonder.

There are enough features in settings to make Wizard 101 one of the most safe multi-player online role playing games on the net right now. Parents who wish to limit how online players of all ages interact with their kids can put settings on chat menu only, along with a few other safety settings - then password protect the account so it cannot be changed.

The restricted chat menu will restrict communication from both sides, the user and to those interacting with the player who is using restricted chat. If you want safety, this is awesome, however and quite naturally, some kids/players using restricted settings will complain about the limits of chat... Regardless, it's better to be safe than sorry, right?

Most common questions, sayings, comments and responses are put into the restricted chat menu so that communication is quite reasonable even with restricted settings. Things like "Please May I Join?" (a battle, chat, player versus player match, etc), "Yes," "No," "Thank You," "You're Welcome," "OK," are supplemented by a reasonably wide range of other menu-text so that quite a lot of communication is possible.

Players with lower restrictions will still need to use text wisely and respectfully and be aware that KingsIsle Entertainment (KI for short) has gone to great lengths to make Wizard 101 as safe for players (of all ages) as possible. There are filters in place to restrict numbers (so that phone numbers cannot be exchanged easily), cuss words and even some name places and spelling which might mean people are typing personal addresses via game chat on the internet. In my opinion - AWESOME - great job, KingsIsle!

Here is a screenshot of some of the menu-only chat options:

I created a brand new character (Fallon ShadowSmith) in order to provide illustrations of some aspects, options and features of the Wizard 101 game on my blog so you will see a very empty "Friends List" for quite a while.

In keeping with KingsIsle Entertainment's brand of safety online, I will try to keep other player names out of my screenshots whenever possible - just in case...