Ten Ton Hamster

I stumbled across an article the other day that proposed the idea of having age-defined servers in World of Warcraft. This was in an attempt to let adults play in a teen free atmosphere.

I thought it would be interesting to take the thought a step further.

What if games like World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online made servers that catered toward the younger gamers and family gamers?

My son, who is 8 1/2 going on 25, loves to play both of the above-mentioned games. However, unlike Toontown or Club Penguin, I can't just let him run amok unsupervised in WoW. When he plays WoW, I play WoW. I spend a lot of time having to explain to other people who are interested in grouping with us, our situation, and that we tend to quest slowly.

Imagine if you could play with your child on a server where you didn't have to go through that explanation all of the time. If games like WoW implemented a family server, then that would help alleviate some of the frustrations, since everyone playing on that server would understand that a younger crowd would be present.

I still advocate playing with your child in these games until they are ready to face the social craziness that comes along with MMO's. But it would still be fun to play on a family server where kids could meet up with other kids that are their age. The only thing I think that these games might want to change are guild requirements that would make it easier for smaller, family run guilds to form.

What do you think about this idea?

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