RSS
Home
How Free Realms area chat is ruining a safe experience
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
What's worse than Trade chat in World of Warcraft after Saturday morning cartoons? Try Free Realms' area chat channel.
When Free Realms introduced an area chat system not too long ago, which allowed players in the same general area (such as Sanctuary) to chat with each other in a chat channel, a few players were happy - and many were displeased. The latter group felt it was an invasion of game space that they had no control over - at least they could refuse duel and friend requests, but how could they shut off a chat channel?
What was more amazing is that Free Realms, which touts itself as a kid's MMO, and family-friendly to boot, decided to implement the chat channel in the first place. Those of us who have inhabited the pipes of the internet for a while know that if you give kids a chance to be immature, they'll do it - even if there are strict chat channel censors in place (so strict right now, you can't type numbers.)
Let me produce for you the following example, taken this evening:
I'm sure concerned parents are thrilled.
The problem is, Free Realms offers no way to turn off chat, or hide it in another channel. *See correction below* Parental Controls only offer the opportunity to restrict whether their own child can talk openly in chat channels, or use pre-set chat messages - not the ability to remove or hide chat at all. And while Free Realms support does allow you to report inappropriate chat, that is only a reactive measure - not a preventative one. Once your child sees it, there's no taking it back.
Kids are smart. Even with the censors, they have been exposed enough to outside social influences to "fill in the blanks." And even if a kid can't fill out all the blanks, there is no censoring attitude, rudeness, and meanness from a chat channel. Besides, something always slips through the cracks, such as "masturbate" above.
If SOE wants to provide a great, safe environment for kids, and succeed like Fusion Fall has so far for Cartoon Network, what steps are they going to make to provide the kid-safe environment parents are expecting? Players have been asking for the chat channel removal option since area chat was first roughly introduced in the game. Clearly, they can't expect parents to be satisfied with current options with the chat channel. Even adult players don't want to be subjected to this kind of immaturity. That's why we turn off Trade channel in World of Warcraft!
Regardless of what Sony is thinking, I hope they remember that the power for Free Realms to sink or swim is in the parent's hands - with over 70% of players being kids, that's a huge chunk of parents who are controlling whether SOE gets their money via memberships, pets, and other premium items. And for the rest of us, well, we can just do our best to shrink the chat boxes and pretend the problem doesn't exist.
Edit: I have a correction to make, first. Cyliena (CM/Zam) on the Free Realms forums pointed out to me that you can change chat settings. My fault for not knowing this was put into the game, and I appreciate the correction. :)
I was also corrected by another source in that if you use parental controls to restrict chat to quick chat only, it goes both for what the child says and what the child sees, nor can children under 13 see open chat at all.
By no means do I think it's possible to make a perfect chat filter, so if I come across that way, it's only the passionate side of me coming through. And of course, as I've supported before, parents should always actively monitor their children's gaming. There's always a way to improve systems, however, and I hope that Sony continues to improve its systems to provide a good experience for kids, and their families to play in.
Related Articles:
Comments
.jpg)
