Guild Wars 2

My grandaughter is only 7. Is there an easy setting for a player in this game?

Unfortunately MMOs do not have an overall difficulty adjusting system from the player. You can choose the difficulty of the dungeon you enter but not the entire “world” (quests, mobs, times, gathering, etc. etc.)

Unfortunately for your granddaughter, there is no difficulty setting in this game. A game of this type might prove a little difficult for a young child to learn, but it is doable. Teach her to look for mobs and bosses telegraphing their moves so that she can effectively avoid the damage. Additionally, if she levels up a bit via crafting, not only will she have level appropriate gear which helps a lot, but she can go back and do lower level content and still earn XP. Sure the game scales your level down, but due to traits and the fact that your gear is typically proportionality better at higher levels, she may have an easier time of it. Don’t be afraid to help her yourself as well, down-scaling is awesome!

The game is rated T for Teen. It is an absolutely awesome game, but do you really need to show it to your 7 year old granddaughter? I know it’s not the end of the world and you do what you want in your house, but still.

Anyways, rant complete, you might want her to play ranged rather than melee, and to overlevel areas as much as possible. Since you can travel to other races’ zones through Lion’s Arch, just get her play in all the 1-15 level areas, then all 15-25, and so on. I know she will be downscaled, but still, a level 30 downscaled to 16 in a 15 zone, will do better that a level 14 in the same area.

hahahaha even letting 7 year old kids in to MMO’s like GW2 wow etc…

Bad times ppl, bad times

Without knowing the child, it a fair guess that this game is too complex in playing skills, focused attention, and stat-building choices for a first-grader. The adult themes and violence of the story also might well be unsuitable.

My daughter started GW1 when she was 8. She found her own fun in game. Her goal was not to kill everything she saw, but to run around with her pet and have fun. Her leveling was slow but exploration experience was better than mine. I had to help her with some quests, but as soon as I got over difficult points she continued on her own again. She aquired all possible pets and mini pets. She changed armor like every week. She was extremly unsattisfied wit my selection of armor dyes and I had to listen to her witch colours I should be used. She learned how to communicate with people in english language. Well, that could hardly be called english, for me it was more like some sort of very bad international version of english, but who cares. She could communicate on her own.
Now she is perfectly mentaly healty young teen. No traumas, no suicidal or killing tendencies, she has developed social skills, and yes, she can be kitteny like every other teen with raging hormones popping out.
Violence, adult themes? I had some concern about it, but, turn on TV or open newspaper and tell me about violence and adult themes. In fact, she just jelled at me the other day why did I killed that beautifull moa bird.

Stenc.1394:

My daughter started GW1 when she was 8. She found her own fun in game. Her goal was not to kill everything she saw, but to run around with her pet and have fun. Her leveling was slow but exploration experience was better than mine. I had to help her with some quests, but as soon as I got over difficult points she continued on her own again. She aquired all possible pets and mini pets. She changed armor like every week. She was extremly unsattisfied wit my selection of armor dyes and I had to listen to her witch colours I should be used. She learned how to communicate with people in english language. Well, that could hardly be called english, for me it was more like some sort of very bad international version of english, but who cares. She could communicate on her own.
Now she is perfectly mentaly healty young teen. No traumas, no suicidal or killing tendencies, she has developed social skills, and yes, she can be kitteny like every other teen with raging hormones popping out.
Violence, adult themes? I had some concern about it, but, turn on TV or open newspaper and tell me about violence and adult themes. In fact, she just jelled at me the other day why did I killed that beautifull moa bird.

Love this story! Beautiful!

GettCouped.7846:

Stenc.1394:

My daughter started GW1 when she was 8. She found her own fun in game. Her goal was not to kill everything she saw, but to run around with her pet and have fun. Her leveling was slow but exploration experience was better than mine. I had to help her with some quests, but as soon as I got over difficult points she continued on her own again. She aquired all possible pets and mini pets. She changed armor like every week. She was extremly unsattisfied wit my selection of armor dyes and I had to listen to her witch colours I should be used. She learned how to communicate with people in english language. Well, that could hardly be called english, for me it was more like some sort of very bad international version of english, but who cares. She could communicate on her own.
Now she is perfectly mentaly healty young teen. No traumas, no suicidal or killing tendencies, she has developed social skills, and yes, she can be kitteny like every other teen with raging hormones popping out.
Violence, adult themes? I had some concern about it, but, turn on TV or open newspaper and tell me about violence and adult themes. In fact, she just jelled at me the other day why did I killed that beautifull moa bird.

Love this story! Beautiful!

+1

tralon.2135:

My grandaughter is only 7. Is there an easy setting for a player in this game?

Sorry, forgot this:
She will choose ranger becouse they have pets. She will refuse to wear better stats armor becouse “this skirt is so ugly no one would even think of wearing it”. She will spend half of hour to get to vista and then she will be on vista and watch landscape for another hour. She will help everyone who is in trouble. She will stick with bow “because that is what rangers do!” She will explore and discover every possible corner and hole on one map and only then she will go forward. She will enjoy jumping puzzles even with lousy camera (I hope they will fix it).
Her concept of what is fun and how game should be played will be so much different from yours that you will not be able to comprehend. For you killing superduper boss is main goal. For her enjoying eye-candy (and this game has a lo of it), explore and have fun is main goal.

This is the cutest thing ever. Just don’t let her do a jumping puzzle. she’ll end up commiting mass murder out of rage.

Madness.5810:

hahahaha even letting 7 year old kids in to MMO’s like GW2 wow etc…

Bad times ppl, bad times

I speaku du engrish

I didn’t wrote ‘kittenly". I used word witch describe female in bad mood. The one “say another word and I will rip your head off” This forum have autocorrect and I approve that.
My engrish here is due fact I’m doing this on android and I’m to lazy to find out how to set up spellchecker to english. Sorry bout that. :-P

In some missions you have chance to choose an other difficult settings like medium & hard at a simplify dialogue box. Other missions like an easy difficulty

firstly, i would suggest levelling her up quite a bit over the monsters she is fighting and get her to play in low level zones.

and about all the people saying games like this are inappropriate for children of that age, i disagree. most of the themes of the game are lost on a 7 year old anyway. at that age its about “fighting the bad guys”. when i was young like that i was already faking my age to play games like runescape. i dont believe video games have a large impact on children. they broaden a childs imagination and IMO should be encouraged.

that being said, if your child starts going round swinging an axe at your dog, might want to rethink the video games they are playing

As the others said it don’t have difficulty setting due to being an online MMO. As for if she can cope with how hard it is well that depends on her. The same applies to if she should even play it really she shouldn’t based on her age and the age rating (its T rated), but then again it comes down to her maturity in a way.

As for progressing in the game well you can stay in the start zone for ever and still progress in levels (XP drops though so it will take for ever) and gear (some gear dropped is always around you level). Or she can just run around exploring everything. Oh one big thing to do is unlock all the weapon skills for her character.

I remember when kids that age used to play outside. Good times. I’d get her something more age appropriate, like Pokemon. GW2 is for teens and older people. This game can be very frustrating at times. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids, because they’re more prone to temper tantrums.

This is a 16+ game. It is not appropriate for a 7 year old.

HappyDragon.1578:

I remember when kids that age used to play outside. Good times. I’d get her something more age appropriate, like Pokemon. GW2 is for teens and older people. This game can be very frustrating at times. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids, because they’re more prone to temper tantrums.

i can just imagine.. "RANGER STOLE MY LOOT WAAAH D’X " XD

It is irresponsible and bad parenting to encourage and allow young children to play computer games.

Because it is an MMO, as others have said, there’s no difficulty setting like you would have with Skyrim. I’d suggest having her start out with one of the professions that are a bit easier to learn such as the Ranger, Warrior or Guardian. Save the rest of the professions for after she’s learned how the game plays.

I love my ranger and hunting down all the different pets you can get. Running around with two different bears that I can swap out makes it a lot easier.

As far as young kids playing the game, as long as they are supervised by an adult as they play the game, there shouldn’t be an issue.

Kestrel.7890:

This is a 16+ game. It is not appropriate for a 7 year old.

It’s a 10/12/14+ game, depending on where you live and how the local rating board (if there’s one) understands the word "teen". PEGI classified the game as 12+.

16+ is a mature game, or so-called mature game because the adventure books kids read few decades ago (not sure they read anything at all now) at an age of 7 and up (or that their parents read them at a younger age before bed) would easily score a 16+ or 18+/Adult-Only rating if it was a computer game or film, because a bunch of bigoted people with twisted sense of morality refuse to treat computer games and films as art, or the same league of art as literature, painting, music, sculpture and the rest.

So you want her to waste away her childhood watching vistas all day. Lol. This wouldn’t be a problem if she was actually..playing the game, but she’s basically staring at a screen not doing anything. You haven’t thought to yourself that it may be a bad idea to let your child stare at scenery for hours?

This was directed at Stenc actually.

Don’t follow the footsteps of stenc.

Every child is different. When I was 4-5 I was intelligent enough to beat the campaigns of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, mind you a strategy game that required you to put forward a plan and execute it, or reevaluate it if it didn’t work.

I’ve also played the original Civilisation game at the time, passively learning English language and getting a grasp of the world that was a bit more interactive than a TV documentary or a book.

So yeah, while games definitely aren’t a good substitute for books, movies, sports or recreation, they make for a great complementary medium if the parents are actually involved in the process, instead of treating computer games as the convenient spacegoat for their own failure in parenting their children.

Madness.5810:

hahahaha even letting 7 year old kids in to MMO’s like GW2 wow etc…

Bad times ppl, bad times

I started MMO’s when I was 7… Diablo 1, then Ultima Online when I was 8 also with Everquest. And I might add it taught me quite a bit about math, reading (story lines / quest) and how immature adults are

On topic: Any game can be learned, but your granddaughter may need help and time to understand the concepts of combat and travel in this game.

Are you sure your granddaughter will not make nightmares with all those zombies around? ^^
Usually when I play I try to not show the monsters too close when my children are around… (my daughter is 8 years old, my son is 5 years old)

Bailey.1724:

It is irresponsible and bad parenting to encourage and allow young children to play computer games.

wow judgmental much?
I think it is irresponsible to let your kid watch tv and be in child beauty pageants.

My daughter has had a pc since she was 2 and she taught herself how to read, as well as basic mathematics and physics by playing games
She is 5 now and yes she does play outside has a dog and two cats, draws a lot and reads books and wants to be a vet when she grows up.
She is just a normal kid.
Every parent knows their own kids best and you really have no cause to tell anybody how to parent their kids.

I realize that this is a very old post- but OP your granddaughter will love GW2- her way of playing will not be like that of a grown up.
As someone said- she will be a ranger for the pets, love vistas and generally running around looking at cool things in the game.
Rezzing people and npc’s will probably also be fun as well as harvesting.
Just keep an eye on her and help her out a bit if she needs it- turn her chat box off and she will be fine if she likes this kind of thing

Or put her in a foreigh language server, this way she will be unable to understant what is being said
And my advice, play with her, so be sure she understands zombies are just computer pixels and not awful monsters ^^

when I was 7 I played videogames, it helped me with English, reading, maths, solving problembs etc. I’d just let her start with videogames which are 6+, just so she can get the hang of basic videogame mechanics, also sit next to her and let her play 30min-1hour a day (I hated that, but now it seems the best). play the game aswell, explain her what’s happening. “why do the bandits need to go away?”

people don’t die in this game, they get defeated!

You might want to stick to the Asura/sylvari/human zones, as they are the most colorful. Orr has some evil theme + it’s annoying!

I don’t know if you can, but disable chat aswell

Just let her play signet warrior and she’s 80 in no time. she will do pretty good in sPVP too.

Why do people always underestimate children? It seems like as people get older, they forget that when they were children, they were perfectly able to handle the things they supposedly weren’t able to handle. Over the years, modern society has this effect of instilling nanny state principles into people’s heads. No way can a little kid figure out the complexities of clicking on something and then pressing 1-2-3-4-5 repeatedly! You have to be a Teen to handle this kitten! You want to know why the age of adolescence and live-in children seems to be increasing, it’s because parents have succeeded in dumbing down their own kids and now it takes longer for people to learn how to be responsible, independently functioning members of society.

It’s just a kittening video game, give it to your kid and stop being afraid that they’re going to beat you at it because that’s what this is really about, maintaining superiority over your kids.

Really the game was rate T or pegi whatever? Who cares it is not up to corporation’s governments or advocate groups to determine what is best for you and your family. This is as bad as saying that the remote controlled monster truck should only be for 8 years old and up and should not be given to a 3 year old because they might drive over their foot or there are some complex components with it(replacing and charging the battery) Yes there are going to be things the younger child can’t do but spend some time with them as a parent and a mentor to help them through the more complex tasks.
As far as the original post sadly there is no easy setting however with a bit of help from you and some strategic thinking your granddaughter will soon find the game fairly easy to grasp. I will also add that this game can add her to own development as she learns to function in a specified set of rule outside of the daily norm, and this can lead to greater success later on in life as she will be able to quickly adapts to new situations be it at work or at school because she will learn to identify new rules and restrictions and be able to apply solutions to problems quickly.
My two year old sits on my lap and press the skill cast buttons I say press 2 he presses 2. He has done this since 8 months with GW1. He has also developed a strong grasp of reality vs fantasy and clearly identifies what is make believe (pretend game in the back yard or something he has seen on tv or in a game) and what is reality. Before you go off about someone’s choice about what their children are experiencing stop and consider that as the parent they know what is best for their child at that point in life. Video games are not an unhealthy for children excessive video gaming is. GW is not filled will over the top blood and gore like many FPS games fantasy violence and stylized graphics are a far cry from the latest COD. Games cannot be lumped together into once massive group. This post was not title my 7 year old is struggling with COD, no the young child is having trouble with sword fighting and dressing up her ranger in the castle.

Before I get the “I am terrible parent because my son plays video games”. We also go swimming together 4 times a week, everything in moderation. Video games are becoming a huge part of family life and with correct guidance and support children will be able to develop lifelong skills from these games. The catch there is that the games have to be designed in a manner to foster these skills.

I know its an old post but the blind rage towards someone wanting to share an experience with a family member really set me on edge.

Kotli.4519:

As the others said it don’t have difficulty setting due to being an online MMO.

The difficulty settings are:
- Easy: warrior, thief (in PvP), guardian
- Medium: mesmer, ranger (in PvE), elementalist, thief (in PvE)
- Hard: ranger (in PvP), engineer, necro

=)

As for progressing in the game well you can stay in the start zone for ever and still progress in levels (XP drops though so it will take for ever) and gear (some gear dropped is always around you level). Or she can just run around exploring everything. Oh one big thing to do is unlock all the weapon skills for her character.

I dunno if some of the themes in the game are appropriate for a 7 year old. But the game is very friendly to explorer types. Killing stuff is probably the worst way to gain exp. Best way is exploring and discovering new places and new things, and questing. I’m an explorer type and I found myself constantly thinking I was leveling too quickly.

I managed the map completion on the first couple zones, but after that I was leveling beyond the mobs in the zone before I could fully explore it. I had to put off exploration and just move on to the next zone. Then after I hit 80 I started working backwards (map completion of the level 70-80 zones gives you two pieces of exotic loot), exploring all the areas I’d skipped over because I outgrew them. Now I’m working on new characters to explore the other racial zones.

Just remember to let her play how she wants to.

My 6 year old brother absolutely LOVES to play this game when I’m home. He was playing LOTRO (the ring game as he calls it) when he was around 4/5.

Just remember to let them do what they want and run around. It was hard to not say “What are you doing? Don’t heal! You have full health” lol, but they are so young. He mainly likes to play ranger because the pet, but oddly hates using a bow.

Give ur 7year old child a hard game to play please. We dont need yet another decade of easy mode games being developed and sold becouse the kids grew up on the current Ezmode games :P

MMO’s dont have difficulty settings.

Im not gunna say dont let ur 7 year old child play computer games, becouse I grew up on the Atari2600jr and other consols like the Genssis when i was 7 and started playing computers games around that age to.. but i started on the MUCH harder games of the late 80’s and early 90’s and still had plenty of fun.
Hard games are good ..the challenge is fun. Give her hard games to play and learn on ..not EZmode mmo’s like this.

I agree with the people who said you should just let her play what she wants how she wants and maybe give her occasional pointers or help her when she needs it.

She might not be very good or get very far in conventional terms but she’ll enjoy it a lot more than being told “No, you need to pick this kind of character, and you have to use this weapon and these skils, ok now go over here…”

I started playing RPGs when I was about 7, with Eye of the Beholder. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, I’d wander around and fight things and sometimes a little red patch with a small number would come up and sometimes a big red patch with a big number came up. Sooner or later they’d die and I’d get some stuff and go back to wandering around.

But I had a ton of fun doing it, at least as much as I do now with games I understand. I also think it’s a benefit to know that sometimes it’s ok to just throw yourself into something and assume you’ll figure it out as you’re going along.

Madness.5810:

hahahaha even letting 7 year old kids in to MMO’s like GW2 wow etc…

Bad times ppl, bad times

As I said above I was around that age when I first started playing RPGs and my sister would have been around the same age when she first started Ultima Online. We also played far more violent and less child friendly games (for example Doom 2, Mortal Kombat 3, a Terminator FPS – because we loved the movies, Duke Nukem 3D, Grand Theft Auto…)

We turned out ok, most people who meet both of us are surprised to learn we’re gamers and neither of us is prone to violence or traumatised or whatever is supposed to happen.

I can completely understand the reasoning behind having an age rating system for games, and restricting kids access to games they’re not old enough for. But I see it as a way of informing parents so they can make a decision on what their kids are ready for and the degree of supervision required

HappyDragon.1578:

I remember when kids that age used to play outside. Good times. I’d get her something more age appropriate, like Pokemon. GW2 is for teens and older people. This game can be very frustrating at times. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids, because they’re more prone to temper tantrums.

I remember when I was that age and I used to both play video games and play outside. And the two kind of bled into each other – a lot of our games had strong sci-fi or fantasy themes.

Also Pokemon can be extremely frustrating, even for an adult so if that’s really your reason for not recommending GW2 I’d say you could have come up with far better options.

SolarNova.1052:

Give ur 7year old child a hard game to play please. We dont need yet another decade of easy mode games being developed and sold becouse the kids grew up on the current Ezmode games :P

Yeah, make her play Dark Souls.

I have to say this was one of the most interesting threads I have read in a while. My boys LOVE this game. I have strict rules for them and they follow them. My youngest really likes all the math involved and the numbers. He understands it very well. That saying, sometimes he gets frustrated. And I am there for him. My older son just likes to bash everything. He is the kind who will build a glass cannon and not understand why he dies when he is hit. I teach them stuff, as they go, but I don’t tell them how to play. And they are enjoying it. I started playing video games at a very young age and it didn’t kill me. Telling kids nowadays they can’t be on a computer is silly, computers are everywhere. They need them for school. They need to know how to use them, to be comfortable with them.

Just wait a few months and the game will be on easy mode. Not like it’s really difficult at all. They’re making Orr easier because so many people complained so chances are they’ll make other changes too to make it easier for them.

I was a young child when I started playing video games, and I have yet to kill anyone IRL. So I think I turned out ok.

Every child is different in regards to video gaming and what they are able to tolerate or able to do within that game. They do put ratings on games for a reason and that should be part of the decision in whether to allow a child access to a game with violence in it.

Main thing is monitor what she is doing and know who she is talking to. This is another social venue and the same care needs to be taken as with any other social venue. Even better, play with her and help structure her experience as well as let her guide you through what she sees as a validating experience and discuss the aspects of the game with her and what she sees good and bad in it. Kids are incredibly perceptive even at relatively young ages.

I have been in other MMOs and trust me the young ones stick out like a sore thumb. The behavior and talk is unmistakable no matter how mature you think they are which can make them a target. Add little to no supervision and the recipe for trouble is there.

In case you guys were not aware, this is a 4 month old thread. Otaur.9268 decided to bump it yesterday for no apparent reason. According to the OPs posting history, he seems to have dropped activity 4 months ago roughly. There is no reason to keep bumping this just to chastise him for a question he has clearly given up on.

This discussion has run its course a few months ago, therefore, it now gets locked.