I've been chatting with my friends about this a lot recently, and it's definitely a hot topic for many guilds when looking for new members. I'd like to hear the opinions of more seasoned members of the WoW community.

First, a story:
I'm only 15. I've been playing WoW for over 19 months now, and I certainly know the game better than the average player. Earlier this year I left my guild after over a year of membership. I applied to another guild on my server who had an age question on their application. I found this a bit peculiar, because I had never really met anyone who cared about my age. Everyone in my last guild knew I was young, but I was just as mature and intelligent as the other members of the guild. I decided to look at a few past apps, and noticed anyone who was under 18 "didn't meet the criteria" for this guild. I decided to lie on my application and pass myself off as 19. Sure enough, I was accepted, and was in the guild for 3-4 months before I moved on due to some problems with members of the guild. When I was talking to an officer of the guild, he told me that he had known my actual age for over 2 months, but chose not to reveal it, knowing it would jeopardize my membership, due to my contributions to the guild.

This situation showed the guild that age doesn't necessarily mean everything, and there are mature, thoughtful minors playing WoW.

It just doesn't make sense to judge a perfectly qualified applicant just because they're under a certain age. Not everyone under 18 speaks in "leetspeak" and plays a melee hunter. There are countless strong, knowledgeable minors who play WoW. The immature ones might out-number the mature ones, but they are out there, and they all deserve a chance.

Now, I'm just curious to find out if most endgame guilds have a younger player or two in their roster. Do you filter out younger applicants, assuming they're immature and unskilled? Or do most guilds just judge by skill and e-maturity? Do you think it's reasonable to make generalizations about a player's abilities based on their age?

Well, speaking as a parent, no child of mine will be allowed in a hard-core raiding guild (i.e. several hours a night, several days a week) until they've finished their studies - university studies included.

Once they have a job and are paying their own way, it's their choice to make, just as it's now my choice to make how much time I spend on the game. But I really, really would not recommend that anyone who's still at school - or even University - gets involved in raiding on anything other than a very casual friends-and-family level. The potential for screwing up your qualifications is just far too high.

Younger players just get a couple of inherent black marks against them. Part of it is the fact that kids still living with their parents have a lot less control of their time than someone who has left home and is in college or just living on their own. It gets old really fast when Timmy has to "quick afk" constantly during a raid to take out the trash, fold laundry, bring in groceries, etc etc. And I think everyone's heard the vent recording by now where some kids father gets on vent and chews out the guild for gkicking his son. Nobody wants to deal with that.

Every younger player I've ever encountered in the game is quick to point out how "mature" they are. My feeling on the matter is that (for the most part) they just have not been exposed to the situations in life that give them a clearer perspective on dealing with people. There are certainly older players who are the same way, but its far more common in younger kids I think.

And to agree with Songster - I don't have kids yet, but when my wife and I do, those kids will certainly not be hanging out on the internet with a "hardcore" guild - I know exactly what goes on in guild chat and I have no intention of my children being involved in that.

There is good reasons to limit age in end-game, but i don't think completely ruling them out for a position in the guild is a wise choice. I am 16 but i take raiding fairly serious, i average a high raid attendance and my guild is very pleased with my performance. The reasoning behind limiting age to guild members is children can be emotional annoying wrecks when they don't get their way(in WoW`s case not getting FAT PURPZ) So raiding with them can end up a disaster. Setting to the age limit to something lower like 14,15 is more realistic. Another thing to take into consideration is raid attendance, as almost all younger players are in school and cannot meet required raids, but some younger players are hardcore and sometimes pull all-nighters to help with the guild.

Edit: In response to the poster above me. As a 16 year old raider with fairly strict parents, I have told my parents that from X time to X time im raiding and quick stuff like trash take outs and folding laundry is out of the question and is usually completed before hand to avoid quick AFKs. I think that most younger players are competent enough to either tell thier parents to avoid bothering them or do the chores beforehand.

I'm not sure many parents have much say over their "children's" study habits at a university - considering they're basically on their own and adults.

I think anyone with a reasonable amount of time management can raid and do well with their real life goals. This notion that end game guild = no life is utterly absurd. I think most people spend more time watching TV or dicking around each night than most of us do raiding.

I earned my doctorate while leading an end game guild that was one of the first US Horde to kill Kel'Thuzad. We have students in our guild who graduated as pediatricians, dentists... we have one guy who works at NASA and is integral to shuttle launches. We have an NFL player in our guild who plays for the Minnesota Vikings (he's not a backup either). No, I'm not making this up. If you can manage your time, you'll find that raiding and playing games is just another hobby. I don't think you'd consider someone who reads 4 hours a night to be ruining their life?

As to the subject itself of younger gamers, I led a FPS'er clan of The Flying Hellfish before our guild - we had 14 year olds there, and 14 year olds in our WoW guild. In the FPS'er you really got to learn their attitude. They're sometimes impatient and won't always accept being bumped from a schedule. However, I don't really see young gamers as much of a problem. The maturity is inherent to the person - not as much to the age. They come more immature by default, but the smart ones will learn to fit in and not be annoying.

Well, most people don't have the time or the interest to do a thorough background check of every new applicant. So you set up a few ground rules, which seem sensible to you and your guild. A lot of guild have this 18+ rule for a reason. Teens are too often the cause of guild drama, that's one of the reason why guilds have this rule.

But there are more.

1. Inappropriate chat-talk.
I know that 15 year olds know a lot about everything, but as an adult, I realise that a lot of parents would be angry, if they knew what kind of content was discussed in front of their child. If I was a father, I would be too. I don't want to go into detail, since you are quite young.

2. Raid hours
As a teen, your parents should be able to tell you when to play and when to do your homework and when to clean your room (at least when you don't know it yourself). This leads to potential TS-drama, which can be funny for your fellow raiders, but definitely not for you.
At the age of 15 you should be in bed at 10 o'clock during schoolnights. Most raids last till 11 o'clock. If you stay up until 11 o'clock to raid on a regular basis, your parents are doing something wrong. As a teen in puberty it is important to get enough sleep. With a raiding night till 11 o'clock I don't see that happening.

I don't have the time right now, but there are more concerns when it comes to teenage guildmates.

Age is big question for most of the guilds, especially on servers with low population, where in the end you are forced to take younger players because you don't have sufficient player pool to recruit from.

Nothing except direct skill/performance test and test of time will prove that someone above 18 is more mature/skilled than someone under 18. What comes into matter is playing time as Songster mentioned. Players under 18 very often are still under control of parents and are not allowed to play past certain time plan. Than, you shall adjust your time/raiding schedule to fit overall needs, but from time to time comes moment when you are one attempt away from beating boss encounter and suddenly some people must leave.

As a raid leader of the guild what I ask from people under 18 is that they must prove me that their skill/performance is good enough for spots in raids and also that they are in control of their play time and don't have problems to extend raiding time every once in a while.

I couldn't care less about maturity, they can loot-whore all they want. All i care about is attendance, being dependable and being skilled. Young raiders have a tendancy to have lower attendance and a higher rate of going afk between wipes due to parent aggro.

I generally don't recruit players younger than 17 unless they come very highly recommended.

I tend to find parents more accepting of raiding than girlfriends.

I'd just hate to think of where we'd be if we automatically bumped otherwise exceptionally qualified candidates whose only failure is not being of a certain age. You have the right as leader and officer to boot people who are dicks and don't fit in. I've removed a LOT of people in my day in Hellfish - and I'm not sure many of them were under the age of 18 (most immature boots were in the first couple months of the guild building up). People who are dicks, and immature - tend to be regardless of age.

I think a lot of what you say is dependent on how the kid can handle it. Some can manage all of their schoolwork in 30 minutes, without rushing through it, and raiding at night won't harm them. It just depends on how they handle their time, what choices they make, and if their priorities are straight. Not everyone can handle schoolwork and WoW raiding, which is practically a second job.

I have been in many guilds since this game has started, Younger players tend to cause alot more drama because they run their mouths and end up offending the wrong players. Younger players should be kept on a short leash for drama, but sometimes the older players can end up causing as much drama as their younger peers.

I think raiding was good for me, it caused my school-work to slip but later on it taught me to balance real-life and my hobbies.

The biggest factors for me are things like:

1. No control on when he has to AFK for dinner.
2. Might need to AFK to help out the parents.
3. Cannot stay up till our raids end time.
4. Yes, many 14 year olds act 14. I've know a few who I thought were my age (25+) until I heard them on vent though.


Now of course there can be exceptions to these. They are not rules, but they are almost always the assumption made when you see a 14 year old apply to your guild.

The mature, self reliant and organised 14 year olds shouldn't take offence to this, you just need to accept you are in the vast minority and have no choice but to prove yourself.

And by the way,we have caught several youngsters lying on their apps, so either do it well, or don't lie, be straight up. Go through the above list and explain why it does not apply to you. You might be surprised.

Oh, and one other thing, a lot of guilds made up of adults discuss adult matters. Now we are not so naieve as to think Timmy and Billy behind the bike shed are not checking out the latest BigJugs magazine, but it still is an uncomfortable feeling for many adults to discuss adult issues with minors, hence why some guilds will have a blanket: No minors allowed statement.

Well yes. But the default answer is "no" until they've proved they can handle it. And yes, of course I don't control what the kids do once they've left for University. However I'll aim to bring them up in such a way that they *do* prioritise their studies (etc.) over their leisure time, which is very likely to preclude their being in a cutting-edge guild.

With respect, Malan:

I vaguely recall being 8, and 12, and 15, and all the wonderful ages between those and now, and I distinctly recall how amazingly unprepared protective parents made some of my friends. While it's one thing to shove children aimlessly into an environment they're not ready for, it's something else to suppose it's reasonable or possible to shield them from profanity and racism and creepy internet people indefinitely. What's even less reasonable is supposing that someone who is apping to Hardcore Raid Guild You Have Recruiting Veto Power Over is going to be protected from the evils of Hardcore Raid Guilds because you said no.

Even if you're the only game in town, I remember when I was little saving for a Super Nintendo (wow, all of $120!) on lunch money (Wednesdays I got $2 to splurge on hot dogs!). Somehow I think today $25 is not going to be prohibitive, especially for a 14 year old ("My old brother's friend let me use his credit card, I just paid him $5 extra...").

In more direct response to the OP: This topic comes up over and over, and over and over. The advantage of age, I suppose, in spotting it. "Well, I'm mature and thoughtful, and that guy there isn't, why can he drink himself to a stupor and I can't have a beer?" "Why can't I stay out after dark?" "Why can't I drive?" The answer ultimately lies in the asking of questions - who is going to authoritatively mesh out every single answer?

Recruiting, raid leading, and guild leading are a huge deal - if I can only recruit one mage, I have to turn down one of these two mage applicants. Which one? I'm never going to see that guy again, what if he's the better applicant? Am I hamstringing the guild and wasting a month's worth of epic drops because I tagged some kid who, in three months, graduate high school/college/middle school/get a job/fail a class and get suspended from the internet?

Barring youths is simply a denying the very large can of worms. Not to mention, some people feel the need to make guild chat clean for kids. "Oh noes, there's one 15 year old in the guild, everyone make sure he isn't exposed to a homophone for dam because it would certainly be the first time!" C'est la vie, their choice. You're as capable of making a cogent argument for why I should prefer vanilla ice cream over mint, it's what they prefer, their perspective, their world view.

For what it's worth, I've refused raid invites to kids during finals/midterms. I won't have the guilt of anyone's poor time management on my shoulders - if someone fails a class because of "my"/our guild, they fail the guild too. I think any other stance is irresponsible stewardship, but beyond that... it's adults in training. Just making sure there's a firm push at the important time.

Seeing how much addictive potential this game has and how much time raiding even at a semihardcore level needs I dont hink any children under 18 should join such a timesink. Esspeaccially when you race for a new boss or try to get certain things farmed, raiding can put a lot of pressure on the individual player to get things done. I wouldnt want to have a 15 year old in the guild where I am not sure how he can handle this. Ofc there are 15 year old ppl who have no problem to manage their time and RL stuff and also 25 year olds who cant, but you never know who is behind a character in the game.

I've been in guilds with younger players. Sometimes the other members' reactions to the younger players are the most annoying things. These include:

1) the guild sluts talking pointedly about wanting to give it to the younger kids, probably as a joke to make them uncomfortable and btw embarrassing themselves
2) people fawning over every jargon word the kid says "oh he said 'mitigate' he's more maure than many adults I know"
3) fomenting rebellion against the kid's parents - again probably as a joke kind of but they're also living vicariously

so part of the problem as I see it lies with the other, older members of a guild.

There is also the issue of when a younger player screws up in a raid. When an Adult causes a wipe he can expect some pretty harsh words. When a kid screws up the Officer either comes across as beating up a kid or more often treating them more gently than other members which can cause resentment.

I'll disagree with this. I've never once in my life been offered drugs - in part because my parents did what they could to make sure I wasn't in areas where this was a problem, and because I choose to stay away from people that I know use them. Was I less prepared for the world because I've never tried weed? I'd think not - I'm a USMA graduate with 5 years in the military as an officer with a combat tour, and am now making my way through the software development world. My children are not going to be 'less prepared' for the world if I don't let them participate in guild chat that centers around who had sex in what position last night with some underage girl, or where they get drugs and how they stash them in their home.

Protecting your kids does not mean hiding them in the basement and pretending that the world is ok. It means teaching your kids whats right and acceptable - and unfortunately 80-90% of what goes on in guild chat is not acceptable for a child.

I saw a great piece on the news sometime last year that talked about the "maturity" of teenagers (the news piece centered on whether kids 14-16 are mature enough to be allowed home alone or to babysit). The conclusion was that while these kids will insist that they are "mature" and "adult", the fact is that their brains are still in development many of them could not distinguish correctly between cases of wrong and right, and did not react to emergency situations or adverse conditions.

I started with Hardcore EQ at age 14 and played it for 4-4.5 years. WoW with 3-4 raids/week seems like sightseeing trip now. I'm 24 now with finished school and nice programmer job, own bought flat and car. Just need someone to clean both now ad help to chose curtain color

But I know some people IRL not over web that failed at more or less everything and are or were playing games most of their free time. (offline and online)

I wouldn't blame EQ/Starcraft/Diablo2/WoW for those failures. More like lazy people not even caring if they pass the class, wanting more or less everything the EZ way or still not knowing what they want from their life. Add far too forgiving parents... and you get 32y old gamer in guild that lives at home with his mom, from social support and never had a job in life (true story).

"Look web marketing, someone made this 1mio dollar page and he is rich - 10 minutes work" heard variation of this too many times from those people.


I also have brother at 14y, he plays WoW for 2years now. I didn't let him in our guild and switched off his connection at 22h, it doesn't matter that he is far more skilled than most of people i know or that he behaves far better than our 23y+ rogues. Its just that he was doing worse at school than he should. No average+ marks, no PC.

"Bad language" is something he knows more from school than from gchats i saw. No worries here kids probably know words "we" don't since they were just invented.
Playing on PC or being out... well I'll put it this way. If he is at PC I know where he is and what he is doing. If he is somewhere 1-2km away from home I have no idea. And with knowledge that some his schoolmates smoke and/or drink... and what kind of peoples are starting to show around as population is growing around here.


But from Guilds POV... well we have 18+ set up but that doesn't mean everyone is.
If someone (our rogues) say they are 18+ well, ok. Can you play? Sure got 2 top rogues on server. 100% attendance, top dps, pve and pvp skils... if one turns to be 15. Well heck he is best, and can play for 4h, 3-4x/week. Kick him out for his age despite mad skills? He might be like I was 10 years ago... great at everything i touched, school, football, games...

Its not guild ability to watch over its members like I can over brother. I can't prevent someone to play... its not even my right to do it besides the fact I have no idea who is on other side of the line and how his RL is going. Parents are there for that or should be.

I don't like to have such people in guild since I know it can help to screw life over for someone, but then again 10years ago I wouldn't be happy if I was kicked from best "evil" guild on server despite being best bard around and having RL "tidy".

I think those age restrictions many guilds put up come for different reasons.


The most obvious is that younger players tend to be less mature than older. Note that this is a tendency, not the law . But as Jo said, you gotta screen those apps if you get showered by them somehow and a very young age is one hard criteria to sort someone out early. It might not be the best way to go, but it works.
Also some guilds like to promote a certain homogenity. If you are the only student in a guild of working professionals your times and style of play might not match up very well. I haven't seen any guild yet which really rejected an otherwise good app only because the candidate was one year too young though so I think that this criteria is much softer than it seems. I must admit though that I would be very reserved to an app from a 14 year old (though I tend to give a lot of weight to the way the app is written, often those apps are telling the age of the author even though it isn't mentioned - on the other hand an app written in well thought and flawless style might manage to convince even sceptical recruiting officers to give it a try). Well, I don't do recruiting any more so I'm only talking about experiences in the past.

Furthermore and I guess this is a new aspect I might add to this debate: older players tend to have a more stable environment. What happens if a teenager falls in love for the first time or if school/college gets much harder suddenly? They often will drop the game completely. Most elder folks will not react in such a strong way but rather just reduce their time in game temporarily.

I don't think that having a rather mature /g though is a reason to exclude youngsters. I don't watch TV that often nowadays but its enough to know that most guildchats are rather mild compared what is said and done in modern media and in public in general.

Personally I have had nothing but bad experience with younger players. Some of them were just crap players, others were very immature, others had to go afk all the time, and some of them had all this in one. In the first very hardcore endgame guild I was in we had a 14 year old mage, he was a decent player and was pretty mature, but he didn't fit in at all because of the age difference. It ended up with him being mocked constantly and although he seemed to handle that pretty good I think it really did affect him in the end.

In my eyes a 14 your old app needs to be exceptional to even be considered, and I base this purely on experience. In my 2+ years of WoW I have been guilded with many youngsters, and the mage I just mentioned was basically the only one of those who might have been fit for a hardcore guild, just not as brutal a guild as our was. We had very harsh language in our gchat, and not fitting in made that 14 year old a hot target for bashing.

Regardless of why a guild has an age limitation set in place, whether it is for blanket "maturity" lockouts, or for time management issues, the above two statements speak something about applicants. If I have a question on my guild's application page and ANY player feels the need to lie about it just because they think it would get them into the guild, then that is not the type of player I want at all. I don't care if they can play until the crack of dawn and still get straight A's. The mere fact that they lied on their application says something very powerful about the type of person that is applying.

Recently my guild had an applicant who was well qualified in every area of his application save one, his age. We also have an age limitation of 18 years and this applicant was 16 at the time. When we approached him about his age he quite literally freaked out and raved about how unfair it was to exclude him solely based on his age. Now I ask any sane person, whether you are 11 or 35 or whatever; would you want that person in your guild?

Whether or not any individual thinks that age limitations are stupid or the reason for having them is nothing more than blanket discrimination, keep in mind that it is that guilds choice to have such a stricture in place and you should respect that. Everyone knows the saying, "when in Rome..."