There are even two versions that Jagex maintains, the main branch, and Old School Runescape, which is based around how the game was back in 2007-2009. (but with new stuff still added all the time)
The old RPG Arcanum. Great steampunk fantasy setting and story. If you play a persuasive character you can avoid combat and skip entire dungeons. The game has some balance issues (magic tree is fine, but the tech tree is underpowered, and early combat encounters are horrible to dela with). Various fan patches and mods are available, including a balance mod, a bugfix patch, and an HD patch. Since it’s an old game I recommend getting it from gog.com, since sometimes they fix up older games a bit to run properly on new systems.
Dragon Age, since you liked Mass Effect. Though, I personally found the combat more annoying in Dragon Age than Mass Effect. Mileage may vary.
The Outer Wilds (different game than Outer Worlds). It’s a sort of an archeology/space adventure game. It’s not strictly speaking an RPG, but if you want a story game it’s top tier. Please do not look anything up about the game and go in as blind as possible, as the feeling of discovery and exploration are the main draw of the game and once you have something spoiled you can’t un-know it. Also, I recommend getting the dlc immediately with the main game, as it’s a huge expansion that fits into the main story perfectly and affects the ending of the main game.
Is this what we’re doing instead of actually parenting? Roblox sucks, but you know what sucks even more? Being left out of the friend group because your parent is digging their heels in on some issue they can’t understand. Plus, where is the brightline for this? Would you ban your kid from playing Fortnite because of the skins? Counter strike when he’s older? Clash of clans?
You could play Roblox with him and explain what’s wrong with the games. You could help build his taste to not like the games that want to charge him out the ass and let him move past Roblox on his own. You can help him learn to make games and help him learn enough to want to move to something else. Otherwise, you’re just going to seem like an asshole. Because from reading this, you clearly just watched some video essay on Roblox and dug your heels in based on that.
Would you kindly fuck off? I am allowed to parent my children how I see fit. I provide him plenty of high quality games and multiple gaming systems and I want to make sure that his limited video game time is at least stimulating.
You were asking for advice, and she gave you some solid suggestions. IDK why you’re getting so bent out of shape.
Edit: Adding this article to maybe give you some more detail. Play the game with your kid and see what about it they enjoy. If you want to introduce them to better games, you’ll need to have an idea about what they like.
Is this what we’re doing instead of actually parenting?
No, that wasn’t advice. That was judgemental and without cause. I am asking for game suggestions because this isn’t meant as a punishment - it is meant to let the kids have an upgrade. But I guess I didn’t tiptoe around everyone’s overly sensitive feelings over here.
You gave absolutely no context about what kinds of things your child enjoys in video games. Go figure that out first. If you don’t know that, and you’re taking the game he enjoys away he’s 100% going to see it as a punishment.
Thanks for presuming I don’t know what my kid enjoys. Why do you have to be such a dick with the personal attacks? I am asking for advice on multiplayer games. You’re being a dick. I bet you make a lot of friends that way.
Pay no attention to the people who don't have kids. You're doing just fine. The fact that you're asking honestly makes you a better parent than many.
Kids, as you well know, are gonna figure out unimaginable ways to get themselves in trouble. I've had to tell more than one of my kids, "I'm gonna let you make all the mistakes you want, and I'm gonna be there to pick you up, but I am not going to let you make permanent mistakes." When it comes to advertising, microtransactions, OnlyFans (yes, OnlyFans), the lesson is "these things exist for one purpose, and that is to separate you from your money as much as possible." If you are paying for something, stop and consider whether you can get a substantially similar thing for free, or at least for a lot cheaper.
From reading your other comments, it sounds like you and the other parents all agreed together to drop the hammer on all the kids at once. That is a good idea, and it's great that you have lines of communication open to your kid's friends' parents. That's going to be important when they're older and driving cars, and having access to intoxicants and mall ninja shit.
To your actual question - I saw someone mention Minecraft, that is a fantastic choice. There are "skins" and shit that can be bought, but the game itself it absolutely fully playable and enjoyable without anything beyond the initial game purchase. Running a private server is pretty easy, and I would recommend it, so that the friend group always has a place they can go where the annoyances of the internet-at-large are excluded. Besides that, a kid who is motivated to modify his own Minecraft server is going to be driven to figure out how to do it, and that kind of skill will be super useful for oh so many things throughout life.
If they like arena combat games, Crossout is pretty fun. World of Tanks is okay, but the grind curve is steep. War Thunder is fun for planes and ships, but I am not a fan of their tank play mechanics. All of those are free to play, yes you can buy stuff, but you absolutely do not have to.
There's a single player game that I have to mention: The Long Dark. Winter survival, and there's also a storyline mode. The storyline is really good, and the map is absolutely vast. While it's not one they would be able to play together, it's a great exploration and survival game, and I would be remiss if I didn't point it out.
You know what’s more stimulating than any individual game you’ll have him play? Making his own choices on what to play. And like I said, brightline, what is and isn’t stimulating to you? Are shitty flash games banned for being too simple minded?
Parenting is your kid learning from you. They’re not learning why you’re banning Roblox, and if you explain it to them they don’t really understand. My kid is starting to not fuck with Roblox anymore because of how pay to win some of the games are. He had to do a lot of chores for those Robux and instantly wished he had the money for better things a couple days later when he wanted a plushie at the store. When I told him he could have gotten that plushie if he hadn’t gotten Robux, he stopped wanting Robux. He learned the value of money, and learned to prioritize the things he wants, and coincidentally doesn’t want to play Roblox like he used to. I didn’t have to be the bad guy because most kids have things they want more than Robux. All I had to do was make him choose.
Seriously, download and play Roblox with him. There are a million different games on there, you can even filter games on the site. Some of the games are actually really fucking good. Meet him where he’s at, set rules so he has to play Roblox with you. You can actually monitor what he’s playing and doing, while getting in some bonding time. Because your Dad playing tag or whatever dumbass things we were into as kids was way usually way cooler than playing Dad’s game. You’re going to be
That’s what I’m more upset about. The logic behind these decisions that has been expressed simply isn’t sound parenting. This kid just got his favorite toy taken away, and while it isn’t meant as punishment, it will feel like punishment. The logic expressed in the post is regurgitated out of a video essay, and makes it sound like Dad doesn’t even know why he’s taking it away. My situation was a little bit different, adopting someone else’s kid who had an entirely different life before me, but I feel like the shock therapy of just banning it with video essay logic is weak even if they are fully your children. As someone who was on it as a kid, I don’t like Roblox overall. However, I’ve found just teaching him why I don’t like Roblox has been more effective than just pulling it away and giving a poorly thought out explanation why. Now he’s come to the conclusion of the emptiness of Roblox himself, I didn’t have to force it.
Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. Giving them the information on their level and giving them choice usually pays off with kids. They can usually understand way more than we expect them to as long as we can break it down for them. It’s one thing to be the weird kid who can’t play Roblox because your parents don’t want you to, it’s another thing to be the kid who just doesn’t want to play Roblox. I’m saying that this is a situation where you can have your cake and eat it too, and that’s by educating your kids to make good decisions and give them ample opportunity to practice that skill.
The marketplace of ideas tends to be a much weaker force than “what are my friends playing?” I’m all for treating kids as people, but that also means understanding that people mostly choose what lets them get on with their peers the most easily.
Why do you think I am not trying to be the best parent? Do you know my child? No? Then you don’t know what is best for them. In this case, it is the best. Roblox is garbage tier games on a platform made by exploitation of children for the exploitation of children. Just because I am man enough to call that out and make the tough decisions doesn’t mean people need to personally attack me for it. Dangers to our society evolve - it’s like slapping a crack pipe out of the hand of a family member… just digitally.
This is a reading comprehension issue. Look at what I said more carefully, I am implicitly supporting the idea you are trying to help your kid and telling you to argue from a standpoint of human benefit rather than sovereignty. With the rise of Christian nationalism, we’re only going to see an uptick in “children are the property of the parent” style reasoning, and we should all be fighting it.
I don't think you quite understand how bad Roblox is.
Think of the most predatory games you can imagine.
Roblox is far fucking worse.
Not only is it a money grubbing game like the worst of mobile free-to-play games, it encourages content creators to exhibit the same behaviours and does nothing about blatant fraud on the platform. Something it's money obsessed nature actually encourages and rewards.
If the shit that goes on in Roblox went on in Facebook to nearly the same degree, Meta would be raked over the coals for it; even Meta haven't stooped so low.
The next step is becoming a better parent. That's a shit move and you can't stop your kid from playing it behind your back. You simply taught them to find and learn new ways to gaslight and evade you in order to keep playing with their friends.
I guarantee your parents did the same shit to you, and you perpetuate that toxicity.
Gaslighting, toxicity, oh come on. I’m supposed to expect my kid to lie to me?
Just giving my kids into the embrace of peer pressure isn’t love, it’s evading confrontation. Give them a place of trust and understanding, with clear rules they can understand and follow. If my kids are getting their way bending and evading the rules we set, then it’s way too late.
We often say yes, but sometimes we have to say no, and our kids are fine with that.
Coincidentally they got banned from Roblox at the same time! One of them dumped $50 in an afternoon on the game then had the audacity to ask for more money. So his whole social circle got booted from that cesspit on the same day. Me and their parents are trying to find good substitutes.
This is some good context. I’m not too familiar with roblox but I understand it’s more of a platform than a single game. How are they accessing microtransactions? If that can’t be prevented than that’s a bigger problem.
From my understanding, that kid was given an apple giftcard so it didnt actually hit his parent’s credit cards. I monitor my kid’s microtransactions and I give him opportunities to earn money he can use for microtransactions of his choosings.
Wait so you let them use the money how they wanted and now you’re mad at them for spending it how they wanted and how you told them…?
That’s a fucked up lesson and a half, you clearly didn’t learn your lesson and are now teaching the kid they will be punished for following instructions.
My kid didn’t do the microtransaction fuckup. He just got addicted to a shitty game that me and his friends’ parents also hated. One of his friends burnt a pile of cash which instigated all of us saying that it is time to end it. I mentioned this several times now in the thread.
Yeah you mentioned the kid spent their gift card how they wanted with permission from their parents, and you do the same thing, and is now being punished for it. Thats shitty parenting, you’re not banning them because they spent a little money.
This was just the excuse you needed, be a better parent and don’t make up shit.
You started you post off just making fun of the game, we know your biased intent here.
You said a kid blew a gift card, and you let your kid spent money on microtransactions already. This is called a parallel, you don’t seem to comprehend you let your kid already do this as well…. What difference does the game make? You already let it happen, fornite, Roblox, Minecraft no difference. Yet you took offense to one single game.
The issue here is your parenting, it has nothing to do with the game, you said it yourself lmfao.
That other commentor is a child or clearly never grew up. The internet is definitely not the same as when I was younger, kids don’t have the understanding of money or knowledge of predatory psychological techniques that are used to make vulnerable people, or children, part ways with what they have earned.
You sound like a great dad who’s taking an interest and involvement in your kids hobbies and I love that. There needs to be some sort of course, or game would probably be better, designed to teach children about the sort of things we see these days.
Personally I’m pretty susceptible to that sort of stuff so I use adblock and try to shy away from gacha type things. Microtransactions are hell.
Roblox is a money-grubbing cesspit filled with manipulation. Even if you do close off the MTX route, it opens the door for someone to send a virus and say it'll get you free Robux (the Roblox in-game currency)
That kid is now known as the kid who got Roblox banned among their group of friends, not a nice thing to known for. This will be seen as a punishment by them regardless of how you frame it especially once the other kids at their school become aware of it.
Ouch. Good luck navigating this one as your kids get older.
Minecraft is pretty good for this kind of stuff, especially Java Edition (has mods, and loooooads of servers, some of which also use mods to drastically alter the gameplay. You can also host your own, free of charge).
If you want to get them something low level cheap, AMD small form factor pcs with integrated Radeon can be had for cheap (easily under $200 if you are patient). One of my kid plays on one of these and with a few performance mods on minecraft does 30fps just fine.
Even raspberry pi 4/5 are amazingly capable of playing minecraft 1080p. I wonder how much better linux gaming support there is on those now since the steamdeck has been a success…
I’m still confused as to why you guys don’t just ban the spending of money on micro transactions and not the game itself? Every game is jam PACKED with mtx these days, from CoD to Fortnite to Forza.
It builds character! Lol but, yeah phasmo is too intense for many of my adult friends, even.
Out of curiosity, do you generally know what he was doing on Roblox? I’ve heard of several horror games being remade within Roblox, such as Iron Lung. I’ve wondered what the limitations are. I definitely remember stumbling into some intense things when I was around that age, but the landscape is so different now
He was wasting time playing shitty games because his other friends played those same shitty games. I was taken aback at how mind numbingly shitty those games were. We were in the same room as an Xbox with gamepass and a Nintendo Switch and he chose to play some seriously bad games instead because his friend was addicted to it. Then he became addicted to it. Luckily, that whole friends group will now have much, much better games to play.
Personally, I want my kid to be able to buy a few things every now and then. Roblox got the axe for multiple reasons - mtx was only one aspect. He gets a vbuck or two with his allowance if he wants to earn them. It helps him get a healthy view of how little mtx are really worth, but a cosmetic here or there is kind of fun.
Oh duh. Also, I forgot you said it was because you didn’t feel the gameplay/game itself was quality enough, which is fair enough, but I’m not too familiar with Roblox as I’ve never played it.
peer pressure. I fell for it in my TF2 days in high school. A buck there a few bucks there, all for a hat with particle effects that I never got. All because one of my friends I was playing with had one, and I wanted one too.
I learned a valuable lesson, but I was also 15/16 and had the ability of self reflection (and wanting to get Skyrim for $5 instead of a key). Can’t expect this level of self control from most teenagers, let alone a 10 year old.
Roblox is well-known for predatory practices aimed at children, and predatory behavior from other users who may or may not be looking for children to abuse.
Banning Roblox entirely seems like a very reasonable thing to do IMO.
For everyone saying OP should let their kid play Roblox and just ban spending money… just no.
Roblox exploits child labor for profit and they have terrible scummy business practices. If you have even marginal ethical qualms about child labor and/or capitalistic exploitation of vulnerable people, you should be keeping yourself and your family away from Roblox. In your mind they should be in the same category as multilevel marketing, crypto scams and door-to-door religion peddlers.
I actually think it’s fair to call them child predators. They’re exploiting kids for money instead of sexual gratification, but it’s the same power dynamic. Child exploitation is their business model.
My son just turned 6 and I was thinking of looking at the game (my sone really likes actual Lego, and his buddies are into Minecraft and Roblox), but another parent at a bday party a few weeks back asked if we played, and then warned my that I needed to keep a close eye on it, because the suggested games algo was pushing really sketch things to his daughter.
So I started looking and decided the shopping aspect was something I didn’t want to expose him to yet. But these revelations are making me glad we haven’t yet used it and never will.
Roblox sells the idea that you can actually make money with it, it has its own economy with job hunting and salaries. Mario Maker is just a community game.
Nearly everyone knows a bunch of skills “for nothing” or, worse, for fun! Gasp! Shocking, isn’t it?
Also, did you know that modding is a thing at least since the 90s? You know, people that made modifications to games without expecting any financial return or job opportunities? People must be crazy if they’re putting so much effort just to have fun and share it, amirite?
I couldn’t stop myself from being sarcastic there, sorry. The utter cynicism struck me so hard I didn’t know where to begin explaining how wrongheaded I think people are being about that. I would for sure prefer Roblox not encourage mtx so much but sheesh man. I don’t think Timmy is trying to make the next Genshin Impact.
Intent makes a big difference. The value of Roblox as a platform and as a business is based on the work done by children to develop for it, and it was set up that way on purpose. They created an incentive model to encourage it.
Nintendo’s value as a company is not based on kids creating Mario Maker levels, nor does Nintendo push kids to do so with the promise of earning money.
Considering the newest Mario game got a shitload of ideas from Mario maker levels, anyone who was good at mario making enough to be creative with the formula had their labor stolen as RnD for Wonder
Nobody dangles a carrot of earning money in front of potential FOSS developers. Nobody goes into FOSS thinking they’re going to get a big payout.
FOSS is not pay-to-play. There’s no equivalent to Robux for FOSS developers.
FOSS developers are consenting adults who volunteer their time for freely distributed software projects, not kids creating content for a video game company that charges them for access and then makes a profit from their work.
Please don’t make people play fall guys anymore. Epic has run that thing into the ground by laying off most of their creative team and basically deleting levels and over-monetizing cosmetics
What might be a good idea is to try Game Pass for a few months and see what they settle on. Then for Birthdays or Christmas, get them the games they played the most. Not sure how parental controls are like on it, but I hope they exists.
That being said, outside of Nintendo, there aren’t many Online games which don’t demand their users to pay for cosmetics with fake in game currency. See CTR Nitro Fuelled, Fortnight, Call of Duty, Overwatch and Minecraft skins.
With that said if changing your system isn’t an option, Minecraft Bedrock Edition the only game I am familiar with. There is a skin store, but you can’t earn in game currency from just playing (from my knowledge). So if they don’t have access to the credit card, they won’t be tempted, plus the base game has enough options that you can customize your character well enough.
If you can get a switch (and friends have one already), Splatoon 2/3, Mario Kart 8, and Animal Crossing are all friendly non-microtransaction laden games.
Has Nintendo made their online system any less crappy lately? Do they have voice chat or is it still “Use discord”? I say this as a lifetime player of Nintendo games. In the meantime, I’ve got like 3 years of Game Pass because I did the xbox live upgrade to get it for cheap.
Definitely have to get him Valheim, and they have an Xbox version now. Also, not multiplayer, but Kerbal Space Program is pretty fun. I have only played the PC version though, so can’t speak to the console version.
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