What is a Guild Raid?

A guild raid is a when a large group of players in an MMORPG meet together to take on some challenge as a team, such as slaying a powerful boss non-player character like a dragon. Raids in typical MMORPGs take the coordination and teamwork of anywhere from 10 to 80 real life players around the world. They usually require time investments of 3 or more consecutive hours from everyone involved. Players go for a chance to receive some sort of reward like loot (equipment), achievements, or simply for the social and teamwork aspects.

Concerns for Parents

• Online Gaming Addiction is real, and it can have terrible social, emotional, physical, and educational effects on your child.
• Guild raids are extremely time consuming for the following reasons:
  • A leader needs to find 10+ people who can commit to three or more hours of game play. Each player fills a specific role, which is required for the success of the team. A player's level and gear also helps determine if they will be allowed to participate. These and other considerations make it so that just gathering players to participate could take many hours.
  • The bosses that players encounter are designed to be challenging. As such, often raids fail multiple times on a boss before succeeding and moving on. Raids often aim to beat as many as 12 bosses in a single sitting.
  • If the team fails, it usually takes 5-15 minutes to reorganize and try again.
• It is hard for your child to merely log off in the middle of a game.
  • Guilds often set up calendars so that the correct number and mix of people can plan to meet together and raid successfully.
  • If someone leaves in the middle of a raid, the remaining players must wait until a replacement is found. While waiting, often players get impatient and leave themselves, which can cause the raid to have to end before planned. There is a strong social pressure to stay for the full time committed, especially for a guild member, because the people that your child is inconveniencing by leaving are his/her online friends that they will talk to again.
  • There is likely a specific reward your child was hoping to obtain from the raid. By being forced to leave early, not only will they inconvenience the friends they were raiding with, but they won't have a chance to obtain the reward until a raid on the same place is formed again, which is usually a week at minimum.

How Can I Keep My Child Safe?

• Explain to your child that they will not be able to participate in every raid that they would like to.
• Many popular MMORPGs have parental controls that allow you to set time limits on your child's game play.