Welcome to my Minecraft Blog! My IGN is Standsmom. It's a name I gave myself a few years ago that was adapted to my family blog (which I didn't really keep up). It then became my Minecraft name. The true adult population that plays Minecraft is a mystery, I think. We don't all want the kids on the servers to know that we're grown ups. We've been out with friends for dinner and it's not uncommon for other adults to be talking about how obsessed their kids are with the game. But would you ever sit down to dinner and start openly talking about how you play? Um.....no. If there are adults out there who do so, I've never met them. I started wishing I could hear from/read about grown-up minecrafters and decided I'd start my own. This blog will be mainly targeted to the adult players and parents of kids who play, but PG enough (and hopefully interesting enough) to attract a few kids.
I feel like I'm standing up in a large room saying, "My IGN is Standsmom and I love to play Minecraft." There. I admitted it. I'm owning it. And I'm trying really hard not to be embarrassed by it. As a parent, if I knew my kids were playing on a server and then found out there was some upper-thirty year old adult on there too, it would freak me out. Creep! would by my first thought and I'd probably tell my kids they couldn't play on that particular server anymore. But let me tell you how my Minecraft life has evolved.
I first started playing just Creative games with my kids. We would build things and talk about it. Then I ventured into the Survival side. A bit more tricky, because every item and tool I needed I would have to seek out and create. Every time the sun went down I would have to have somewhere safe to hide from the zombies, skeletons, creepers and endermen. I quickly learned to love Survival. Before long, my kids were discovering online servers and wanting to register for them. I decided I'd better follow along so I could see what they were going to be exposed to. There's a lot of discussion going on in servers, perhaps you've already seen this. Every server has a different personality, a different set of rules. They have 'staff' that over-see things. Some staff members are super helpful and fun, and some are bullies and can be pretty mean. If you aren't careful, you can find yourself on a server that has a lot of foul language, not-so-clean subject matter and people building creations that are plain rude. But if you search and test out servers you can find the ones that are clean and friendly. I've even seen servers that have the chat auto-censored to specific words. Players can type them, but the only thing that shows up on the screen is a bunch of ****. Even then, the staff would warn, kick and/or ban players for attempting to curse.
After playing on a clean server with my kids for a few weeks, I started getting annoyed with the players who would show up and try breaking the rules and the times when there wouldn't be any staff online to handle it. So I went to the server's website and 'applied' to be a moderator. I was promoted to mod and then very quickly promoted to administrator. I enjoyed being able to keep the server clean for my children, and your children, and being able to help out the 'little' kids. Mods and admins have permissions to warn, kick, tempban, and permban players who break the rules. They can see all the private messages going on between players.
Here's a story for you: On a server which I am currently a Moderator, I noticed a couple of players having a private discussion because I saw the word Dad. My eyes perked up when I realized she was telling someone that another player on the server was her Dad, but he didn't want anyone to know that. I kind of grinned and thought that was cool. At least I wasn't the only adult on there. Later, I noticed someone pm-ing the same girl and asking her for her real name. She turned him down, but he wouldn't stop persisting. Even going so far to say, "Ok, I'll start. My name is (his full name) and I am (age) and I live in (city). Now you go." I was getting a bit creeped out by it and I messaged the girl and said you really shouldn't give in to this guy. Don't tell him your name. At the same time I sent a message to this girl's dad and told him what was going on. I said I didn't want to interfere, but I thought he should know there was a player pressuring his daughter to give out her personal information. That was a moment when I was very grateful to have my Moderator perms so that I could intercept that creepy player.
I know, I know! It's just a game. Kids are nuts about it. It's weird that I play it. Weird that I like it and type about it like it's a real world. But your kids are on there, aren't they? They are having real conversations with people from all over the world. There are idiots who pop up just so they can start spamming nasty talk and I like being there to immediately ban them so they can't come back. Game or not, annoying or not, it's happening and these kids spend their free time immersed in it.
So here's my blog. The parent's guide to your minecrafting kids and the game that they are obsessed with. Or...an online support group for us closet minecraft loving parents. Unless you are creepy. If you're creepy, I hope you show up on the server I moderate. I'd love to detect you and ban you.
Hope to see you all at my next post!!! Please like and follow. :)
Standsmom
