I'm an old fart who's suspicious of on-line interaction, especially for a 12 YO.

Am I too paranoid? Is there even a reason to concern myself with finding a reasonably "safe" server where he can get into the fun?  How can I let him have fun and retain firewall (ZA, free version) integrity?  Maybe it works using simple HTPP or something but heck, I don't know.  Help y'all.

Steve

no need to worry about interaction when playing online games (except maybe with CamperStrike, the most retarded of all online games ).

The only thing you will have to worry about when playing BF2 online is exposure to language that you might not want your son to see.  They can get quite colorful sometimes (very rarely, only a few idiots talk like that), but for the most part it is a pretty good gaming community right now.

To be honest, you should disable the firewall while he is playing.  It could help with the lag.  Yes, you are too paranoid.  I keep my system on a DMZ in my SonicWALL when I am playing online games, meaning I am completely outside of my firewall.  No worries.

Just make sure that if he gets into playing, that he -

1. Doesnt punish the commander when he gets teamkilled by artillery.  It is the players own damn fault, not the commanders (most of the time).

2.  if another player lays landmines and he drives over them with a vehicle anyways, dont punish then either.  Its the players own fault


Hope he likes the game

Thanks for the inputs adair.  

I don't mind a little "colorful" language a bit.  Thanks for the caution and I guess I'm odd, but being around all sorts of stuff is something I'm trying to make work for him.  Hopefully, it will help him be tolerant and remain focused with all sorts of inconsequential things going on (just ignore the BS sort of idea).  I sure do help him learn to properly moderate his own behavior though .

The firewall thing worries me a bit though.  I get a lot of - well, let's say it not uncommon to get - obvious port pings trying to find openings.  Maybe once or twice a month that happens.  However, I can establish a "trusted" link with Zone Alarm so he can com freely with the game server and still keep non-trusted URLs at bay.

However, that won't help reducing running programs like you suggest.  I guess we'll just have to try it and see how much lag he can tolerate.  We do get darn good D/L rates.  Average around 800 KB/sec incoming anyway, often a LOT faster too.

This on-line gaming is a new thing for me so maybe I'm too wary.  My first set of kids were off on their own by the time home PCs were common.  My second set were when I-Net was just beginning to be somewhat useful.  Now this little guy comes along and he's the most fun of all but it's getting hard for me to keep up with him .  Thanks for trying to help me.

Quoted: Thanks for the inputs adair.   Thanks for trying to help me.

No problem