Topic: Wii Online: Get your friend codes ready

[OverHeat]

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Originally posted by: The Omen

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there has to be some better way for nintendo to implement some kind of security for minors then these stupid friend codes. i understand this is going to be a free service, but nintendo obviously needs to spend some more time on it. i've yet to go online with my ds becouse i dont know anyone else with a ds, and i have no desire to play against someone that nintendo randomly picks for me (at least thats the way i understand that it works).

When a person wants to join the Nintendo online community, Ninty should require a credit card in that persons name as proof of age.  If they don't have a card, they have to use friend codes until they do.

Oh. I was thinking electric collars or neural implants. But yeah. Yeah I guess that could work too.

[jasonditz]

They need a little more flexiibility than "Credit card or major restriction of use". Frankly I'm fine with just asking people to certify that they are either 18 or have parental permission. It's good enough to eliminate the legal liability... that's all I'd be concerned with.

Parents who don't keep an eye on their children or teach them any common sense are going to have something bad happen sooner or later. Instead of handcuffing 20+ million console owners or insisting on creating a huge credit card database on the off chance that something might happen to one or two kids, I say they just do the bare minimum to avoid a lawsuit and let nature take its course.

This is ultimately the parents' responsibility, not Nintendo's.  

[wandering]

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When a person wants to join the Nintendo online community, Ninty should require a credit card in that persons name as proof of age. If they don't have a card, they have to use friend codes until they do.

If they did that, parents would just get full accounts for their kids. You may say, it's the parent's fault at that point...but Xbox Live requires a credit card and parental consent too, and that still gets bad press.

Personally, I think there should be one, universal friend code, that is tied to an account that you have on the system. Nintendo's said they're not doing that because people may want to play one game with some people but not others, but I think that's a lame excuse...I'm sure they could implement a system where you can hide from people on your friends list if they wanted.

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"its illegal" isn't any kind of proof. I have to side with ThePerm here, at least to some extent (us virgins gotta stick together). A person who goes to bed the night before their 18th birthday doesn't wake up instantly better able to judge who to have sex with.

I'll have to disagree. Since the kid was 14, I'm sure the experience was much less harmful than if he was 12. Still, an adult coming to a kid who's never had sex before is in a position of power. An adult can easily coerce a 14 year old into having sex, and so the kid is incabable of consneting to sex with someone 18 or older, and so what the man did is morally wrong.

There are certainly circumstances where someone older than 18 having sex with someone younger than 18 wouldn't pose much of a moral problem (17 year old seducing 18 year old version or what have you)...but until we have a law that somehow acknowledges the subtleties...I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect adults to obey age of consent laws.

As for whether the system or the man is at fault, I'd say first, it doesn't matter...bad press is bad press. And second, I don't think it's unreasable for parents to expect pieces of entertainment they buy from Nintendo is safe. Especially since the service is easy to use and free, and it's conceivable that kids could use the wifi connection without their parents knowing about it.

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Hey, lets have a contest to see who's the oldest virgin here. I think I've got you guys beat

I'm pretty sure Ian Sane would win that contest....

[Mario]

What's wrong with friend codes? What's the difference between adding someone another way? More digits or something?

[jasonditz]

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Originally posted by: wandering
I'll have to disagree. Since the kid was 14, I'm sure the experience was much less harmful than if he was 12. Still, an adult coming to a kid who's never had sex before is in a position of power. An adult can easily coerce a 14 year old into having sex, and so the kid is incabable of consneting to sex with someone 18 or older, and so what the man did is morally wrong.

There are certainly circumstances where someone older than 18 having sex with someone younger than 18 wouldn't pose much of a moral problem (17 year old seducing 18 year old version or what have you)...but until we have a law that somehow acknowledges the subtleties...I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect adults to obey age of consent laws.

How long's it been since you were 14? Its been awhile for me, but I'm still 99.9% sure that no one could've tricked me into having sex with them at the time.

And do we know for sure where this kid was located? As I pointed out earlier... if this was Idaho or Hawaii this 14 year old was actually above the age of consent for his state. That adult may well have been obeying age of consent laws in his jurisdiction.

And then again... does that change anything? That's why I don't like the argument "it's illegal" as proof of anything. When crossing state lines into Idaho from, say, Montana... does the 14 year old become magically better able to consent? If he consented to have sex and they're in a car and it rolls back across the state line, does it suddenly stop being consensual?

I'm the first to say that having sex with a 14 year old is a really sleazy thing to do. I'd think very poorly of the person that did it. I don't know that I could declare it blanketly immoral without knowing more details than we know in this situation.

But perhaps more importantly to the topic at hand of Live-type accounts: rape is not a problem limited to children. Suppose someone met ThePerm, who's 22 years old (and who I'm just using because he gave his age), on a Nintendo Live-type service and tricked him into meeting them (with promises of candy and stickers) and then proceeded to rape him. Do we start calling for Nintendo to keep 22 year olds off the Live-type service just in case?

How old is old enough for Nintendo to be able to safely say "this guy won't be fooled into a position where he might get raped"? Do we set the age at 25? 30? Is there any such age?

Even if we knew for sure than 100% of the Wii owners were over the age of 25... could we say definitively that the service would be free of sexual predators, or people naive enough to be taken in by them?

[Zach]

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Originally posted by: Mario
What's wrong with friend codes? What's the difference between adding someone another way? More digits or something?

The current problem with friend codes is first of all, that you have to enter your friends for EACH game because they give you a different friend code for each game you play online.

Another problem with friend codes (in games like MK DS) is that if you happen to find someone who is a good match skill wise, it is impossible to find them again if you want to play them later.

Anybody wanna add to the list?

Edit: I tried to type MK_:_DS (without the underscores) and it got messed up by the stupid smiley  

[IceCold]

To avoid that check the "Do not parse emoticons" box under the Reply button..

[Mario]

Oh, ok!

1) 20 extra seconds is hardly worth talking about.
2) True enough, but I personally don't care about adding strangers, all strangers are the same to me.

[The Omen]

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If they did that, parents would just get full accounts for their kids. You may say, it's the parent's fault at that point...but Xbox Live requires a credit card and parental consent too, and that still gets bad press.

Honestly, who gives a f*ck about bad press?  The bottom line is this system takes the responsibility of raising children out of an companies hand and throws it back where it belongs.  Try f*cking parenting people!  I hear it works!

[Dirk Temporo]

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Originally posted by: Mario
What's wrong with friend codes? What's the difference between adding someone another way? More digits or something?

Well, let's assume there's a voice chat feature of some sort for the Wii eventually. Then let's assume they do what they did with Hunters. You can only voice chat with people on your friends list. That completely blows any possibility of online multiplayer tactical shooters on the Wii.

All I know is that they better have a server browser in all the games. None of that MKDS bullsh!t.

[ProtoNY]

Remember, though.  Online content can be dynamic.  What the system launches with for an "interface", or lack thereof, is not by all means permanent.  The beauty of the medium is that content could be pushed at any time.  One night you go to bed and still have the basic Wii/DS connectivity and the next morning it could be something different.

Nintendo is still just getting their feet wet with all of this.  I'd expect to see them continually improve the performance and functionality after the hardware is released.

--Proto

[jasonditz]

They could at least generate the friend codes independent of the games themselves so that I can just have a single code instead of a code for every single online game.
The later is just plain onerous. Why should we each have to keep a list of 20-30 codes? It would really be no great effort on Nintendo to have some sort of "Rights management" page where you can link existing friends with new games.

[Shecky]

So question, if Nintendo gave you a way to manage your friend codes online, would that help?  So you can enter codes online and the changes would be downloaded by your system.

Also, jasonditz raises a good point, if you had one friend code you should still be able to pick and choose which are associated with what games.  That would save on the amount of memory required as well as space to store all that information.

Of course having separate codes would make it easier for the developers and Nintendo, making it all self contained - and Nintendo wouldn't need to have some kind of 'Live' like service in place for the user AND developers.  They would need to have the interfaces available for developers to make use of from day one, and I just don't have that much faith in Nintendo's network team.  Also, there's no reason a company like EA couldn't have the same code for all of its own games.

The codes are nice, they require the joint permission system and I think that's a good thing.  You folks argue that it's should be the parents job, but what's wrong with giving them a good tool to work with?  

[jasonditz]

A management system for friend codes really shouldn't be that hard to do either way. Assuming there's some open way to pass data to and from Wii on the local network (or if Nintendo wants to give me a little documentation) I'd be glad to write such a program.

[OverHeat]

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Originally posted by: jasonditz

How long's it been since you were 14? Its been awhile for me, but I'm still 99.9% sure that no one could've tricked me into having sex with them at the time.

And do we know for sure where this kid was located? As I pointed out earlier... if this was Idaho or Hawaii this 14 year old was actually above the age of consent for his state. That adult may well have been obeying age of consent laws in his jurisdiction.

And then again... does that change anything? That's why I don't like the argument "it's illegal" as proof of anything. When crossing state lines into Idaho from, say, Montana... does the 14 year old become magically better able to consent? If he consented to have sex and they're in a car and it rolls back across the state line, does it suddenly stop being consensual?

I'm the first to say that having sex with a 14 year old is a really sleazy thing to do. I'd think very poorly of the person that did it. I don't know that I could declare it blanketly immoral without knowing more details than we know in this situation.

But perhaps more importantly to the topic at hand of Live-type accounts: rape is not a problem limited to children. Suppose someone met ThePerm, who's 22 years old (and who I'm just using because he gave his age), on a Nintendo Live-type service and tricked him into meeting them (with promises of candy and stickers) and then proceeded to rape him. Do we start calling for Nintendo to keep 22 year olds off the Live-type service just in case?

How old is old enough for Nintendo to be able to safely say "this guy won't be fooled into a position where he might get raped"? Do we set the age at 25? 30? Is there any such age?

Even if we knew for sure than 100% of the Wii owners were over the age of 25... could we say definitively that the service would be free of sexual predators, or people naive enough to be taken in by them?

Lesson for life and growing up; You cant judge your own experiences and intelligence and apply them to everyone else. Just because you would/wouldnt do something doesnt mean everyone would/wouldnt.

Yes we know for sure where the kid, and the dude were located. Had you actually read the story, you would know this happened in California. Although I do admire your willingness to play Devil's Advocate and defend a child molester. That takes some serious cahones(sp?).

Does that change anything? Gee, I dunno...what do you think? I am not a lawyer and I am not trying to validate what happened one way or the other. I am trying to prove a point. With XboxLive it is VERY EASY to meet strangers. This is why gamers like us like it. We are American and dammit, we are LAZY! We dont like to be inconvenienced at all. What?! I... I have to push buttons /before/ I push buttons?? Screw you Nintendo! C'mon everybody! Lets go suck down another Big Mac! Super size?? What?! Dont you have anything bigger?

You are absolutely right. Rape is /not/ a problem relegated to just children. (Dont worry Perm, I got your back. No one is violating you on my watch.    )But there is nothing wrong with setting up a few extra safety features to try to protect the kiddos. In a way, you could say Nintendo is covering it's own ass. If this kinda crap /does/ happen, they can make the point that they had all safety features they could put in place.  

As I said on a previous post: One friend code. If I say its ok for my kid to play with Perm (hey, he seems to be the guy to use for examples here!   ) in Mario Kart, why would I suddenly change my mind and not want him to play with Perm in Animal Crossing? That doesnt make any sense. I know Nintendo said something to the effect of, well this lets you pick and choose which friends you play with a particular game, but with the Wii, I am going to say that there HAS to be an easier way to do that.

But ultimately you guys have hijacked this thread, IMO. It was about friend codes. I made a point that having them makes it harder for your kid to meet strangers than it would be on a service like Xbox Live. The kid thing was proof that things /can/ in fact, go bad. The link was provided for anyone who thought I was lying or making that up. The fact that this has suddenly veered into a discussion of morale makes it seem I was right. Perm and I had agreed to leave this one be, as there is no way anyone is going to be "right" in this situation and it is just going to go on forever. Can we try to focus on just the friend codes and there relevance here? If I would have known that using this example would have created this problem, I never would have. It is blinding you all to what my original point was; having friend codes makes it more difficult for kids to meet strangers.

Perm: I know we agreed to drop this, which is why I tried not to get on the morale trip here. You may slap me if you want to, as far as I am concerned you have the right.  

[OverHeat]

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Originally posted by: jasonditz
A management system for friend codes really shouldn't be that hard to do either way. Assuming there's some open way to pass data to and from Wii on the local network (or if Nintendo wants to give me a little documentation) I'd be glad to write such a program.

Yes! See, THIS is what I am talking about! Some type of management program MUST be had. In fact, let me go one further! If the DS and Wii are going to be able to communicate, why couldnt I transfer existing friend codes fromthe DS to the Wii? Of course, then there is the problem of, which friend code to I put in. =P

 

[obscureownership]

So far I disagree with the general opinion about Nintendo's service. Anyone who's ever played Xbox Live knows about those spoiled 12 year olds calling people who kill beat them fags.  And also, I never play with people I don't know over the internet, and if I am so bored to be doing so, I don't want to hear them or see what they are writing.

[Artimus]

I really don't want this to be clunky. I have no problem with the idea of friend code exchange, but there has to be ONE code per person and an main interface through which to manage lists. I don't care if it has a Live-type hub, but it NEEDS to be unified and centralized as far as management goes.

[jasonditz]

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Originally posted by: OverHeat

Lesson for life and growing up; You cant judge your own experiences and intelligence and apply them to everyone else. Just because you would/wouldnt do something doesnt mean everyone would/wouldnt.

Yes we know for sure where the kid, and the dude were located. Had you actually read the story, you would know this happened in California. Although I do admire your willingness to play Devil's Advocate and defend a child molester. That takes some serious cahones(sp?).

Does that change anything? Gee, I dunno...what do you think? I am not a lawyer and I am not trying to validate what happened one way or the other. I am trying to prove a point. With XboxLive it is VERY EASY to meet strangers. This is why gamers like us like it. We are American and dammit, we are LAZY! We dont like to be inconvenienced at all. What?! I... I have to push buttons /before/ I push buttons?? Screw you Nintendo! C'mon everybody! Lets go suck down another Big Mac! Super size?? What?! Dont you have anything bigger?

You are absolutely right. Rape is /not/ a problem relegated to just children. (Dont worry Perm, I got your back. No one is violating you on my watch.    )But there is nothing wrong with setting up a few extra safety features to try to protect the kiddos. In a way, you could say Nintendo is covering it's own ass. If this kinda crap /does/ happen, they can make the point that they had all safety features they could put in place.  

As I said on a previous post: One friend code. If I say its ok for my kid to play with Perm (hey, he seems to be the guy to use for examples here!   ) in Mario Kart, why would I suddenly change my mind and not want him to play with Perm in Animal Crossing? That doesnt make any sense. I know Nintendo said something to the effect of, well this lets you pick and choose which friends you play with a particular game, but with the Wii, I am going to say that there HAS to be an easier way to do that.

But ultimately you guys have hijacked this thread, IMO. It was about friend codes. I made a point that having them makes it harder for your kid to meet strangers than it would be on a service like Xbox Live. The kid thing was proof that things /can/ in fact, go bad. The link was provided for anyone who thought I was lying or making that up. The fact that this has suddenly veered into a discussion of morale makes it seem I was right. Perm and I had agreed to leave this one be, as there is no way anyone is going to be "right" in this situation and it is just going to go on forever. Can we try to focus on just the friend codes and there relevance here? If I would have known that using this example would have created this problem, I never would have. It is blinding you all to what my original point was; having friend codes makes it more difficult for kids to meet strangers.

Perm: I know we agreed to drop this, which is why I tried not to get on the morale trip here. You may slap me if you want to, as far as I am concerned you have the right.  

Yeah, and I'm fine with the theoretical idea of "A" friend code. I just think that when we look at what's happened with DS online, having to page through forums full of friend codes to find codes or worse, buying the game a little later than everybody else and not getting added because everyone's already got plenty of people on their lists and adding new people is kind of a pain in the ass... then I think about how easy it would be to create a server-based rights management setup (And again, if Nintendo doesn't want to, just have them give me the docs and I'll be glad to do it myself and stick adverts on it), I just think it would be a shame to hobble the system's ease of use for the sake of plausible deniability.

I don't even want to add random people or anything, I just don't want to be stuck playing SSBB with whatever random Canadians happen to be online at the time (for some reason random matchups I get into are always with some guy named Canuck004 or GoMapleLeafs77 or whatnot).

I can see reasons why you might object to your child playing some games with someone and not others. For instance, Mario Kart or Tony Hawk has very little user interaction, and you decide ThePerm is a reasonable code to add. But then, when Animal Crossing rolls around, and you realize he's got a penchant for digging up your yard and chopping down your fruit-bearing trees (And no, that's not a euphemism for anything) you decide "ok... I'll keep letting him play on Mario Kart, but he's got to stay off my Animal Crossing town". Or maybe that's all fine but then MPH comes out and you discover that he curses like a sailor in voice chat or something, and you don't want every other word out of your son or daughter's mouth to be cockmonger.

Instead of hunting forums for codes and then entering them in one by one every time a new game comes out, how much easier would it be to just have a menu that you could access on a website that says ok... new game... and shows you which existing friends have that game, and then lets you pick which ones you want to allow.

[AnyoneEB]

obscureownership: Then disable voice chat. The problem here is that cooperative play over the internet is effectively impossible without voice chat to coordinate your teammates. That means you could only play online cooperative games if everyone on your team was your friend. In competative play, voice chat is nice but not required.

[pudu]

Ok I didn't read all the posts but I think that Nintendo is on the right track as far as creating a safe online environment but they have overcomplicated things.  I think that with games where the possiblility of vulgar language and/or imagery is possible that all those functions should be turned off unless you have the other persons friend code.  Nintendo is pretty much doing this with games like MPH by only allowing chat with friends but allowing plain deathmatch with anyone.  

The problem arrises when you have to enter a bajillionzillion friend codes for every game.  If you want a good list of say 50 codes for your game and you have 10 online games that is 500 16 digit codes...and that sucks!  They made a good argument that you may not want to have the same people on all of your games but instead of making people re enter and keep track of a different code for yourself and all you friends for every game why don't they just allow you to add a friend with a singular friend code and then as you get more games be able to go down you list and check a box that says allow/don't allow this person to be able to play with me online for that specific game.  SIMPLE!

I also hope they work on their online Wifi site...because it always gets all buggy and doesn't work half the time for me and doesn't keep my stats on all games...plus some games I can't even see when other people are online but they can see me which adds to the frustration.

anyway sorry for the rant but seeing the wonderful ideas started in THIS thread I really want Nintendo to iron out their online plans and make it all it can be.  I don't expect a direct live ripoff...and don't want that really.  I just want Nintendo to put their money where their mouth is because with all this talk of simplicity and accessibility they should at the very least have a clean and easy to use Wifi Wii interface!  

[OverHeat]

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Originally posted by: jasonditz

Yeah, and I'm fine with the theoretical idea of "A" friend code. I just think that when we look at what's happened with DS online, having to page through forums full of friend codes to find codes or worse, buying the game a little later than everybody else and not getting added because everyone's already got plenty of people on their lists and adding new people is kind of a pain in the ass... then I think about how easy it would be to create a server-based rights management setup (And again, if Nintendo doesn't want to, just have them give me the docs and I'll be glad to do it myself and stick adverts on it), I just think it would be a shame to hobble the system's ease of use for the sake of plausible deniability.

I don't even want to add random people or anything, I just don't want to be stuck playing SSBB with whatever random Canadians happen to be online at the time (for some reason random matchups I get into are always with some guy named Canuck004 or GoMapleLeafs77 or whatnot).

I can see reasons why you might object to your child playing some games with someone and not others. For instance, Mario Kart or Tony Hawk has very little user interaction, and you decide ThePerm is a reasonable code to add. But then, when Animal Crossing rolls around, and you realize he's got a penchant for digging up your yard and chopping down your fruit-bearing trees (And no, that's not a euphemism for anything) you decide "ok... I'll keep letting him play on Mario Kart, but he's got to stay off my Animal Crossing town". Or maybe that's all fine but then MPH comes out and you discover that he curses like a sailor in voice chat or something, and you don't want every other word out of your son or daughter's mouth to be cockmonger.

Instead of hunting forums for codes and then entering them in one by one every time a new game comes out, how much easier would it be to just have a menu that you could access on a website that says ok... new game... and shows you which existing friends have that game, and then lets you pick which ones you want to allow.

Hahahahahaah Thats hilarious. I actually thought about adding a little side note of "Unless I find out Perm is some kind of maniacal tree killer!"
Well, regardless I guess we are just gonna have to collectively bite our nails until the full, fleshed out plan is laid before us, eh?

[zakkiel]

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That takes some serious cahones(sp?).

Cajones.

Why not have both worlds? A parental contro system built in to the console. Set your kid's account to only allow friends or open access, as you choose. Yes, many parents won't take advantage of such a feature because they can't be bothered to learn how, but at that point I lose all sympathy for their case.

[wandering]

I'm going to bow out of the parenting/morality debate.

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They made a good argument that you may not want to have the same people on all of your games but instead of making people re enter and keep track of a different code for yourself and all you friends for every game why don't they just allow you to add a friend with a singular friend code and then as you get more games be able to go down you list and check a box that says allow/don't allow this person to be able to play with me online for that specific game. SIMPLE!

Okay, but I'd want it opt-in instead of opt-out. I don't ThePerm to have access to my Animal Crossing town for even a second.

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2) True enough, but I personally don't care about adding strangers, all strangers are the same to me.

I would've agreed with you awhile ago, until I got into a one-on-one match with a guy from Taiwan (according to his avatar) who kicked my ass with Bowser. I probably played him 20 times without winning a single race. It makes me sad I'll never get to rechallenge him.