I recently started playing in a Luanti server and I was having a good time, I tend to be more independent but I usually participate in server events. I also tend to help people out if I am able/know what to do.
However there are times I would interact with what seems to be children, and it feels suffocating. Sometimes when they spot me would sort of type my name into the chats until I respond, and ask me to do stuff with them. Normally that’s okay, but it’s very often and the activity tends to take up a lot of time and would sort of leave me frustrated, like with mining because if they spot a valuable ore I’m mining they would sometimes take it for themselves. Another is when I’m exploring/moving around the world and one of them wants to follow me around, but I dislike being followed around and I like my alone time. I would often humor them and point out some good locations and interesting stuff but when I want to chill by somewhere they also want to be in that spot. Sometimes they can be sort of excitable that they want to go somewhere else and want me to go with them, but I would really prefer to be in my spot.
They aren’t malicious but it really scares me away from being spotted by them or talking in chat when they’re online. Some of them can really insist a lot and they may think me talking to other people means I have time to deal with them. But I’m not their parent and I have my own goals.
I play single-player games, so I mostly can’t relate.
However, yesterday while playing The Witcher 3, a child who was skipping stones at the pond got up and charged right into Geralt. I had passed her and her brother on the way into town, and I think I set the controller down to look at something on the phone, when a tiny NPC comes charging up and rams me. Twice. Then goes back to the pond. I don’t know if it was a bug or what.
It’s very early on in the game. I had to go talk to a witch, Keira or something like that. Striking blonde young woman. It was adjacent to or part of the Bloody Baron’s quest, I think. Or Ciri’s. I’m still kinda trying to get my bearings. Anyway, it told me to go to the pond, then look for a stone, then a cart, then the shack. Anyway, the pond in question was where the child was skipping stones, so I went to speak to her, and she didn’t say anything special.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if the child had a scripted daily action (e.g. run home and get a picnic basket of lunch for her and her brother) and I just put Geralt in her path. Still, it was weird. She rammed into me twice and then returned to her spot.
If it’s a boy named Louis Pan and we’re playing Deus Ex, we usually do something else (everyone kills him, since the first two Deus Ex games let you kill kids).