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The Warriors Stood in the Shape of a Heart
An anonymous reader writes "Here's a picture of Warsingers funeral. Warsinger was an in-game persona in the rather good MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot". and generally well-liked.
The real person behind Warsinger was a 32-year-old with heart trouble, who really died.
So the players on his server organized an in-game
funeral.At the funeral, players from the three realms of Camelot, who normally kill each other gleefully on sight, stood in the shape of a heart (check the pic above); the two figures in the center of the heart are Warsinger's real-life sister and girlfriend."
Wow! That's what I call an online community! I don't play Dark Age of Camelot, but my deepest sympathy goes to his family.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent - Salvor Hardin
Possibly these people spend more of their social time in front of a PC than in the genuine outdoors... so it's unsurprising that a funeral and other social rituals might take place. The important point is that the real person died... imagine if they held funerals for every Quake frag victim... the game would take forever LOL
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Read the article High-Tech Ways to Handle End-of-Life Issues and visit this site of a company that organizes (semi) virtual funerals.
I play in a chat-based RPG known as A Call To Duty. It's been around for about 6 years and currently stands at 240-something players. We've seen real life marriages and births as the result of players meeting in the game. Inevitably, we've also had players who have passed away. Recently, the passing of one of our game managers was marked by dedicating a ship in his name. His family understood what the game meant to him, and they were happy with what we had done.
It's nice that in a way his funeral meant something to his friends, rather than a boring sermon from a speaker that didn't really know him.
A few years back a guy died on the field in the reenactment of the battle of tewksbury (1471).
I think of a burst aorta, possibly exacerbated by hefting a large sword around a field in 33C heat, wearing plate armour...
It wasn't until afterwards that people realised that he was really dead. They had a wonderful funeral the next day, in the nearby abbey (where many of the noble dead from the battle were buried). Thousands turned up to pay their respects, most still in kit. He was buried in the same way a respected knight would have been.
Though I didn't find out personally, I'm told that the pallbearers had a hard time holding up the coffin, as he was buried in plate.
It's a strange thing.. when you play RPGs you're used to the idea of people dying and then coming back. Real Life isn't quite like that, unless you believe in Buddhism. There's a sense of loss, but of that person as a game character, not as a real human, and it often comes as a huge shock to remember that these are flesh-and-blood mortals.
Of course, its also rare that you find if someone has died.. sometimes people go away and you're often left wondering why. It's only the most prominent players who you tend to find out about when they pass away. sigh.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
This sort of thing has been happening for years in online worlds. Interesting how games that supposedly degrade a person's civility can harbor such a beutiful testament of pure respect.
"just further proves the depth of the relationships that are kindled through online gaming."
Hmmmm I am going to have to disagree with this (at least in my own experience). I don't believe that any online relationships have any TRUE depth. I don't think that you can really trust, know who a person is, emphasize with then etc until you can look them in the eye, see their body langauge, smell them touch them and just generally be in their presence.
After spending much of my time online in gaming/chat and other online venues I have found that all the online relationships that I ever had (and I am not talking about only romantic relationships/nor am I excluding them), no matter how much friendship/loyalty/love/etc was claimed by both sides, the relationship was really just one of convenience.
Or maybe its just me. Either way I am sorry to hear of this loss and this post is not intended to say that the person who died was not well liked by the online community he was a part of. I am only countering the statement in the post I am replying to, offering an opposing opinion that online (gaming) relationships have little or no depth in MY experience.
I welcome any thought out rebuttals but please if you disagree with me, mod me down and move on, don't waste your time or mine with a mindless rant or string of insults.
Then I am truly sorry for you. Your experiences have been noticeably different from mine, since I've been involved with MUSHes for 8 years now (similar to MUDs, but different codebase). My cycle was one of newbie to pretty good coder to do-nothing. That's me right now. I log in to these sites still just for the friendships I've still got. I haven't written a new line of code in at least four years. But I still log in to say hello to my friends. After all, they're the only part of the whole online experience that matters. And I wish your experiences had been more similar.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
They know how old he is, they know who his sister and girlfriend are and they know how he died, but his name? Nope, not a mention.
Something about technology being dehumanizing?
Not a lot of people know this, but in Sunset Home, the zone in EverQuest reserved for customer service personnel to enjoy between answering petitions, there are a few memorials to guides (players who volunteer their time to help with the customer service) who have passed away while in the program.
/salute and /hug.
During the training session a senior guide takes you around sunset home showing you the sights, but they're always very serious and sombre around the avatars that exist in memoriam...
On the server where I was a guide for a brief time one of the guides had recently passed away so they made a special point of telling us about him and his avatar. When they would passed by they would always find time for a quick
Ok I'm trying not to troll or be flamebait here but there is something unsettling about this (and it seems that a lot of other modded down posters feel the same way) although I don't know why. I guess it was that the entire thing was carried on in his hobby and not a job or anything "normal" (but what's normal nowadays). There was that other post about the reenactor being buried in full plate by his reenactment buddies. It all goes along the same lines I guess.
In one way both of these people were "playing someone else" and, to memorialize them this way almost seems to say that they are "playing dead" and everyone else is "playing funeral" (kind of like the childrens' game). From this perspective it seems like a trivialization of the event. Sure, the people taking part were close friends, but to outsiders it all seems like an act.
Of course, if I die, it would be neat to have a 12 Arctic Weapon Head Shot Salute... maybe not.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Sorry, it's just you.
I played EQ for nearly 3 years and have some solid friendships that have come of that. More importantly, I have my wife, who I met in game. We chatted in game, then via Internet audio (Gamevoice), and then met and dated for awhile before going further.
And I'm not the only one either - a couple of our best friends met via a MUD while in college and have been married for nearly 8 years. And my father-in-law met his second wife online.
Of course, I know a bunch of people who treat relationships as convienences, and I've watched them burn people left and right both online and in real life (when they met). Mostly because they never quite got that there was someone on the other end of the pixels and they were due just as much respect as you yourself are.
I know I was honest with other people online, and so maybe that's why it's worked for me. I know our friends and my father-in-law are the same way. Because, frankly, if you don't treat others well online they're not going to trust you or treat you well either. What goes around comes around and all that.
This isn't saying to be a doormat. Nor does it mean that you can't do well in the game -- I was in the uber-guild on my server and was one of the best equipped characters of my class.
Recently (within the past 2 years) I lost a very good friend of mine. I only knew him by his handle until his death, dethvader. Unlike most of the other posts, I did not know him from a game, just an IRC channel. He had been dead for months before we heard the news. We thought he moved away. A blood-clot a doctor missed travelled from his leg and deposited itself in such a place as to kill him. He was gone for months before we knew. One of our mutual friends saw him connect to ICQ. But it wasn't him, it was his mother. Our friend told us the news. She stayed online for the next few days receiving our condolences and prayers that the rest of the family would make it though ok.
I never knew what he looked like. I had to ask her. It's....an interesting feeling to confide in someone you trust and appreciate and go through their entire short life (he wasn't even 20) not knowing what they look like. Perhaps there is something to be said for a race of beings that can seperate friendship and companionship from a corporal body -- that we can still connect even if we can't ever see each other. Something about our passions and intellect can allow us to comfort each other and help those in need without ever being there.
I know my friend is gone now, but there is much to remember him by. When we all heard the news, we had a wake where we each perused our logs for any of his quotes or conversations we had. Many of us still have those logs. There is even a website dedicated to his memory, one he frequented often. The community back then was in its height...but now..well it's not like the good ole days. But those of us still in the community will always remember him and what he contributed.
I know alot of people might find this lame, but there is alot to be said about how we express our feelings through media. Be it art, poetry, music, or even fellowship. There is still humanity in all we create, even the internet. Even if we choose not to use it, notice it, or even laugh at the people who do, it is still there. It is there for those of us who don't have to let physical boundries seperate friends and who aren't concerned about what the internet should and should not be used for. It is here for us to express ourselves --- sometimes, unfortunately...it is our grief.
Zech Harvey, MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA
Ah, but you actually met, that's the difference. I believe the intent of the previous posters message was to relate to the online-only friendships.
I've probably met thousands of people online in the last few years, and still keep in touch with a few, but none have the intrinsic value of friends that I have experienced in person.
I've found there is a much greater sense of loss when I must walk away from someone I have known personally, rather than one I have known digitally.
If the friendship moves beyond the online stage then it is much more likely to survive the petty squabbles and such that sometimes arise online due to misunderstandings, or the simple bad choice of a phrase.
Then again, it depends on how deeply one is entrenched in online communities. Persistent communities are more likely to experience extended relationships than transitory states like IRC.
Do you also think it is lame when professional athletes wear black armbands during games after someone significant to the sport dies? Is it lame for soldiers to fire guns at a veteran's funeral? Is it lame for someone to have their ashes spread at a place they loved in life?
The parallel I'm drawing, before someone flames me for comparing a veteran to a video game addict, is the idea that it's normal for people to remember someone through something important in that person's life. You may think having a video game be so key to one's life is pathetic, but if that's what he loved, so be it, let him be remembered through it.
I started using IRC waaay back. Then gravitated into MUDs, good old Compuserve games, and various NGs and Forums. And I'm a frequent participant on several mailing lists.
That said, I have to say you seem to have a very jaundiced perspective when you say you've yet to meet people who are fit, eat right, talk right, and have charisma about them who play EQ or MUDs.
I have quite a few friends who play EQ or DAoC(even to the point of disappearing for an entire weekend to play). Many of them are highly paid programmers, sales support engineers, application designers, etc. People who work in close-knit real-world teams all the time. Many of them also play ultimate frisbee, softball, soccer, etc. - team sports. And a fair few have webs of social contacts that boggle my mind, and I have so many friends I can't keep up with them all.
Now, I've met some of the people you seem to think all EQers or MUDers represent... there are some. But then I've met plenty of maladjusted or poorly socialized people outside of the game world, so I have no reason to suspect a huge correlation.
Your assumption seems to be that these people are developing on-line friends INSTEAD of off-line ones. My experience has been that off-line friends get sucked into common on-lne activities and that the intersection of the on-line and off-line friend sets is high.
The Internet has allowed me to meet people in Australia, Sweden, UK, Tasmania, NZ, Spain, Germany, etc. A lot of them have offered me a place to stay when travelling. I've purposefully travelled to the US to meet many of my on-line buddies (after knowing them for a few years on-line) and real-world friendships I expect to endure have formed. Some have even blossomed into annual pilgrimages. None of that could have happened before the Internet very easily. And these aren't unhappy, poorly socialized, unfit, or immature folks - quite the contrary.
Then again, this may reflect the character of the populations of the lists I hang out on, the forums I frequent, etc. So maybe it is just a case of needing to expand your horizons?
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
I recall an early LPmud on our college campus back in 1989. There were players from all over the world, but it was most popular with local students.
Several of my good friends, almost none of them computer types, got very involved in it for a while. At the bar on Friday night everyone would be chattering about their characters or the new castle that just got added or whatever.
Today, these people include editors at major metropolitan newspapers, sports agents, on-air TV personalities, elected politicians, and successful musicians. They're all friendly, outgoing, popular, attractive, and "winners" by almost anyone's measure. None is overweight or a shut-in, and to the best of my knowledge their level of computer mastery (and interest) still hovers somewhere around email and MS Office.
Once in a while, when we get together, we still joke about the mud. It was a strange and interesting thing that intrigued intelligent people, no more, no less.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
I still can't figure out why so many of you think that those who play online games have no life outside of the game.
I have played EQ, and DAoC for the last year or so. This activity has in NO WAY affected my life negatively. I am married, have 2 kids and a full time job as a UNIX sys-admin. i wake up , go to work, come home, do homework with the kids, spend time with my wife till she is ready for bed. After she is tucked in, I go play daoc for a few hours till I am ready to goto bed and read for a while. No, not every night. Often, we have neighbors or family over. Spend time out on the weekends shopping, entertaining the kids etc..
The only way gaming has afected my life is that I spend less time watching tv and more time socializing with friends I have made online.
Many of these people play with real life friends and family. It is not just a bunch of ugly fat losers who have no social skills.
And specifically to that jerk who said that this guy should have spent less time in front of his computer and more time exercising, did you stop to think that MAYBE he had a congenital heart condition that prevented him from strenious exercise? Or one that could not be helped by it? Would you say he same thing to the numerous profesional athletes who have suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack? My Uncle suffers from a similair condition and I find your comment moronic and offensive.
Also to the guy who repeatedly posted wanting to know his name, did you watch the tribute movie posted on the link? And you call these people shallow and lacking in social skills. Just read a few of these posts. Those characteristics are obviously not limited to those who lay games online.
Online gaming and real life friends are NOT mutually exclusive.