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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."
You're kinda missing the point. There was a community that has been developed through the guild. One of its members died - not left, not terminated his account, died. As a result, the community felt a rather sharp sense of loss. His character didn't die, he did. I think it's a very good example of being in TOUCH with reality, and choosing to take a moment out of the virtual world's rules to honor him. If they were disconnected from reality, they wouldn't really have given a rip. They were holding a funeral for HIM, the player behind Warsinger, not for the character Warsinger. They chose to honor him in a way rather well suited to the game.
I think it's pretty cool.
just further proves the depth of the relationships that are kindled through online gaming. For all of us who have logged on at 4am just to talk to friends and occasionally do some killing it is nice to see this sense of community alive and well. I just hope there weren't any trolls wandering around causing unnecessary mayhem at such a sacred time.
I do indeed think Warsinger was honored by this, and my respects go out to all who attended and made a great statement about community spirit.
The flippant end comment was just a lame attempt at getting +1 funny for once. Clearly it was in bad taste. My apologies.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
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.
And I'm a slashbot who spits out random characters to form random words to form random sentences, right? I mean, I'm not a person, just a bunch of electrons, apparently.
There are people behind the words. In a game like DAOC, you start to care deeply about them. Friendships and bonds are formed. When they're broken by death, "silly displays of emotion" are quite called for, and the medium of their relationships made the medium of their rememberance quite fitting.
Amazing how jaded some people can be.
Back in the days of BBSing there was this BBS in Rochester, NY, and one of the users of this BBS had a heart attack while online.
After the incident the welcome screen was modified to read "Welcome to xxxx BBS" and down near the bottom: "Frags: 1"
In a very similar way, my local football team, Nottingham Forest, held a minute's silence at the start of their last home game to commemorate the death of one of their old players. No one thought that the line between sport and the rest of life was being blurred in an inappropriate way, or that everyone in the ground should have gone and attended his funeral instead. It was a tribute to the man by the club and it's fans, in the same way that this was a tribute to the man from the online community through which he knew them.
This isn't the first time this happened. A player in Ultima Online passed away a couple of years ago and a Gamemaster created an invulnerable dolphin with his name on his home server.
s200.org - visit it (me), love it (me).
Even death has become too easy, you can sorrow online and forget it tomorrow.
You cannot see the grief of the relatives, you cannot see the pain or the sadness, it's all game. Do online gamers really understand that a real person died, not a character. Is the sorrow similar to one you feel when the main character in your favorite book dies?
My brother died few months ago, he was very active quake player, member of a succesfull clan etc. His clan mates had never met him in real life, but they were as close as someone can be virtually/online. Now six months later they barely remember he ever was in their clan. Instead his real life friends still grief him frequently.
In my opinion everything online is a shadow of the same thing in real life - even emotions.
Sadly an anonymous coward playing ruined the moment seconds after that picture was taken by casting a fireball spell that engulfed the circle of mourners and gained 60,000 XP.
In some cultures, particularly those that notice St. Valentine's Day, the heart represents love. I'm willing to bet what little karma I have the mourners meant no offense.
Jack
Yes, I'm next to "Highlander Warrior" on the right proudly holding my Realm Keepers shield with my helmet removed in tribute. I set my alarm clock to get up unusually early specifically to travel (yes *travel*, its a long and dangerous way from Cornwall to Hadrians Wall)
I can't believe the number of "pathetic loser" comments that I'm seeing here. Yes, this is a game, but no it does NOT substitute for real life. We are not detatched from reality. DaoC is the very first MMORPG that I've ever played and it did not take me very long to realize that with the gameplay comes a great deal of human interaction, far beyond just "fragging" people in a FPS.
You truly build and associate with a community of people that you enjoy and care about. One couple in my guild (yes, most of us are over 30, married and have spouses and children that play) just had a baby and we all celebrated. One guild member was just called up to active duty in the reserves and we saluted him when he left (and he is missed already).
If you had a co-worker die, I hope that you would be touched and saddened. These are people that I know and care about....why is this pathetic?
Simusid Hawke
Level 42 Armsman
Albion/Pellinor
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
Understandably some of those posts are intended to be trolls and flamebait, but even those intentions in this topic are incredibly thoughtless and a sad indicator of the mentality of too many people in my generation.
This person's death was mourned in a fairly uncommon way and seems worthy of some attention and respect. At the same time, I'm not suggesting that death has to be completely serious and solemn -- I hope when I die my friends and family will hold a party in my honor with laughter and lots of food. But even in a light-hearted situation as that may be, thoughtless comments still do not have any place.
I feel sorry for those that feel this person has wasted his life simply because he found it easier to make friends online than in real life. Having had many online friendships, some still exist today, I can say from experience that I have not forgotten these individuals in as much as they revealed to me.
Certainly knowing someone in real life is more conducive to creating much stronger bonds among people, but it did say his sister and girlfriend were online in the middle of the heart, so that suggests he did indeed have some sort of life beyond the game.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
And maybe they don't know the person as well or don't miss as much as the family of the person who died. So what.
But don't you dare say they don't have the right to morn at all. Online is a way to bring together people from across the world who would otherwise be left out. It's not as close as in person, but it is much better than nothing.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Maximum level in DAoC is 50. And I don't think they would've held a funeral near a Lv99 mob like the Dragon.
That said - I wish I'd known about this. I play DAoC and knew nothing. Of course, it WAS on a different server.
I'm honestly surprised at how few people showed up in that picture - That's on par with a single realm's RvR zerg, and word tends to spread REALLY fast throughout a realm in DAoC. If I'd been on the server in question (Pellinor, I play on Lancelot), I would've been there.
Strange thing was, I was at Beno last night... For the first time ever.
One other odd thing to note: It looks like the screenshot was made by someone not from the guild/realm holding the funeral, as the shot is almost all Midgard players but they have the generic "not from your realm" names. I also see a couple of generic Albion tags, so the shot must've been taken by a Hibernian.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Online Communities are not just made up of people who have met online. Sometimes real life friends organize to get together online to enjoy a game together.
I don't know Warsinger or his player. Never met him in real life or in DaoC.
But I find that this gesture is a very nice one, and probably not the only gesture to commemorate this individual's passing. I'm sure his face to face friends met face to face to lay him to rest. His online gaming friends met online to commemorate his passing.
This is no weirder than running a marathon to remember someone who ran marathon's or launching Gene Roddenberry's ashes into space.
If you know someone in a certain context you tend to want to memorialize them in that context.
Rest in Peace
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
In real life if a student of a school dies, or an employee of a company, or a member of a sporting team dies do we not hod a memorial to that person IN the place we know him? Do we not stop the sports game and have a moments silence? Do we not pause or work and remember that person? These people knew this guy in his game. This is how they meet him, talked to him, interacted with him. THIS is the place where they will miss him, this is where they have spent time with the person, building a relationship and getting to know him. So what if they have never seen his picture? So what if they what if they only know him from a game? How is this different to knowing someone from a sporting club? Do we not stop the game and have a moments silence anyway?
Nobody thinks anything when a former great of a sporting club dies of that club holding a memorial to him before their next game, even though most of the people don't know the person. Just the image, just the story. Just the media.
I too got a tear to the eye when I heard this story. This person meant a lot too his clan. The fact that other players showed the humanity to the other players to allow them to hold a memorial to their fallen comrade says great things about the community spirit that the games has, and should be let to stand as the monument it is.
A memorial to a fallen friend by his comrades and those that WILL miss him.
As a monument to the humanity of man.
As a monument to the potential of the internet to allow people from all over the world to contact each other. Build a community of the whole and to develop friendships with people who we would otherwise never have meet.
Please detractors, leave it alone. Respect the wishes and the morning of these people and allow them the genuineness of their grief without debate.
Tomorrow their will be a new topic for debate. Now we have the chance to foster that community. I urge detractors to read the logs of linked at the top. After reading them I have no doubt that the feelings where genuine, and the symbolism of this memorial a powerfully healing experience for those suffering lose at his death.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Warsinger was his real name to the people he gave that name to. I know several people I've met in real life only by the names they chose for themselves in online games/IRC, etc. Lots of people know me the same way. Warsinger, Fred Jones, the name his parents gave him, or whatever, they all point to the same person. Who cares what his legal name was?
We've done similar things in WWII Online, as well, with honor guards and gun salutes on the ground. Really, it's no more silly than corresponding 'real life' rituals of a similar nature are.
I consider the people I meet on line and get to know every bit as much friends as my non-virtual friends--and several of them, I've taken the trouble to meet in real life, too. I am happy for them when they marry or have children--I am sad for them when they suffer loss. If the place I interact with them most happens to be a virtual world, then I don't see the problem expressing my condolences in that forum as well.
Some of the most touching gestures I've seen--on line or in real life--ever, was some of the interactions between people on the WWII OL boards on September 11th last year. A lot of people lived in New York--one prominent member of the community works for NYPD and was at the collapse. Several others had friends or family in the towers and were frantic with grief. One guy, in particular, was out of his mind with worry over his fiance, who was working in one of the towers, while he was out on a trip in my neck of the woods (opposite coast). Several of us offered immediately to just go be with him, to get drunk, or whatever... I don't know if he took anyone up on it (thankfully, two days later he found out she was all right) but try getting that sort of response out of any other group of strangers you just happen to be around. As someone else said, a community is a community, whether virtual or real.
No relation to Happy Monkey
I have seen many comments on the perceived shallowness of an on-line gamer's life.. the "get a life" syndrom. But what if an on-line life is the only life you have access to?
Many people who are physically restricted in their movements find that on-line life is vastly superior to having only doctors and nurses for "friends". Warsinger, with a heart problem, may not have had access to a girlfriend in the "real world" but in a gamer's world he did.
There are lots of reasons people move to on-line life for therapy. I had a young IRC friend who used her on-line life to recover from years of sexual abuse. In my case an on-line life helped me recover from a terrible accident that left me unable to walk at all for a year, and without help for a decade.
Under these circumstances, any friends at all, even "virtual" friends are a step up from what they've got now. And enough of them find their way out of whatever darkness they're in now because of their friends on line.
The expression of sorrow on the part of these gamers for a friend touched me deeply. Some of us have to make our community where we can get the access. And heroic hearts often dwell in unlikely bodies.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
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."