Not sure if folks have seen this amazing story which shows the good side of the community.

The link is to the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-47064773

Be safe.

Nice read.

Many non-gamers (mostly older folk) don't recognize the community and people we meet as fellow gamers being friends and sometimes more.

You can 100% cultivate real friendships via the internet and even through gaming. I have had some very long friendships with fellow gamers stretching back to EQ1, 18 years ago.

It's remarkable that they believed that he died.

Don't get me wrong, it's a touching story...but for instance, a few years ago, I was heavily involved in a low-tech mmorpg called Shartak. It was similar, I suppose to SWG, in that it was sandbox game, and a lot of what you did there was making up roleplay stories with other people and duking it out on the forum. One of the players everyone knew quite well was named Keichii. One day, on the forum, Keichii announced on the forum that he had died suddenly irl, and that his dad was writing this to inform the players who were his friends. Just like this story, the dad claimed he had found his son's passwords for this game, and was aware of the online community his son was connected to.

But keichii hadn't died. There was a bit of rumbling initially from some players who thought this story just sounded too unbelievable to be true - really, his dad is reaching out to us on the forum? - but generally most people believed the story, and asked where to send condolences, when the funeral would be, etc. And then Keichii returned a few days later and claimed it was all a joke.

I actually came to the game about six months after this happened, and met keichii. This incident had -obviously- caused him to be ostracized from the community. He'd given his character and passwords to a rando and started a new character, one that my character liked and befriended, and it was several years later that he told me he'd been Keichii. I asked him why he did this and he just said it seemed like fun at the time.

The upshot is that while I liked his character well enough, and liked the player well enough to add him to Facebook, finding this out was a catalyzing moment that made me disinterested in the game and remaining friends with the guy in any capacity. And of course his old friends hated him, and I doubt any of us would be likely to trust someone who claimed the player had died irl, or view a story like this with anything but deep, irrational, suspicion.

It's remarkable that they believed that he died.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's a touching story...but for instance, a few years ago, I was heavily involved in a low-tech mmorpg called Shartak. It was similar, I suppose to SWG, in that it was sandbox game, and a lot of what you did there was making up roleplay stories with other people and duking it out on the forum. One of the players everyone knew quite well was named Keichii. One day, on the forum, Keichii announced on the forum that he had died suddenly irl, and that his dad was writing this to inform the players who were his friends. Just like this story, the dad claimed he had found his son's passwords for this game, and was aware of the online community his son was connected to.

 

But keichii hadn't died. There was a bit of rumbling initially from some players who thought this story just sounded too unbelievable to be true - really, his dad is reaching out to us on the forum? - but generally most people believed the story, and asked where to send condolences, when the funeral would be, etc. And then Keichii returned a few days later and claimed it was all a joke.

 

I actually came to the game about six months after this happened, and met keichii. This incident had -obviously- caused him to be ostracized from the community. He'd given his character and passwords to a rando and started a new character, one that my character liked and befriended, and it was several years later that he told me he'd been Keichii. I asked him why he did this and he just said it seemed like fun at the time.

 

The upshot is that while I liked his character well enough, and liked the player well enough to add him to Facebook, finding this out was a catalyzing moment that made me disinterested in the game and remaining friends with the guy in any capacity. And of course his old friends hated him, and I doubt any of us would be likely to trust someone who claimed the player had died irl, or view a story like this with anything but deep, irrational, suspicion.

It's hard to trust someone after they lie, especially if it's a serious lie about someone's death etc.

I always found the worst type of player the kind that lies to get things in a game.

On EQ1, one guy had a reputation of joining guilds then once they trusted him he would wait for them to recharge their expensive and really rare clickies when they went to recharge these items on hidden vendors.

He was ostracized by many, and luckily he was unable to change his main toon's name being this was on an EMU server that rarely allowed name changes.

I will never understand how pixels are worth ruining other's trust for oneself. Plus, how dirty would it feel knowing that you stole ingame items from people that trusted you? I believe thieves in games are equally shady IRL.

This same guy would say "it's just a game" and other lame excuses for why he stole the guilds stuff but there's no justification for being a thief imo. I put stealing right up there with lying. Both destroy trust.

It's hard to trust someone after they lie, especially if it's a serious lie about someone's death etc.

 

I always found the worst type of player the kind that lies to get things in a game.

 

On EQ1, one guy had a reputation of joining guilds then once they trusted him he would wait for them to recharge their expensive and really rare clickies when they went to recharge these items on hidden vendors.

 

He was ostracized by many, and luckily he was unable to change his main toon's name being this was on an EMU server that rarely allowed name changes.

 

I will never understand how pixels are worth ruining other's trust for oneself. Plus, how dirty would it feel knowing that you stole ingame items from people that trusted you? I believe thieves in games are equally shady IRL.

 

This same guy would say "it's just a game" and other lame excuses for why he stole the guilds stuff but there's no justification for being a thief imo. I put stealing right up there with lying. Both destroy trust.

Agreed, people that just use Guids like that disgust me. It's supposed to be a community of like-minded individuals, if not friends, not something you can just use to get free stuff while lying about it.

Back when I started with online gaming, I always treated it the same as anything online with hiding anything remotely identifiable about yourself even to the point of not even using a voice chat just on the chance anyone online could be some maniac who'd track you down and leave you dead in a ditch somewhere. I know this isn't normal, but my family's always one to automatically think the worst so when it doesn't happen, then you can be genuinely happy.

It wasn't until years later when at a past job talking with my co-workers we all found out we all were playing WoW Hordeside and ended up forming a work guild. Made for some interesting times when we couldn't have a team meeting at work due to scheduling so we'd have it in WoW while running something. I still laugh at getting told how my phone stats were with a need to work on my call times and keep an eye on my threat since it's getting up there.

That was the start of my opening up a bit once I got to know guildies better. It's ended up with friendships that have lasted past our time with a particular game, we're facebook friends and keep in touch to the point if I go over to Europe, I'll have places to stay and people to show me around same as if they come to America, they're welcome to crash at my place and I'll be happy to show them around. Stateside we've had get togethers for the hell of it. We mail each other for birthdays and holidays with gifts and cards, and I've even gone to a few weddings. Last one was for my old Raiding guild leader from WoW and yeah, he introduced me and my fiance to her as 'zombie DPS and Orc tank'.

As I get up in age, I have made a list of phone numbers and emails of my online friends so if something happens, my family knows who to get in touch with. My eventual funeral's going to be a wierd one with my family sharing stories and my friends sharing 'there we were in a game' stories.