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The Warriors Stood in the Shape of a Heart
Posted by
chrisd
on Fri Sep 06, 2002 04:08 AM
from the death-online dept.
from the death-online dept.
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."
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I wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's next to impossible to find a (FPS) game with friendly fire enabled that you don't find kiddies shooting you in the back for fun - let alone not shooting the other team..
*Oops, trigger slipped*
This gesture..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This gesture..... (Score:5, Funny)
I find it humorous that such a statement can be made in this day and age... Back 30 years ago (or today in a public school) that same statement would land you in jail or a looney ward. Today... It's a common statement among the plugged in crowd and is understood by the non-plugged in.
Parent
Re:This gesture..... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:This gesture..... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:This gesture..... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:This gesture..... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:This gesture..... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with you, and think you are totally right. I know a lot of people who have the "in depth" relationships online and it really seems (not a flame/troll) that these people lack real social skills, or are at least uncomfortable with themselves.
I have never met someone who talks about EQ or Muds who is a well-rounded individual. Fit, eats right, talks right, and has any degree of charisma about them. They all seem to be either shy, ugly (sorry, but it's true), can't speak well, or has about as much charisma as a lepar.
I'm not saying a lot of the people online aren't nice. Many of them are really nice, and friendly. The problem is online they aren't who they are in real life. I know people from IRC, I used to IRC when I had more time for open source projects but that was why I was there and why they were there. Not because we needed a social interaction outside of reality.
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.
Don't worry, I think I'll get hit with it now..
Parent
Limited Viewpoint (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Parent
Re:This gesture..... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:This gesture..... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This gesture..... (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, I've won Excellent karma in the Slashdot game. Lend me $50. I'm good for it. You can trust the karma.
Lv99? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Virtual funerals is a business already (Score:3, Interesting)
how to honor death online (Score:4, Interesting)
I play in a chat-based RPG known as A Call To Duty [acalltoduty.com]. 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.
Re:how to honor death online (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, it's for the friends and family he left behind to decide what is an appropriate way to celebrate his passing. (Personally I found this gesture rather beautiful.)
Parent
A nice way to be remembered... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
was another one oftehese a while ago (Score:4, Insightful)
the guy died on operating table, all realms united for the funeral and made this movie, quite touching movie brought a tear to my eye
BBS days (Score:4, Funny)
After the incident the welcome screen was modified to read "Welcome to xxxx BBS" and down near the bottom: "Frags: 1"
frag (Score:3, Informative)
Too easy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
"You don't care as much, so you don't count" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
With all due respect: bollocks (Score:3, Insightful)
And does one really have to see the grief of the deceased's relatives to make ones own grief more valid or real? At a funeral, one may find comfort in the presence of others that share ones grief. That is the purpose of these virtual funerals. Friends of the deceased gather to share the grief and thereby easing it somewhat, not because it is a k3wl thing to do in-game.
I have lost 2 friends whom I have met only through an online game (Ultima Online). I personally found much comfort in attending their in-game funeral. (incidently, it usually is the person him/herself who is remembered and "buried", not their character). Oh, these friends died over a year ago but yes, I still remember them.
Re:Too easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
I hope this makes it to CNN... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I hope this makes it to CNN... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me if CNN did run it, there'd be quite a few people raising their eyebrows in front of their TV's, probably saying to themselves that this was the ultimate in withdrawal from the real world, maybe even convincing themselves that the participants are even more of freaks than they previously thought. Especially considering the spin CNN'd put on it.
I don't even know myself if I believe online socialization can healthily substitute for real-life contact. But I'd like to think I have an open mind.
I was there (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:I was there (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't know anything, stop talking. Truth told, you can dig up 15 - 25 hours a week for any hobby you damn well please, even with a wife and three kids. The kids go to bed at 8pm? Great, you and the spouse have ~3-4 hours to do what you want every day. Gives you at least 20 hours a week with the kids asleep! Hmm, also, on Saturdays and Sundays, the kids are playing with their toys collectively for ~3-4 hours while awake. Gives you and the spouse a total of 27 - 36 hours a week for hobbies. Say you want to spend mmmmmm half of it with the sig other. Gives you 14 - 18 hours a week to do whatever the hell, while you work a full time job, WHILE you spend every waking moment during the week with the kids! Meaning, your kids get ~30 hours of attention a week! Considering I read a study awhile back saying men spend less than an hour a day on average with their kids, I'd say even with a 20 hour a week hobby you could still come out way above the average.
People without children don't know what it means to be on a tight schedule.
Parent
Re:I was there (Score:3, Insightful)
In EverQuest too... (Score:5, Interesting)
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
I don't know... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
It's amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Online Community... (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [floridatoday.com].
If you know someone in a certain context you tend to want to memorialize them in that context.
Rest in Peace
To Know What it is Like (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Why must we analysis everything? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
For some people, a virtual life is all they get (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:The line between virtual reality and reality... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's pretty cool.
Parent
Re:The line between virtual reality and reality... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re:The line between virtual reality and reality... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:The line between virtual reality and reality... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Err (Score:3, Insightful)
And of course, I didn't just respond to a post from a person, just to a bunch of electrons (well, deep down, we're all just clouds of atoms and electrons anyway)?
Re:Err (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Err (Score:3, Insightful)
In this case, a well known and respected member of the community passed away, and the other members of the community paid their respects. It baffles me that you find that "sick."
DennyK
Re:Err (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Err (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Impressive... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Parent
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The really disturbing thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Parent