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WoW Guild Helps Cancer Victim in True Display of Selflessness

kotaku.com — If only we could get stories like this out to the public to show that all game players shouldn't be characterized as gun touting teenager pyschopaths!! Truly a wonderful story of how the gaming community comes together when others do not heed the call!

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  • ffingers, on 10/12/2007, -7/+32c'mon digg, let's try and get others to notice what the gaming culture is like when our friends are in need!
    • lordthor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20I nearly - Okay, Okay, I DID cry reading this... In the middle of work too. Hard to hide.
    • Trav3133, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4the gaming culture is a more rude than nice, especially in WoW, this is just one of those very rare occasions.
    • kodeiko, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@Trav3133: rare but happens.
    • MilitantQueer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Lordthor, I almost cried myself, it is a very touching story.

      These people are true heroes!
    • synthfx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4gaming culture is rude? when you step into a public server, of course ppl are rude. gaming is competitive. that's just the way it is. tho, i will say this: i was once part of a q3 clan. as competitive as it was, we were a tried and true circle of friends for over 2 years. as much as gamers appear to be hostile on the outside, it's only because they're playing AGAINST you. other than that, you have some noble ppl when you've got them playing on your side. =)
    • zer0cubed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The Second Life community is organizing an entire Relay For Life event in the virtual world to raise money for the American Cancer Society. More than US$25,000 raised so far. http://www.cancer.org/slrfl
    • gimlik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Can I get a copy and paste of the article, if it is legal? Give credit if possible...

      I can't view that webpage from work.
    • mxcl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I cry quite often at things that are sad, but this didn't move me. I think I'm somehow disconnected when it comes to the internet.

      And people are rude on public servers because they are anoymous. I have found on Xbox Live hardly anyone is rude because your gamertag is connected to you throughout your gaming life and people can record feedback against it. It makes a large difference and takes away a lot of the anonymity, as a result even teenages are pretty decent.

      Also the fact that you can talk rather than have to type everything takes away a lot of the urgency and makes everything stop looking sarcastic.
  • Eth4n, on 10/12/2007, -1/+39Very heartwarming. It's too bad that stories like these don't make it into the mainstream media.
    • Ottergoose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Too bad too. The media would rather scare you about MySpace than show the soft fuzzy side of the 'net and gamers.
  • xbxrx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Thats an amazing story, I myself being a huge WoW and FFXI player really know that having friends in your guild or linkshell is like having real friends who would do this kind of stuff for you it is such a nice thing to see people helping eachother out like that.
  • jdb252, on 10/12/2007, -32/+10I don't know what to say, other than that would make a great scam.

    Just kidding! Generous people.
    • Protonz, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15Actually, yesterday I was playing an online game where the entire team donated our virtual resources to 1 team member who promised to make us a hive with the res. Instead he took our resources and wasted them on a higher lifeform transformation.
      It felt kind of personal since he was talking over ingame voice communication, and lying so easily to us.
      / Game was HL Mod Natural Selection. Lifeform was Onos.
    • SmeRndmGy, on 10/12/2007, -13/+6"Actually, yesterday I was playing an online game where the entire team donated our virtual resources to 1 team member who promised to make us a hive with the res. Instead he took our resources and wasted them on a higher lifeform transformation.
      It felt kind of personal since he was talking over ingame voice communication, and lying so easily to us.
      / Game was HL Mod Natural Selection. Lifeform was Onos."

      If something like that upsets you, you need to get out more. It is just a game.
    • GNiMeLF, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@Protonz

      They nerfed Rez Giving in NS years ago...
    • alexw, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3There are plugins that allow you to donate res.
  • gmillerd, on 10/12/2007, -20/+3Then again there is the non-gun toteing people as well ... /pvp?

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7667194685876573666
  • saska, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9One can only hope they'd show the same attentiveness and generosity to the people in their own homes and families.
  • DamienChaos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23As a cancer survivor myself, I'd like to add that, although this type of financial support is heartwarming and unquestionably positive, the amount of social and emotional support one can receive through the internet while homebound is just as invaluable. Although we didn't have MMO's back in the mid 90's, IRC was my window to the outside world for a year. This Internet is an amazing invention, but the ability to interact with the people who populate it is the true asset.
  • blacklilyninja, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23WoW is a cancer that steals your life. (60 hunter and 60 mage)
    ...that being said guilds can be your best friends.
  • BevansDesign, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Yep, gamers can be just as kind (or evil) as normal people. I've had a few people from my guild offer to help pay my monthly fee while I'm unemployed, which was really cool. I declined, but I was surprised by their generosity.
  • radu79, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15As a small MMO owner, I can attest that many players are very generous and kind. Our game is free, no banners or anything, and it's our players that kept us floating. I've also noticed that many guilds also help eachother in real life as well, if they have the means to.
    Of course, it is not the MMO itself that is responsible for that, it's the idea of a community, be it virtual or real. Long time ago, when there was no Internet, neighbours still helped eachother, if they could. But now the Internet makes it easier to help, you can send money witha few clicks of the mouse.
    • No1nose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I checked out your MMO. It looks cool and I will try it out later today.
    • LarianLeQuella, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Dowloading it now. May have time to play it in Korea when I get there.
    • radu79, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If you have any problems or questions, feel free to post on our forums or use the #help_me command, and our volunteers staff members will answer your questions.
    • Vinnie87, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What is the name of your MMO?
  • dcarpenter85, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7My guild found this story very touching, we are all glad to be part of a community of people who genuinely care about one another. Stories like this make me proud to be an mmo gamer.
  • mafalda, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6i am impressed and moved
  • pathy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8This just shows what friends are.

    Friends built online, through games, through message boards, through IRC, through however else the ***** you meet them, are just as good, if not better, than the people you make contact with, up close and personal.

    ***** getting told to go outside. I'm happy to sit here, chatting with people from all around the ***** world, that I get along with, and enjoy my time with. If I'm ever in trouble, they're gonna help me out.

    With the Guild matter, this is just showing how well guilds and clans get along. These are just groups of people that play games together, they're friends. They know and care for each other.

    Oh, and in closing...

    Gamers. *****. Rule.
    • t928, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3That was passionate, but I think it is peoples' generosity as humans that caused them to donate, not that gamers are a higher breed of people. Anonymity usually causes people to go the opposite way, actually.
  • xutopia, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Of course you have the other side of the coin. A funeral crashing party.

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7667194685876573666
  • LarianLeQuella, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4As a guild leader in DAoC, I can honestly say that the bonds formed are some of the most enduring that I have managed to find on the internet. I have had the opportunity to travel all over the world, and have the pleasure to meet many of my guildmates, and they are all to a person wonderful people.

    Many ages ago, a very simmilar thing happened on the Guinevere Server in DAoC. Granted, it wasn't anything as dire as cancer, but the community did pull together, and helped a very nice couple out of dire financial straits brought on by an emergancy surgery. They even offered them a place to live, with an upgrade to their own place (someone's mom was a landlord). It was a very heartwarming and compelling story.

    One thing to watch out for, the VN forums are also full of hearless bastards that will try to bilk people's generosity for their own gain. Etwor has died at least 4 times through various heroic acts and such, if you know what I mean. But generally, the fake cases are easy to root out, and the gaming community can keep pulling together to support those we call friends, even if we only know them through an avatar.
  • Darkkish, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Definitly proof of what was stated in the title, to bad no one could manage to get this into the media, pull some strings or something, people are too busy to check these things out for themselves, one kid goes on a rampage and all of a sudden every video gamer around is treated like a danger to society. Videogames are the cause of this, so lets shut them down completely, instead of paying attention to what our kids are doing. A touching story and rather shocking even to myself, that there are still such generous people in this world. Also I hope this guy makes a full recovery!
    • saska, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The real tragedy of MMO games is a largely unreported one and it's passed around with a nervous laugh as a "joke," or something that happens to other people, among players: many can't figure out how to balance their real lives with their virtual ones.

      I -personally- know 7 men who lost their girlfriends, wives, or families by choosing to play the game of WoW instead of the game of life. All in the same guild, too.
    • LarianLeQuella, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Saska does point out a "dirty little secret" of MMOs. Sadly, those people display many other behavioural problems that would ultimately lead to the same results, it's just more accessible to get lost in an MMO, and the fact that an MMO specifically is created to cater to the task/reward system doesn't help these people deal with their other problems that are not getting addressed because a game is covering up the underlying root of many problems. (Whoa, what a run on!)

      Anyways, don't blame the game before taking a serious look at the individual playing it. And that can be said about ANY activity really.
    • saska, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4While I categorically blame the people and not the game, you can't separate the two due ot the very factors you point out. If you have a chance to see your gamer friends in real life and they repeatedly pass because they've got a Guild thing to do, I seriously recommend giving them a swift whap upside the head.

      When I was in college (lo those many years ago) I helped to run three very large text-based MUDs. I'd have people PMing me asking me to disable their characters during the week leading up to finals because they couldn't stay away themselves. Since I was mostly babysitting terminals in a WYSE lab, I spent most of my time dealing with the MUD while I was at work, but just seeing that behavior in other players put me off actually playing permanently. Ultimately I quit my involvement because I didn't want to be a part of that.

      To be fair: many of the people I knew in real life and worked with on those projects (the programmers and writers) are still my good friends 15 years later and we've all come out unscathed. The current glut of graphics-based MMO games offers something that kept the larger population from playing MUDs in the early days - the visual and immersive experience.
    • repomonkey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@ Saska - I'm sure it won't be a popular sentiment, but you're absolutely right. I've seen it happen myself many times - it was one of the reasons I quit WoW.
    • t928, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's all about finding a balance, and it helps to have people who can call you on it when you are getting too caught up in something. I've personally had that problem before, but not that seriously.
  • pointblank187, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Stories like this and the fact that statistically we have the most non-violent generation of youth are what should be portrayed. Despite the "video games are bad for society" mentality that mainstream media and the ever knowledgeable U.S politicians want to tell us things like this do get brought to light. Unfortunately, these things all go against the grain of their fear mentality that they want to make everyone think is going on. This was truly an inspirational story and one that deserves much more recognition than it will probably receive.
  • elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Something like this happened once on a forum I was on. Some guy needed a transplant, but he could afford it, so the whole forum pitched in and donated thousands of dollars. He died a couple weeks later.. a couple thousand dollars richer.
    • poobread, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I wonder why the forum even did it if he COULD afford it.

      (Yeah, you got what was coming to you.)
  • we.are.devo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yeah, it's great that the Epic Cure for Cancer dropped, but I heard a Hunter rolled on it and hearthed.
  • JMJimmy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Truely wonderful how truely heartfelt and deep connections can develop over such a thin veil.
    • antihexe, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Hate to be a grammar nut, but it is "truly".
    • JMJimmy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks for the correction!
  • Silverphoenix55, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2However hard to believe it may be, there are some great people playing WoW. GG guys.
  • dragonmortal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3they could probably cure cancer if every WoW player payed 15 dollars a month to the cause
    • romainechester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Amen to that.
    • jeet404, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I totally agree but I think it would have made more sense if you said if they found a cure for cancer.
    • crimson117, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or if every dollar wasted on a war were directed towards humanitarian goals, or if every bottle of water was instead a glass from the tap (in areas with safe tap water), etc. There are million things you can imagine directing money from and to.

      My favorite illustration of this is Ben's BB's: http://www.truemajority.org/bensbbs
    • crimson117, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Gah, I meant his oreos analogy: http://truemajority.org/oreos
  • taylorhayward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Great story.
  • hvatsun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1ah geez, i love you guys.
  • HPSauce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This gave me the sniffles. Bravo to the guy who recovered, and his guild for the amazing support! It's a shame you don't see that even with your closest friends and neighbours these days :(
  • Hawkstra, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0omg, thats like, WoW

    (Bet you the 60 priests in the guild did a little more to do with his recovery.) :D
  • Solafa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I play wow and i am close with many people in my guild. I talk all the time to them on venterilo and/or msn messenger. Its nice to see people helped him, its a good think that the game was able to do that for them. Its sad to see the government not doing anything to help thou.
  • Sedren, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Hawkstra
    Yea, I tried to cast Greater Heal first, but that just doesn't work too well in real life, hehe.

    (And yes, this is the same Sedren that is mentioned in the article)
    Was shocked to see someone found our story digg worthy, not that I mind :-)
  • skatopia69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0World of Warcraft can be a very friendly game when ur in a guild (like a clan)
  • mandarin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hey can Digg do something about this?
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