6/9/07 Thursday

Been a while since I actually enjoyed my sleep at night, guess that you must be quite tired in order to achieve a good night of rest. Sleep aside, program this week, Game Conference Asia this weekend I believe though majority of the stuff will be business related and only open to traders and people who paid to attend.

This semester feels so arty and businessly with all my modules including my EE modules focusing a lot on business models and marketing stuff or very abstract metaphysical concepts. After 2 years of doing practical maths and science stuff, feel rather weird not having any to do because I just cannot get my engine starting.

Conclusion: Human always complain about their current situation, but given another situation, they will still have something to complain about.

Some story my guildmate posted on my guild forums:

Ok so heres the story... I come from an RP realm (let the flames begin) joining a guild that centres itself around RP doesn't care if you have epics, doesn't care what level you are. Just so long if you abide by the server rules, and enjoy storytelling etc, that sorta thing, you are welcomed with open arms. (that doesnt mean we all wear robes and try to do impressions of Gandalf)

On Moonglade our guild is somewhat respected for its RP, and being a guild officer, i have to deal with a lot of requests from people to join.

A few months ago i was in STV using the neutral action house, and i recieved a whisper from someone "please cn you help me with some quests" usually i'd just tell people i'm busy, or ignore them, but he actually made the effort to spell the word "please" instead of "plz" or the ever confusing "pl0x"

So off i went, with a lvl 34 Human Warrior, and helped this fella out with a few of his red quests.. We chatted a little whilst we played, and it came to my attention that this wasn't a very old player, as he kept on having to go "becuase dad neds 2 chek the emall" he also clearly had no idea how to play, kept on pointing at random objects and saying "coooooooooool!!", and by the state of his outfit, it looked like he hit mach 2 and collided with a Dorthy Perkins store.

Anyhoo.. After a few quests, i really had to go, he was a very polite kid unlike most that play, and actually said "thank you very much" instead of "thx" but then he started asking if he could join my guild.. Now i don't wanna sound big headed, but that sort of player isn't suited for an RP guild.. Atleast not the one i'm in.. Its like a fury spec warrior wearing all green items, asking to be main tank in an MC run.. Its just a big no no.

So not to hurt his feelings, i just told him we were full at the moment, he didn't mind, and bounced off into the sunset, again thanking me.

Over the course of the next few weeks, i would recieve messages from him, just random stuff of his progress, the occasional "ding! lvl 50 Cheesy" he wasn't one of these annoying people that you help once, and then they seem to think you're some sort of xp vendor for the remainder of there leveling process.

A few days ago i was in SW checking the AH, and some people were flaming some poor guy in the trade channel about selling an item for a high price... Afteri while i realised it was this kid that i helped out so long ago.. I didn't want to get involved and just let the flaming die down, but these idiots on the AH were just being really nasty to the poor kid, sure i know they probably didn't know his age, but still, you should be aware of that when playing games like this.

Anyway, a few hours later, i get a message from this kid "i got kicked from my guild Sad" i tried to cheer him up, but it wasn't happening.. And to be honest i couldnt be arsed trying, and i was tired and logged off.

So yesterday i log on, and say my usual hellos to everyone, and go to the mailbox.. When i get there, i see this kid sitting next to the mailbox, no guild tag, people bouncing around him having fun.. And theres him, all alone, no-one paying attention to a "noob".. Now i know human race facial expressions never change, but as far as avatars go, this one looked really depressed.

So i message him asking if hes cool, and he tells me hes thinking about quitting, becuase he gets bullied alot at school, and his ex guild mates all said really horrible things to him, and that he knew some of the kids in reality, becuase they go to his school, and are beggining to bully him in school about how he plays WoW etc. We all remember how it was.. I remember i used to get bullied in school for not having any toys, or having an old version of a toy.. Imagine it now, you get bullied about it at home AND school too.

Now this kid had got himself to lvl 62 under his own steam, where as the kids that were giving him a hard time, were all about level 20 and spent the majority of there time in Goldshire asking people to raid Crossroads.

So what did i do? I took the kid shopping is what i did... Bought him his epic (ground) mount, a load of nice armour off AH, which i made sure was well colour co-ordinated AND gave him very nice stats for his level. Bought him 2 very nice rare axes (fotgotten the name) and got a guild mate to put +15 agility on each one.

I also bought him a host of accessories, fun stuff, like a mana wyrm, somedeviate delights, an Orb of deception.. yunno.. all the "coooooool" stuff.

Then i invited him to an outing to Goldshire with 6 other guild friends, to casually walk past these bullies who kicked him from the guild. I then RPed the role that he was a great warrior, and saved me from some horrific fight etc etc blah blah.. The bullies then started to flame him in general chat about "noob" things hes done, so i told them hes one of the best PVPers i have ever met, and he won his epic mount from a bet, by defeating the most powerful PVP player on our realm (whoever that is.... sorry! hehe).

After a while, these kids started to change there attitude, and actually began to beg for him to rejoin there guild.. But i told him not to.. Instead, i helped him make his own guild, i bought his tabard, helped him with his spelling etc. And also helped him recruit enough members to get his charter registered.

Fast forward to today, and i get a mail from this kid.. Except its not the kid, its his Dad, thanking me.. He said i quote

"Dear Falcore

I want to thank you for helping my son in this game, he's been so excited for days about the new things you bought him, hes also been having a tough time in school latley, and we agreed we would get him this game as an escape, although latley its turned into nothing more than another source of bullying and abuse.

Thanks to you the little chaps smiling again.

Once again, lots of thanks!"

Now all of this cost me a total of 1600g-ish. Money that i was saving for my epic flying mount... But i tell ya, putting a smile on a bullied kids face like that is worth more than every epic in the game.

Moral of the story? Helping makes you feel happy, flaming just makes you an *!*@*#%.


Update 1

I never thought this post would become so popular, i honestly thought it would just become a huge flame war... It warms my heart to know there are still so many nice gamers out there.

Whether it be a game or not, this kind of kindness (everyones, not mine) is really lacking in this world, and to see so many smiling, and happy people, all gathered in one post really brings back my faith in humanity. You should all give yourselves a huge pat on the back for all being such ace people.

The replies i have ad in this post, i admit has made my "epeen" grow tremendously, and it would for any person, but if an "epeen" is a smile.. Then yes, my smile is bigger than ever before.. You have all made me a very happy person over the last few days, and it makes me happy that i'm making you happy, and that just makes me even more happy.

Update 2

I am sitting here in shock right now....

Someone today (about 2 hours ago) messaged me ingame, and asked me to meet him in Ironforge.. I actually thought it was a person who was asking to join the guild yesterday, to went to meet him... Well, you can imagine my surprise when he shoved 5999g into my trade window and said "you deserve it"

For now i shall keep this player anonymous, becuase i'm not sure if he wants his name stamped all over the forums, but if that person wishes to be known for his incredibly kind deed, please speak up.

Words simply can not express how kind that action was, you have made my day, and you have also put a breath of fresh air into the game for me, as i can now get to work on my Netherdrake.

Thank you thank you thank you... I'm in shock.

Falcore.

Quite a nice story on being nice :/