Friendship is futile

For almost 4 years i am playing Guild Wars. For about 3,5 years i run a guild in game and have witnessed all kind of nice and lesser nice moments.

The sudden death of a good friend, George was the most emotional moment for me and my fellow gamingfriends. In februar it will be two years ago he passed away. There are those moments i still think about him. In late hours we could talk about lot´s of things, sharp conversations with often a nice twist and laugh. Those days we wandered the beautifull sights of Tyria, looking for some nice things, a foe here and there...just playing together and chitchatting all the way along. All kinds of subjects passing by, politics, economics, sports etc... The game made it possible to get to know eachother. That is a power of a game such as Guild Wars. On the other hand...when people passes away you also get to know that life can be influenced, but it could be over with a snap of you´re fingers.

For some people the game is becoming a way of life, thats something which scares me the most. They lose every way of reality. They hide behind their in game character eager to find some wealth, prestige and satisfation. In real life they miss a lack of socializing skills resulting in less acceptance by real people. Typing you're feelings in a MMO is mostly misinterpretted due to a lack of non verbal coommunication. Maybe that's something MMO-developers should implement in the future. A way to express you're emotion is in my opinion something which good give more understanding how someone is feeling. Just like the ambiant lightning effects which comes with certain Philips consumer televisions. The movie you're watching and the mood the movie is in shows particular colors. The same idea could be used in MMO's. A kind of color glow at the feet or when a 3d variation is possible the expressions on the face could be made shown to other players just by using a shortcut.