The death of a player in Final Fantasy XIV led to stunning images on the servers over the weekend as players spontaneously gathered for a massive funeral.
In the Final Fantasy subreddit, a 29-year-old player posted that his RL friend, the bard player Codex Vahla, has been brain dead in the hospital since Friday due to complications from a failed surgery to treat a kidney disease. He is being kept alive artificially so that his family can say their goodbyes. From this post on reddit, a funeral spontaneously emerged as more and more players made their pilgrimage to the guild house.
At a beach near the house, players then bid farewell using the game’s mechanics. With spells and abilities, they drew a final greeting in the evening sky over Eorzea. These images were reportedly streamed into the hospital room of the dying man. There, the family of the dying man was said to be very moved.
http://youtu.be/8YrhGja3Ghs
It is a sensitive topic in MMORPGs. A topic that many long-time players will eventually face. What do you do when a player you know, with whom you’ve spent a lot of time, has health problems? What do you do when they succumb to those problems? How does one mourn in a virtual world for a real loss? Often, this is done in silence. Not everyone is so rooted in the virtual community or has RL friends who bring it to light.
As players, perhaps as friends, one might not even realize that someone is really struggling. Eventually, one might only see that someone no longer logs in. One might not think twice when a spot on the friends list remains empty. Not every death is public, not every relationship is structured in such a way that one discusses real-life problems with each other. The more virtual worlds become part of our real lives, the more we are confronted with the question of how we say goodbye and how we want to say goodbye.
