The World of Warcraft community showed their character today by rallying around to help a new 50 year old player with a touching backstory.
The story? He’s the father of a US soldier lost in the Iraqi war. To help deal with his grief, he’s started trying out the things his son used to do to connect with him, and WoW was one of those things.
A day of work later and his post is filled with 500 comments, giving helpful advice, condolences, and many expressions of empathy, and sympathy as well. Needless to say he was touched by the responses, and is likely to be coached to the level of maxing out in no time.
You can read the whole thread here, but here’s his post, including the original text and his response a day later.
So im older (late 50’s) and my son used to play lots of WOW while he was recovering after getting hit by a mortar in iraq. Recently he passed away and I decided that I wanted to connect with areas of my sons life I never understood. WOW is one of those areas. I am totally overwhelmed right now. I watched a youtube video and decided instances looked like a lot of fun. I “ran” 2 dungeons this weekend. Whatever druid kept resurrecting me – thanks. I had a lot of fun. I know what clicked with son and it clicked with me. I want to keep playing but right now I feel like a drain on any groups unfortunate enough to get stuck with me. Are there any guides on how not to suck? I’m playing a destruction warlock. I’ve poked around on google but ABP goes nuts whenever I click on a link so I am a bit gun shy. Where the hell do I even start?
Edit: I got back from work last night and logged into reddit to see if any more responses had come in. I am in shock. The outpouring of support and condolences boggles my mind. I would like to thank all you individually for your support and kindness. That total strangers would extend their sympathies to me and that a game was the catalyst is something amazing. Since my son passed I have struggled tremendously coming to terms with the new reality I am part of. I am humbled at the collective love and kindness shown to me – a total stranger – by the members of this community. It’s been challenging to respond because I am overwhelmed. I can clearly see what was so engrossing about the game and most important I know first hand about the quality people who play it. Several of you have reached out to me privately with offers of support and friendship both in the game and in real life. I will do my best to respond to all of you. Thank you so very much. This means so much to me I can’t accurately describe it.
Now, since I neglected to say this up front about my character: Alliance destruction warlock on muradin currently lvl 35.
