Recently, the guild All Good Things on Kargath lost one of their longtime players. Feelan, one of their guild's holy priests, passed away from cancer in early December -- shortly after he was finally able to meet his online friends. Now the guildmates are wondering what they can do to remember their friend in-game. Kesryth suggests that Blizzard add Feelan's character to one of the floating islands in Nagrand, where he can stand and watch the sunset in his favorite zone.

As unlikely as that sounds, Blizzard has done almost exactly the same thing before. The NPC Caylee Dak, on the Aldor Rise, memorializes a member of the guild "Boulderfist Heroes" who died of cancer. Caylee wears the exact same gear that she had when Dak (the player behind the avatar) passed away. Her faithful pet stands by her side. Caylee is even the ending point of a quest for Alliance players to deliver her a poem about death.

Players have made their own memorials to lost friends. An Alliance guild walked a dead guildmate's character (played by his wife) to one of the towers in Hillsbrad, where he enjoyed to PvP. A score of Chinese gamers held a hilltop service for a girl who died from ... uh, apparently playing too much WoW. Blizzard memorialized one of its own at the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior in the Barrens. And, of course, there's the infamous funeral-crashing of Serenity Now on Illidan.

It's tough to figure out how to deal with death on the internet. On one hand, people can form deep attachments in community games such as WoW. But on the other hand, there's a strong contingent of idiots on the forums posting stuff like "lol wut did he drop?" whenever someone on a server dies. What do you think is the appropriate way to handle the death of a fellow player?

Is Blizzard doing something unethical by producing and selling World of Warcraft? Rather than just the ol' "MMO games are too addictive" angle, an article in Australia's The Age (seriously, it's always the Aussies) has a new twist: game companies like Blizzard are actually "exploiting" their own players by implementing a reward system that keeps people playing.

In a sense, um... yeah. Game companies have gotten the art of rewarding down to a science-- every great videogame out there lately is really terrific at balancing the challenge of playing with a suitable reward, whether that be an amazing headshot (along with sound and graphics, usually), epic loot, or just a shiny bit of treasure. That's why we play these things.

So are you being exploited for your money when you hear about Zul'Aman and decide to keep paying monthly to stick around and pay it? No more than when the grocery stores exploit you for profit when you buy food, or when Starbucks exploits you for a tall when you want it. You decide when and where to spend your time and money, and if you'd rather not be "exploited" by Blizzard, you have the right to quit.

Obviously, I don't think what Blizzard's doing is unethical. They're doing their best to make an involving and addictive game. And the reason they're doing that is because that's exactly what we want. Fortunately, as Terra Nova points out, The Age has included a hot nelf pic, so their piece isn't a complete waste of time.

[ via Terra Nova ]

Tipster Shewa sends in this interesting forum discussion from an RP-PvP server (Defias Brotherhood - EU) about what, exactly, is in bounds on such a server. Is it griefing to attack an RP function? Or is it okay as long as you're in character as, say, a malevolent Alliance warrior who hates all blood elves and attacks them whenever he can, even when they're peacefully congregated for (as a possible example) a picnic in the woods?

I tend to be more in line with poster Rumbalt in this page of the thread, when he says Perhaps I expect to (sic) much of people, when stuff like this happens I have no trouble weaving unexpected stuff like this into a storyline, an a mass of the shadow being attacked by a violent and dangerous Horde guild. Back when I played on RP servers, I didn't wait for other people to roleplay, I played and let the chips fall where they may. Other posters point out that, since you can't communicate with the other side anyway, it's effectively impossible to know if they're attacking you in or out of character and so you should just always assume they're in character and ignore stuff like forum posts and message boards that would ruin the RP illusion anyway... since you're already missing one gloriously amethyst eye anyway. (I kid, but it's a good comic strip and deserves to be linked.)

I suppose I fall on the side of the 'it doesn't matter what they intend by attacking, you're on an RP-PvP server, role play your PvP response and just move on'. But it's an interesting debate. What are your thoughts?