In this game we play many of us have lost people we care about to the Grim Reaper. They may have been game friends, real life friends or family. The people we lose, including pseudo people we have got to know as though they are our family or friends from real life, leave a hole in our lives. We can sit and remember them and the things they have done in the game or the chats we have had with them, the time we have spent with them, and we remember the pain of the loss.
I have lost 2 x real life friends who played this game who were also Veterans, 1 had been sent a message in game before he died which I will NEVER forget. It wished him to die.
At times we find others in this game with honour who understand our losses and are supportive. Many of you will remember the late Jim Keefe, a vet of the highest order who won the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. When he died a coa called Retribution, led by Mako, were honourable to the highest order and protected Jim’s coa for me whilst I allowed his members, and myself, time to grieve. I did not know Mako, but this was a standout thing from this game I will never forget, a stranger understanding what loss is and helping a bunch of people he did not know.
Since then, when I have became aware of players who have suffered loss, I have taken a lead from that time and will do what I can to help those who suffer loss in RL or game, even contacting enemies of theirs and asking those enemies, because this is only a game and in truth we are not real enemies, to leave the players city alone for a while. I know many others in this game do the same thing.
I, personally, suffer from the following:-
Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM)
Leaking Valve
Murmur
Diseased arteries (only 1 able to take a stent)
High blood pressure
Silent heart attacks (frequently)
Those are just the main points, I am not listing all but basically my heart is extremely deformed, and you would not recognise it in a picture as a heart, see, I am not actually heartless.
I know my days are numbered and I am not likely to reach retirement age. At some point I will just disappear from the game. People will try and contact me via PM or Skype or Discord and there will be no response as I just will not be there as, when my time comes it will be sudden and I will not even know about it. Some will suffer pain and loss whilst others will celebrate because there are seriously sick people who are happy when people die.
So, I ask you, when is it acceptable to wish real life serious illness or death to someone in this pseudo world we occupy?
We do not know the people we speak to in this game 99.9% of the time and so do not know their circumstances. Last week I received a message, a copy is there for you to see, wishing me serious illness of a degree it stops me playing this game. Any serious illness I contract now will kill me, so this player is wishing to hasten my death and leave my wife widowed and children without a father as soon as possible.
I contacted the Heg of this Blacksheep Pride player expecting him to take action. What I got was a lecture about sieges and the player concerned saying he does not owe any apology to me for what he said. Therefore, it is clear, Blacksheep Pride’s Heg condones this type of message. To be clear about something, the player concerned has not been attacked by me at any stage but feels it is okay to send this type of message and his Heg feels it is more important to lecture me about sieges than to take action against a player in his coa sending this type of message.
Please note, the player concerned does not feel any need to apologise for his / her comments and completely ignores, in their last message to me, that they even, basically, wished me dead. He / she is more focussed on what they feel is important, the fact I warned him / her off of a siege he / she raided when empty and during a time, not last week but the week before, when I was in hospital for 6 days after a series of silent heart attacks allies of mine kicked him off the same siege. What he is unaware of is that the one who kicked him off a shared siege is 14 years old and needs help, which I give, to survive in this game. Those who truly know me from my 4 years of playing know whether I am a bully or not. Apparently protecting others and ensuring their access to resources via sieges I hold and fighting to ensure there is res for a significant number of these kids and low-level players is bullying.
This player, and obviously the Heg of his / her coa, are part of what I call “the entitled” who now play this game. Because they play this game they are “entitled” to get the benefit from the work of others without having to do any work themselves. Lazy players who look only for cities which are sieged to raid and ignore the thousands available to raid which are not, and never have been, sieged as THEIR time is too precious.
So now I ask Sparta to judge these messages, not the history of why they were sent, sent to me and the reaction of the Heg. Is this acceptable? Do we agree these players have a place in the game and can send such messages with immunity, potentially to children? Is the fact the Heg has ignored that his player wishes people to suffer extremely in real life and focuses only on the game aspect acceptable?
I am sorry to hear about this situation. Harassment is something we take seriously at Plarium.
The game is very competitive, and players often get very emotionally invested in the gameplay, but this is no excuse for abuse or harassment. Could you please specify the actual coordinates of this player for me to take the appropriate measures? I would also suggest that you add such people to the blacklist.
