The Immortalization of a Fan

[DetCord]

James lost his battle with cancer. Today, speaking to Eurogamer, Creative Assembly spoke of how “moved and humbled” they were by his visit.

Last year, 24-year-old Total War fan James visited Creative Assembly’s studio in the UK – a trip arranged by the Willow Foundation, whose Special Day initiative gives people with terminal illness the chance to do something extraordinary for the day. While he was there, James was able to interview the development team, make suggestions, and play an early version of the just-announced Total War: Rome II, months before anyone else. Brilliantly, Creative Assembly also created an (exceptionally accurate) character model based on his likeness, transforming him into a Roman soldier – pictured above at the Siege of Carthage.

[Heliocentric]

Sure, it's kinda marketing, but it's a touching moment.

Let's hope he told them to fix the AI.

[Nalano]

Certainly a lot more apt than ArenaNet's acquiescence to some dude's guild's repeated calls to immortalize him by naming a server after him. Unlike James here, Rall never played an ArenaNet game and died peacefully in his old age, whereupon his guild essentially used him to claim a public server as their own.

[Hypernetic]

Gamers die everyday, people you have played games with online are now dead. While this is nice and all I wish someone would do a remembrance for the anonymous gamers who die every year. I lost a great friend and gaming buddy in December when he was killed in a car accident. A few years before that a friend of mine died of a heart attack. Neither of them got immortalized in a game, but I will always remember them.

[Dead Herald]

Gamers die everyday, people you have played games with online are now dead. While this is nice and all I wish someone would do a remembrance for the anonymous gamers who die every year. I lost a great friend and gaming buddy in December when he was killed in a car accident. A few years before that a friend of mine died of a heart attack. Neither of them got immortalized in a game, but I will always remember them.

Keep dreaming. No one will ever do that. While I accept the intent is good and I've seen plenty of game designers do memorials to their friends, family and co-workers, well most of us are, as you so aptly stated, anonymous. That's why we don't get special treatment or favors or help or get to do special things like throwing out the first pitch at a ball game, or riding on a parade float, or getting to a walk-on role on a TV show as "flavor of the month's" cousin from out of town, or things like the above.

No disrespect to the deceased, but he got to this because either he knew somebody or he knew somebody who knew somebody who was really fucking cool to go out of his way(in either case) so that the dying guy here could not be anonymous. Posthumously, but still.

My condolences about your friends. But no game developer is gonna go out of their way to immortalize them. Unless you want to put in the time and hustle and find a part willing to do so and probably pay a stiff amount of cash for the privilege.

And don't try to throw this back in my face with thinly veiled accusation of envy. (I'm looking at you Nalano.) I'm probably going to die alone and friendless and will probably be unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave in a potter's field to be forgotten forever after my body is harvested of any decent transplant organs. Isn't that great!?

[Sakkura]

Well that escalated quickly.

[Sparkasaurusmex]

I'm probably going to die alone and friendless and will probably be unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave in a potter's field to be forgotten forever after my body is harvested of any decent transplant organs. Isn't that great!?

Well at least you'll be dead.

edit- realized you could totally read that in a way I didn't intend. It's just a reply to the quote, not Dead Herald. Oh fuck he is already dead.

Never mind I totally screwed up this joke.

[Dead Herald]

Well that escalated quickly.

Yeah, that really got out of hand fast.

[Dead Herald]

Well at least you'll be dead.

edit- realized you could totally read that in a way I didn't intend. It's just a reply to the quote, not Dead Herald. Oh fuck he is already dead.

Never mind I totally screwed up this joke.

It's fine, I got it. And on that day, I'll take solace in the knowledge that coked-up assholes won't be throwing any more candles at my head.

I hope.

[Jesus_Phish]

My condolences about your friends. But no game developer is gonna go out of their way to immortalize them. Unless you want to put in the time and hustle and find a part willing to do so and probably pay a stiff amount of cash for the privilege.

And don't try to throw this back in my face with thinly veiled accusation of envy. (I'm looking at you Nalano.) I'm probably going to die alone and friendless and will probably be unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave in a potter's field to be forgotten forever after my body is harvested of any decent transplant organs. Isn't that great!?

It would be very easy for a developer to include some sort of "tomb of the unknown gamer" in their game. It could be a shrine in an mmo, a memorial in an fps, a building in SimCity.

It could easily be done. From reading it Hypernetic doesn't want a memorial for just his friends, but for all the gamers who die year on year.

[Dead Herald]

It would be very easy for a developer to include some sort of "tomb of the unknown gamer" in their game. It could be a shrine in an mmo, a memorial in an fps, a building in SimCity.

It could easily be done. From reading it Hypernetic doesn't want a memorial for just his friends, but for all the gamers who die year on year.

I know it could be easily done. I'm just saying it's not something anyone is likely to actually do. You I once put a virtual headstone to my dogs on a minecraft server. As far as I know it's still there, but I can't really go back and check because the people who run the server are massive fucking douchebags who are undeserving of the oxygen they breathe. And banned me from the server (and all their other servers) for failure to kowtow and supplicate to their self-declared awesomeness and allow them to bully and abuse me on a regular basis.

Honestly, when these guys die do they deserve a memorial?

[Jesus_Phish]

Someone at Blizzard could easily do it. They put memorials in game all the time, it's possible nobody ever thought of doing it for the anonymous gamers who die.

[GameCat]

Mayby I'm a bit too cynical, but it's a very good deal for developers. A free advert which also comes with "look how good we are" PR.

Man, I wish I'm just too cynical.

[Berzee]

We could always put a memorial in the RPS Collaboratively Designed Flash Game.
We don't have to stop at gamers. We could make it a memorial to every person who ever died.
It can be a hex that reads

BYGONE MORTALS: YOU LIVED AND DIED. WAY TO BE.
ENOCH AND ELIJAH GO FIND YOUR OWN HEX

[fiddlesticks]

Offhand I can think of two other examples of fans appearing in an official video game. One guy had his face scanned and put on an NPC in the Onderon cantina in Knights of the Old Republic 2. And Norris from System Shock 2 is based on real-life fan Brian Norris. He even got to voice his own audio logs. I believe both of them were featured in their respective games because they won a contest.

Of course with the success of recent Kickstarter projects, having fans make a cameo appereance might become a more common occurence in the future.

[Tritagonist]

The in-game reference is nice, but what I think is most important is the day this young man got to spend at Creative Assembly and the much appreciated respite this must have given him from his daily worries. What a great initiative by the Willow Foundation!

[Dead Herald]

Offhand I can think of two other examples of fans appearing in an official video game. One guy had his face scanned and put on an NPC in the Onderon cantina in Knights of the Old Republic 2. And Norris from System Shock 2 is based on real-life fan Brian Norris. He even got to voice his own audio logs. I believe both of them were featured in their respective games because they won a contest.

Of course with the success of recent Kickstarter projects, having fans make a cameo appereance might become a more common occurence in the future.

You forgot the Wildhammer Fact Checker.

[gundato]

Ignoring the whinge-fest and escalation:

I also really liked what Gearbox did with Borderlands 2. A pretty popular forum-user/fan of the series died, so they made him a character in the game (the guy who you run into who gives you a free gun of good quality). Especially nice because he is a "Vault Hunter" which is essentially code for "King of the badasses" in Borderlands-speak.

[dsch]

Why on earth would anyone want a memorial to 'unknown gamers'? What does that even mean? Do we also want a headstone in a mall for the 'unknown shopper'? There are reasons why there are tombs to unknown soldiers, i.e., they died doing something presumed to be good, and they don't have a known resting place anywhere. Sorry, but that is really dumb.

About the OP: It's nice, I guess, as long as you put it in perspective and that's what he wanted. Personally, I'd find it kind of creepy.

[Xercies]

Actual News Story: Aww isn't the world nice

Actual Thread: Sometimes I despair at humanity why are you so hateful and cynical about this?!