Two Day Magazine

By: John Dupra

Let me get this out of the way. I’m a nerd. I’ve had a fascination with video games since I was old enough to write “Nintendo” on everything in the house so my parents would know exactly what I wanted for Christmas.

Recently, I thought I’d try online gaming. I have always been hesitant because I heard how addicting it was. I decided I’d follow the old addict cliché of “I can quit whenever I want to,” and gave the game Order and Chaos Online a try on my iPad. The game is basically a World of Warcraft (or WOW as it’s known in the industry) clone. WOW is a massive multiplayer online fantasy game where you create a character who is charged to do various quests in which you can team up with, or fight, other real life players.

It’s a fascinating concept. You are socially interacting with real people from all over the world, yet are doing so behind the safety of a self-created avatar. With only short bits of text as a way to interact, all my study in voice inflection, body language and pretty much all forms of nonverbal communication were useless. I’m a huge fan of real world interaction so this was a social experience unlike any I’d had. Imagine my surprise when I found myself in a life and death situation. A REAL life and death situation...

NOTE: The character names in this story have been changed.

My character, the brave warrior (named after a character from the TV show Trailer Park Boys), was traveling alone in the swamp lands trying to invade a camp of snake-like people to steal some magic stone or something when I came across a distressed Monk who called himself “Fridge.” Fridge (a real player), was being ganged up on by three of the evil-snake people. He was obviously over-matched so I stepped in and helped him.

After defeating the computer generated villains, he thanked me. I told him it looked like we were on the same quest so we teamed up and recovered the magic stone. We made a good team and continued to travel throughout the land, defeating evil wherever we could find it.

A couple days later we were in the harsh jungle trying to ward off evil barbarians when we came across a lone Elf named,Venny. She was doing her best, but clearly struggling with the barbarians. Fridge and I decided to invite her to join our little band of heroes and together, the three of us defeated the evil that lurked in the jungle.

This started a quirky online friendship between the three of us. Whenever we would see each other online at the same time, we would be sure to team up and help each other out.

One important piece of online gaming etiquette is that it is normally taboo to talk about your real life while in the game. But when you develop friendships with people, it will inevitably happen. Fridge was a college student in Florida and Venny was a young Korean immigrant living in Canada.

One night, Fridge had to sign off and Venny and I decided to keep working together on one more quest. During which the conversation shifted from orcs, trolls and “jerk-faced higher level players who kept killing us for not reason” to real life. She told me all about Korean culture, her struggles to learn English, and issues with her mother.

I stayed polite, I really did find what she was saying to be very fascinating. The conversation was a lot of fun until Venny talked about her future plans. Everything suddenly shifted.

She told me she has severe social anxiety and cannot stand to be in public places. She also suffered from clinical depression. Venny admitted to cutting herself, over- medicating and even more than one attempted suicide.

“I’ve never told anybody all of this.” She said over the game’s private chat feature (it’s text only, no voice chat). “Not even my psychologist. I don’t really know why I’m telling you.”

It appeared Venny was indirectly crying out for help (as she didn’t actually ask for help). She apparently had nobody in her real life that she trusted, and she had trouble making real friends. I was the perfect stranger. I didn’t know anything about her (including her real name). I was incapable of judging her, incapable of telling her parents, friends, or authorities anything. She could open up to with no real-world repercussions, which is essentially the psychology behind the suicide hotline: you can talk to someone and not worry about them using it against you someday. I was slipping more and more into a precarious situation.

When I was in college, I needed money (imagine that), so I took a job as an Resident Assistant (RA). It was there I gained some light formal training in dealing with situations like these. Granted, that formal training mostly consisted of “Go get someone with more formal training” (it was a state school, we didn’t have a lot of money). But even then, it was a situation where you could speak to the person face to face. This was new and uncharted territory.

“When was your last suicide attempt?” I asked.

“Last month.” She answered. “Everybody treats you like a criminal when you do that. The police arrested me and everything. I don’t know why. It’s not like I was trying to hurt anybody else.”

At this point, there were no trolls. No orcs. No magic swords. I was now playing a very dangerous game, and I was playing for keeps.

“Well,” I responded, “It’s the kind of thing you only get to do successfully once. They do have an immediate vested interest in seeing you don’t succeed.”

“Everyone should have the right to die.” She said.

“I’m not disagreeing with you.” I responded, “But the unfortunate truth is our actions rarely affect just ourselves. Your death would have a HUGE impact on your loved ones.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” She retorted, “My dad is always trying to give me advice.”

I know we all fancy ourselves as having life figured out, but I’ve learned in my limited experience; don’t ever give another person advice unless you are an expert in that person’s situation, or he/she asks for it (preferably both). Imagining what a situation feels like is NOT the same as having gone through it.

“Yeah, I can’t give you any advice.” I said, “I truly have no idea what you’re feeling. I had a colleague commit suicide and while he probably thought nobody cared, I can tell you I cared and was deeply affected. I’ll be happy to listen to you, anytime, but I can’t tell you what to do.”

“I appreciate that.” She said.

At that point Fridge signed back online and asked to be invited to the chat. I told Venny once more that I would listen anytime she needed me, but she didn’t respond and quickly signed off. I saw her again online a few times after that evening, but she never brought the subject up again. Eventually, the quests I needed to complete in the real world grew to where I had to put the game down, indefinitely.

Since the game was my only vehicle of interaction, it has been a long time since I have heard anything from Venny. Since we never learned each other’s real names, I highly doubt our paths will cross again.

My only hope is that she is around to battle the forces of evil for many years to come.

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If you or someone you know is suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts and needs help, please click HERE

twoday magazine wants to know: What are your experiences with online gaming? Did it ever move beyond a superficial encounter?