As a Final Fantasy XIV player reportedly lay dying in the hospital, friends and strangers within the game gathered to pay their respects as he passed.
According to real-life friends of Codex Vahlda, a level 50 bard on Final Fantasy XIV‘s Gilgamesh server, the 29-year-old player behind the character was rushed to the hospital yesterday following a collapse. According to redditor Pattmyn, who initially posted about the situation on the site’s Final Fantasy XIV board, Codex’s player was passing away due to complications arising from renal failure. “The odds were one in a million something like this could have happened; Everything was otherwise under control and a donor was lined up already (his brother).”
Imgur user Aenemius, a member of Codex’s Free Company on the Gilgamesh server, documented the steady stream of players arriving at the Free Company house to pay their respects. First one:
Then a dozen:
And then so many that the game couldn’t keep up with them all.
Oh a beach near the Free Company house a group of players spelled out Codex and put on a light show. Twitch user Spicule livestreamed the event, capturing this video of the light show set to one of Final Fantasy XIV‘s more moving pieces of music.
In a post on the FFXIV forums, players from other servers joined in, posting pictures of their in-game vigils.Here’s the Balmung server:
Here’s Excalibur:
And from the Reddit thread, Hyperion:
And Brynhildr:
According to Pattmyn, a real-life friend of Codex, the stream of the event made it into the fallen player’s hospital room, so at the very least his family was aware of the massive outpouring of support. Pattmyn also reports his friend did not make it through the night. May he rest in peace.
I did not know Codex Vahlda. I couldn’t tell name a single person in any of these images, character or real life. But I know the MMORPG community, having been playing the damn things for 15 years, and I know that whoever Codex Vahlda was, every single person in these images — in his final moments — cared for him like they were his dear friends. When a group of people is deeply invested in a virtual world, be it Eorzea or Azeroth or Norrath or wherever, there’s a bond there that crosses any and all real-world lines.
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8 responses to “FFXIV Community Holds Massive Vigil For A Dying Player”
Respect to those involved and rest in peace to the fallen palyer.
The community of FFXIV:ARR seem pretty unique, from what I’ve heard. It’s things like this that give me more of an incentive to buy the game. Though I feel like I need to play FF VII before I do, just out of principle. You’re not a FF fan until you’ve played FF VII.
“You’re not a FF fan until you’ve played FF VII.”
No… you’re not a FF fan until you’ve played the first Final Fantasy.
If you’ve been watching Log Horizon’s second season, in ep 10 one of the main secondary characters makes a fucking half-hour monologue which (while dragging on a bit) does go pretty well into the benefits and virtues of the socialization unique to close-knit MMO communities.
(Speech transcribed here: http://wolfygoodness.com/misc/log_horizon_speech.txt courtesy of some reddit person.)
Soon enough someone, somewhere, will pitch an idea to build a tomb dedicated to characters whose owners have passed away. It will be a controversial decision to begin with… but with time it may become something more accepted. We will have the honour guard present, both NPC and player alike (players will probably receive quest to contribute)…
While there are always a small subset of toxic players in any game, in FFXIV those players seems to be a major minority. I have always enjoyed the time I’ve spent there.
This year has not been good for the gaming community in general… But reading stories like these reminds me that there are still alot of good people playing games
So, out of curiosity on a similar subject… there’s a sequence in the start of the latest World of Warcraft expansion which has an army of ‘heroes’ from Azeroth fighting on the steps of the new Dark Portal, who look suspiciously like player characters, complete with titles and weird names and transmogged outfits… Does anyone know if those are real avatars selected for honoured players? Potentially ones who may have died?