And the moral of this thread is that our in-game friends are real people and real friends.
So treat them accordingly, pick someone who plays that you trust, and give them your rl information. At least a phone number. So that if someone "goes missing" without an explanation, someone can call. Emails and ICQ numbers alone don't cut it.
And despite the pain of doing so, if you are going to quit the game, at least post here "I'm done." We may not like it, but it's, oh yeah, it's called 'closure.'
Still hoping that Shalimar's computer just fritzed or something...
Aye, we are all rl human beings being pixel characters, and when someone just vanishes, without explanations, we do wonder or worry what has happened to them in rl. Did their computer die out ? Did they just quit UO without sayin a word ? Has something rl happened to them beyond computer just dyin on em ? etc. etc. We wonder worrry about some few of those we have met in a game world and became friends or allies with or even shopped their shop that suddenly closed, and we wonder...where did they go ?
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Personally I doubt seriously, Shalimar [rl human behind her] would ever quit UO without a word, when she runs NEW and is very responsible and is/has been nearly like everyone's *mamma hen* here for many of us, nor would she just abandon NEW without word, nor passing the torch for someone else to tend to the NEW. A momma hen would never abandon the nest without finding someone to tend to her *flock* in her stay..unless unavoidable.* Her disappearing is probably more worrisome cuz most of us know she would not just exit without word without at least passing the torch of responsibility onward to someone else, to continue to tend to NEW.
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I have NEVER given out my rl information ever to anyone in a *game* and normally would not ever do so.
That one year, while I was gone a week, thus out of game, being rl mother of the groom, I came back home and back to playing UO, and some one whom was to be the *father* of the groom, a few weeks from when I was playin that rl role. He wanted to know all the details more of being, parent of the groom, cuz he too was going to be the same.
He ASKED ME to icq him when I got home,
with all the details of being parent of the groom !
But he was not answering any of my icqs at all.
He wasn't in game, nor tending to our guild, nor our shop on Siege either.
And that was NOT like him at all especially, as am active guild leader and UO shop owner here on Siege.
A player, in this game, then msg'd me ... an ominous msg.
'give me your rl phone number, I have something very important to tell you, and would prefer to call you and tell you this news, in person, rather than sayin this in game to you.'
I did not know the RL human being behind that person, only knew her as 'Kat' in game...dare I risk...giving out MY rl phone number to a 'stranger' ?
whom was not really a stranger, but no RL any thing, did we ever share.
I gave her my rl phone number. She called me. Come to find out my in game guild leader, only 45 yrs of age, had rl passed away, while I was rl being mother of the groom.
No more to be seen in UO. Had she not had/been given some rl info from the human being/in game allie, to eventually get to call/ talk to someone's son/family, we might have never known why the once active UO Siege player named Aeric Horn^Ginsu suddenly vanished, from Siege Perilous.
We are more than *pixels* to others, whom we get to know, get to know us, whom we label as friends or maybe care about in this game, or hang around with or even if we do not, any sudden vanishing of any one,
needs some sort of *closure* when/if we get to do so, if leaving UO on them etc.
*when we can do so, we should say...leaving UO or something*
cuz those 'whom might care', will wonder or worry about
the rl humanbeing behind said pixels, whom seems to have vanished on us.
We can hope it is puter crashin glitching, or maybe still the acct. migration migrane that is keepin Shal away, and only that.
I'm thinkin though someone here probably/maybe DOES have rl info on Shalimar,
if ya do, try to call her up in the UK or something, to find out if she is rl ok,
if nothing else.
Emails/ICQs/Facebook alone don't cut it, cuz those are just in the *ether*
& those each need, a *working* computer
for any of those to even work, at all.
rl phone numbers, may be the only way, for a few of us to try to find out about some one else, sometimes.