Parents of a kid who committed suicide, by jumping out of a 24 storey window, blame it on his obsession with World of Warcraft. Yeah, yeah, heard this one before. But wait, this is actually quite interesting.
before committing suicide, the boy left four letters and one hand-written note to his parents. In addition, he also logged onto World of Warcraft and told fellow players goodbye. The boy, who played a Night Elf in the game, believed that he could meet his favorite Night Elf hero, if he committed suicide.
and there’s more.
World of Warcraft has two major factions or sides. Night-elves, Drawves, Gnomes and Humans make up the Alliance or “good guys”, while Orcs, Undead, Trolls and Tauren make the bad guys or “the Horde”. Alliance players can jump off the “Twin Colossal” mountains in a zone called Feralas. Players are teleported to the top, where they are given a chance to purchase a parachute that will, if opened at the right time during the descent, save them.
According to Travis Meacham, author of previous Tom’s Hardware Guide World of Warcraft articles, the mountains have turned into a meta-game or game within a game. Some players purposely jump off without a parachute, while other players sit at the bottom and watch their teammates come down.
Horde players have a quest called “Test of Faith” which makes them jump to their supposed death in the zone “Thousand Needles”. Just before hitting the ground, the player is teleported away to safety.
Tags: suicide, worldofwarcraft
