As many of you know, I play a game, ok an MMO, named EQ2. This week I tried an experiment to see what would happen. The results were surprising.
In the game there is game currency (gold, plat, etc...) that is used to purchase items made by other players or drops from in game play from the broker (if you are a WoWer that would be auctionhouse). Recently, I accumulated a fair bit of platinum (100 gold=1 platinum) and thought it would be nice to pass a bit of my good fortune to a few new players. I rmember when I started playing. A platinum was the holy grail of game play. It took a long time, quests, and deaths to accumulate gold enough to make a platinum, so back then a platinum was a big deal. Today platinum is not so hard to come by if you have established characters on the same server (I have 15 on 3 different accounts). So, I sent a message to the general chat asking for a couple of new players (never played EQ2 before) to send me an in-game tell (/whisper). I got several tells from established players asking what it was I wanted. I told them that I wanted to share a bit of holiday cheer with some new players in the form of platinum gift. They really thought it was cool that I was willing to give away something it took me 10 years to be able to accumulate easily. On we went, delivering gifts to 3 different players, each of them seemed very excited and grateful for the gift. It made me feel good. That however, is not the interesting part of the experiment. A bit later, I logged into a different character. That character was doing some decorating and wanted to know where to harvest a particular rare item, so I asked in chat. I instantly got a tell from one of the established characters that sent a tell to the other character asking what it was I needed. I told him (everyone is a him until otherwise stated) I needed the rare wood that made house actors for a diorama I was doing for New Years. About 5 minutes later, he sent me a tell again saying Merry Christmas. I was stunned. This person that had no idea I was the one giving away money, actually sent me 4 of the ultra-rare wood I needed. The implications hit me immediately. The spirit of giving is not dead, it just needs a refresher once in a while. The act of me giving out platinum encouraged others to do the same thing. I was amazed and very happy that I started a round (even if it was just a couple people) of giving and paying it forward. It really went to show me that although the world is a tough place to live sometimes, especially now, that people are still basically kind and giving.
Merry Frostfell (Norrath, EQ2)
Merry Christmas
Happy Hannakah
Happy Kwaanza
Joyful Solstice
Happy, Merry, Joyful whatever holiday it is that you celebrate.
