9611 réponses à ce sujet

[Twinkles DeVere]

Jay_Hoxtatron wrote...

Twinkles DeVere wrote...



Hey Jay, I've only ever seen you around on BSN, but for some reasonI thought you were some old dude.Which you clearly aren't! Sorry dude

[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/crying.png[/smilie].

But yeah no worries. Apparently I still have time according to Stardusk. Must be young enough

How old do you have to be to NOT "have time"? Just out of interest

[Boobasaurus]

Twinkles DeVere wrote...

Jay_Hoxtatron wrote...

Twinkles DeVere wrote...



Hey Jay, I've only ever seen you around on BSN, but for some reasonI thought you were some old dude.Which you clearly aren't! Sorry dude

[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/crying.png[/smilie].

But yeah no worries. Apparently I still have time according to Stardusk. Must be young enough

How old do you have to be to NOT "have time"? Just out of interest

When you're 30 I think?

[I_pity_the_fool]

Lehna wrote...

Twinkles DeVere wrote...

Jay_Hoxtatron wrote...

Twinkles DeVere wrote...



Hey Jay, I've only ever seen you around on BSN, but for some reasonI thought you were some old dude.Which you clearly aren't! Sorry dude

[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/crying.png[/smilie].

But yeah no worries. Apparently I still have time according to Stardusk. Must be young enough

How old do you have to be to NOT "have time"? Just out of interest

When you're 30 I think?

what's the figure for men?

[greghorvath]

Dobbysaurus wrote...

greghorvath wrote...

 and lets not forget the ultimate boon of the xbox: mayrabgood 

Can we have some more pics of that day at the zoo? With the snake and all?

 Lol what? I'm a boon now?! But mayrabgood doesn't exist anymore, it's only me now 

I know you liked that snake greg. I have more pictures but I've already posted enough of them me believes 

I'm sure there would be nicer ways to put it, but you are wrong. IT IS NEVER ENOUGH. NEVER!

Oh and I just can't seem to keep up with this thread anymore. It's moving faster than ever before!

  of course it is. the spectres are not only OP in game but on the BSN as well...

[KyreneZA]

Twinkles DeVere wrote...

Jay_Hoxtatron wrote...

Twinkles DeVere wrote...



Hey Jay, I've only ever seen you around on BSN, but for some reasonI thought you were some old dude.Which you clearly aren't! Sorry dude

[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/crying.png[/smilie].

But yeah no worries. Apparently I still have time according to Stardusk. Must be young enough

How old do you have to be to NOT "have time"? Just out of interest

Stardusk's age of 35 I believe. Clearly I'm living on negative time or dark matter by that reasoning. 

[Sixnalia]

sobit wrote...

There you go. no bandshirt, who knows my shirt anyway?

Another long haired bro!

*brofist*

[Avalanche25]

As long you're younger than Stardusk, you'll still have time.

[DragonRacer]

All right. I’ll warn you now, long post follows.

I have tried to insert relevant pictures to break it up/add interest/keep in spirit of the thread. I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to do this or not. But I feel it’s a mostly good lot of folks in here and some I consider friends, and Kyrene’s post about Ernest Tse showing mercy on his boy spending ill-gotten hax credits also served as part of my motivation. Additionally, I feel that it would be worth opening up about this for three other reasons: partly as an “in memory” of someone dear to me, partly to draw awareness in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, and to shed a small public light on just how good the people who make up BioWare are. It seems like a lot of folks on the forums view BioWare devs as a hive mind, some unfeeling, uncaring cogs in a corporate machine. One even went so far in a thread a few days ago as to call them “dirty little Voluses” and alluding that they nerf things to force people to buy packs to get better equipment and some such insane babble, as if the devs sit there up in Canada twirling their moustaches and deciding how best to gouge their fanbase. And while BioWare is a business, it is still made up of individuals and they are some outstanding people who do generous things that get no publicity or praise for it – things done purely out of the kindness of their hearts. I have mentioned in a few of the more argumentative threads that I had personal experience with how deep BioWare’s heart runs, but I’d not felt comfortable in giving details.

I suppose this time of the year allows for reflection, yes? I’m ready to come forward now.

January 19, 2012, was the worst day in the history of my 27 years. It was the day I lost my best friend, someone who was like a sister to me. I lost my Mom.

(She is on the right of both photos below, one from a Girls’ Day Out and one from my wedding.)




As if such a loss was not already horrific enough, it was made worse by the manner in which she died. After struggling with clinical depression her whole life, she endured a string of hardships in 2011 that seemed her undoing: her mother passed of natural causes, my Dad was laid off in a down-sizing economy, and the constant stress of 24/7 caregiving for her own father. I knew her best and should have seen this coming… but I didn’t, even though all the warning signs were abundantly clear even at the time, not just in hindsight. Never thought it would happen to me, to my family. But after a company declined to hire my Dad after a great interview, Mom crawled to the bottom of a wine bottle, went out in Grandpa’s backyard with her handgun, and chose to end her life. She would have turned 56 this New Year’s Eve. In the universe’s infinite sense of cruel irony, that very same company turned around and hired Dad for a different position a month later. One month too late to save Mom, though.

Needless to say, this shattered my world. I had my husband, my Dad, my extended family, friends, and grief counseling, all who helped in their own ways. But when alone on my own down time, I felt like a different person. None of my old interests, including video games, held my interest. All I could do was dwell and stew and rage and blame myself, blame others, then blame myself again. Come March, I only picked up ME3 because I’d had it preordered from forever ago. Went through the motions of completing the campaign. And then I thought, “What the hell, let’s look at the MP.”

It may seem silly. It may sound stupid. But ME3 MP helped me find myself again. It proved to be the only thing engrossing enough to provide me an escape from the grief. It gave me an outlet to escape. None of my squadmates knew me or my tragedy, so there was no constant reminder from concerned people asking “How are you holding up?” It gave me a chance to be a hero – to run out and save a teammate from certain death (like how I couldn’t save my Mom). It truly helped me to reconnect with my old self again and start to really begin the internal healing process. When a Krogan teammate I revived kept headbutting me between waves as a thank you, I laughed… and my husband came running into the room because it was the first time I had laughed since Mom died. I was coming back, slowly but surely, from the hole of misery I had crawled into.

Meanwhile, in BSN Land, fans were raging over the endings. They were Holding The Line with fundraisers and sending BioWare red, green, and blue cupcakes. They talked about how depressing it was, how they couldn’t eat or sleep after the endings. I, personally, wanted to slap everybody, but I am aware that’s because of the extreme situation I had just been in that was legitimately depressing and legitimately upset my abilities to sleep and eat. But it made me angry enough and made me pity BioWare so much that I did something about it. Something small. Something minor. Something insignificant. I wrote them a letter. An old-fashioned, print-it-out-and-mail-it letter. I told them about my loss and about how much their game had, quite inadvertently, helped me on such a personal level. Told them that at least one fan liked the game. And thanked them for fighting to get PS3 included in the weekend challenges and for giving us the two commendation packs for the operations we missed – that really wasn’t necessary on their part, but they did it out of kindness. And at least this fan took notice.

I mailed it to Chris Priestly’s attention, since he’s the community manager. I wasn’t expecting anything in return. Maybe a nice form letter, at the most.

What I received was what can only be described as an outpouring of love. I came home one day about a week later to find a mysterious package on my front door. It was filled with ME promotional items, and several with a personal touch: two hardcover graphic novels autographed (with a personal message as well) by Mac Walters; a signed letter that explained that Casey Hudson himself had actually read my letter and passed it around to the team, and that they were humbled by what I’d said and thanked me for reminding them that their work can sometimes do more than just merely entertain folks, and that they sent their sincerest condolences for my loss; and a small Normandy velcro patch with the words “Honor The Fallen”. That patch sat atop everything else in the box, so that it was the very first thing I would see when I opened it. I’m not ashamed to admit that I completely lost it; I cried like a child. To this day I do not know which person on the ME Team thought to include that “Honor The Fallen” patch, but what a thoughtful touch given the circumstances.

On that day, I put the “Loyal BioWare Fan” banner in my forum signature. It will NEVER be taken off. Ever. For as long as I live.

A few of them have even messaged me from time to time, checking in on how I’m doing. And one of our MP forum dev regulars spotted my post in the Christmas Wish thread, in which I lamented that playing with a dev on PS3 would never happen in a million years (because Sony doesn’t host “Play With A Dev” events and it seems all the devs who play with folks here do so on PC or Xbox). And despite being a member of the PC Master Race and much more comfortable with that setup, he stepped down into console peasant shoes, messaged me, and made my Christmas pipe dream come true for an hour.

(Names have been redacted to protect the innocent, including the dev whom I do not want subjected to endless friend requests or messages, LOL.)

 
Hmmm, yes, tell me again how heartless and soul-less BioWare is? 

And I’m not the only one. I was shocked when it seemed like they sort of “adopted” me to some small degree, but there have been others. I remember a thread on here about a man whose home burned down and he lost everything material, and Chris Priestly told him to check his PMs about something BioWare would be doing for him privately. And there have been a few students who have posted on here about wanting to get dev interviews for school papers, and BioWare folks on the forum came through for each of them. At the end of the day, yes, the geth may be annoying and, yes, there have been some kits released with issues and, yes, things have been missed in testing that are buggy or glitchy. But I believe, in my heart of hearts, that BioWare is made up of very good and caring people, and I believe they are doing the best that they can with whatever they have to work with.

Moral of this exceedingly long story: Love your family while they’re here; you never know when something tragic may suddenly remove them. If you even faintly suspect for even a moment that a loved one is troubled enough to consider suicide, act. Talk to them, seek outside help, anything is better than putting your head in the sand like I did. And, finally, for those who like to ride BioWare’s nuts constantly over everything… maybe cut them a little slack every now and then? Or, at least, understand that inside that multi-story building in Edmonton, there are a lot of good and decent people whose sole purpose truly isn’t to make you upset. They’re actually exceedingly caring, all things considered.

Love and peace to you all.

[greghorvath]

^ I don't think this could have happened in any other thread on the BSN. At least in none that I know of. thanks, shadowkins, for starting something very few believed would work. Thanks to all participating and being civil enough to allow for what I have just read.

Thanks to you two, for opening up.

Modifié par greghorvath, 14 décembre 2012 - 09:59 .

[DragonRacer]

@ Lathrim - wow, just wow. Thank you for sharing, makes me feel a little less guilty for suddenly making this thread heavy. But it was weighing on my heart and I felt the time was finally right to share. I was hoping it would be received well and not badly, so I'm grateful for that.

Never give up. Ever. As much as something may hurt, ending one's life is never the answer. There is ALWAYS someone who cares about you, and what that type of death does to them... indescribable. I can understand logically in my mind that I didn't kill my Mom. I didn't pull the trigger. She did. Can't tell my heart that there wasn't more I could have done, though. If I had answered my phone that night and talked her down, like I always had before, instead of getting her drunken voicemail and giving up, resolving to call her in the morning when she was sober again... did not think there wouldn't be a morning after.

EDIT to add: *hugs*

Modifié par DragonRacer, 14 décembre 2012 - 10:02 .

[why maker why]

Excuse me, think I have something in my eye.

[Twinkles DeVere]

Dragon racer - That's so sad hun, I'm so sorry. Xxx

[KyreneZA]

DragonRacer wrote...

I'm kinda blown away that I was an inspiration to you. That's very humbling.

I'm also so very sorry for your loss. All I can pray is that even more good in your life will come from it in future, so that, in a few years's time, you can look back in hindsight again and count yourself truly blessed. A day where you can remember your mom with gladness and not heartache. Be blessed!

[C4440]

greghorvath wrote...

I usually black out after the 8th or 9th pint...

Panzie!

Twinkie, we naturally demand one of those pics to be shown here... 

Twinkie! Twinkie!

For extra motivation Greg and I could always post humiliating pics of us. (umm.. not together..you know seperately)


And on another note, did this thread just jump 10 pages? @Lehna - That smile Johnnie Walker - Mmmmm

to all the guys - Krogan headbutt.

Oh and DragonRacer and Lathrim - glad you shared that.

[V_Davion]

@DragonRacer @Lathrim *hugs*

[HolyAvenger]

Flaming Snake wrote...

I'm speechless. Thanks for sharing guys.

QFT.

[BridgeBurner]

Lord_Sirian wrote...

This thread is way too serious now for me to keep reading and posting in.

I should go.

I'm considering posting more nakey pics, maybe that'll lighten the mood a little?