Guild Wars 2

Dear Guild Wars 2,

I owe you. I owe you big. I have a short story to share, and I hope you take a few minutes and allow me to tell it, as I promise you, it is a story I will remember for the rest of my life…

I wasn’t going to buy you. But constant pressure from my closest friends lead me to the local game store. I purchased it with hope that it wasn’t a wasted effort, that this game wouldn’t end up on the pile of games that I would start, but inevitably never finish. Silly me.

I QUICKLY became enthralled with a fantasy land with so much to offer. I created a snarky Asura Engineer, and with a backpack of grenades and a realm to save, I was off on an adventure.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, things weren’t going so well for me. I was 28, and my life was… well, it was bad. I won’t go into details, but things were looking awfully grim for me. I was surrounded by a lot of darkness in my life, and while everyone experiences these from time to time, it was one of those low points that you know you will be looking back at in a few years, and wonder how you ever got out of it (and how you got INTO it in the first place). I wish I could convey the magnitude of the low point my life had reached, but I will leave that tale for another day…

So day by day, my trusty Sir Sprocket soldiered on. Before long I joined the ranks of the Priory, had joined a guild with many active members, and protected our server from invaders with all the gusto my little Asuran character could muster. I was living a life that I only hoped I could. Where I could give my all in the service of all things right and good. Where I could protect myself and the things I cared about with my own two hands (paws? what do we asurans call those? lol). I was living the life I only hoped I could live in the real world.

I was using you as a ways to escape my real life problems, but that’s where things get interesting…

Ser Sprocket met a Sylvari. It was innocent at first. I only wanted to help, to provide the kind of assistance to someone that I never thought I had the bravery to in the real world. My real self was beaten, broken, and reeling from blow after blow the real world had dealt me. But Sprocket; he was strong, mighty (no short jokes!), capable of protecting things he cared about with a satchel of grenades and a strong resolve. So this “Ms. Sylvari” and I started taking on the rigors of Tyria together. She was a gentle sort, our conversation was easy, flowing, and soothing. We developed a friendship that, despite the distance and the digital shroud that covered our true selves, became something very real.

In my real world, things had become worse by this point. I felt like I was fighting a tide that was threatening to sweep me out to sea, where the good parts of life would only be a distant shore that I would never reach.

Tyria was home to me at this point. Ms. Sylvari and I were growing ever closer. We talked about how these internet relationships work from time to time, how we felt about each other, and realized that despite the fact that it was just a game, we are real people, with real feelings, and how we had come to see each other was also very real. I had found a place where I could live the life I had only dreamed of, and be appreciated by someone at the same time. Playing games was a familiar feeling, feeling like I actually mattered, that was something totally alien. And that’s where she brought me to a realization that was so blatantly obvious to me, yet I had failed to realize:

Sir Sprocket and I were the same person.

The bravery I channeled into Sprocket, the goodness, the steel willpower that I fed into that character, was a reflection of my true self. It was the me I never grasped in the real world. The problems I was facing in the real world, no matter how large they seemed, needed to be met with the same resolve I used to take down the largest opponents in Tyria. Ms. Sylvari was instrumental in this. Call me sentimental, call it cliche, but love is an insanely powerful thing. You can find it when you least expect it, and in the strangest of forms. Remember this, fellow players, that the people who you see day by day in-game are real people, and have real feelings, and you never know just how they might change your life.

GW2, thank you. Thanks to you, I came back from the brink. You brought together two people, who lived 1000 miles apart, and gave us the opportunity to find happiness with each other. I moved a few months ago. Dealt with those bad situations, and made a journey of my own. 1000 mile journey, to be exact. And now I write this as Ms. Sylvari sits in the very next room. And let me tell you, I have never, in all of my 28 years, been happier than I am now.

You helped me find my heart, and a person to share it with. And for that you have my everlasting thanks.

Your game will be one I remember until my dying day.

Thankful and Happy,

Sir Sprocket