Deaths of gamers leave their online lives in limbo

[_chuchu]

NEW YORK - When Jerald Spangenberg collapsed and died in the middle of a quest in an online game, his daughter embarked on a quest of her own: to let her father's gaming friends know that he hadn't just decided to desert them.

It wasn't easy, because she didn't have her father's "World of Warcraft" password and the game's publisher couldn't help her. Eventually, Melissa Allen Spangenberg reached her father's friends by asking around online for the "guild" he belonged to.

One of them, Chuck Pagoria in Morgantown, Ky., heard about Spangenberg's death three weeks later. Pagoria had put his absence down to an argument among the gamers that night.

"I figured he probably just needed some time to cool off," Pagoria said. "I was kind of extremely shocked and blown away when I heard the reason that he hadn't been back. Nobody had any way of finding this out."

With online social networks becoming ever more important in our lives, they're also becoming an important element in our deaths. Spangenberg, who died suddenly from an abdominal aneurysm at 57, was unprepared, but others are leaving detailed instructions. There's even a tiny industry that has sprung up to help people wrap up their online contacts after their deaths.

When Robert Bryant's father died last year, he left his son a little black USB flash drive in a drawer in his home office in Lawton, Okla. It was underneath a cup his son had once given him for his birthday. The drive contained a list of contacts for his son to notify, including the administrator of an online group he had been in.

"It was kind of creepy because I was telling all these people that my dad was dead," Bryant said. "It did help me out quite a bit, though, because it allowed me to clear up a lot of that stuff and I had time to help my mom with whatever she needed."

David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, has had plenty of time to think about the issue.

"I work in the world's largest medical center, and what you see here every day is people showing up in ambulances who didn't expect that just five minutes earlier," he said. "If you suddenly die or go into a coma, there can be a lot of things that are only in your head in terms of where things are stored, where your passwords are."

He set up a site called Deathswitch, where people can set up e-mails that will be sent out automatically if they don't check in at intervals they specify, like once a week. For $20 per year, members can create up to 30 e-mails with attachments like video files.

It's not really a profit-making venture, and Eagleman isn't sure about how many members it has — "probably close to a thousand." Nor does he know what's in the e-mails that have been created. Until they're sent out, they're encrypted so that only their creators can read them.

If Deathswitch sounds morbid, there's an alternative site: Slightly Morbid. It also sends e-mail when a member dies, but doesn't rely on them logging in periodically while they're alive. Instead, members have to give trusted friends or family the information needed to log in to the site and start the notification process if something should happen.

The site was created by Mike and Pamela Potter in Colorado Springs, Colo. They also run a business that makes software for online games. Pamela said they realized the need for a service like this when one of their online friends, who had volunteered a lot of time helping their customers on a Web message board, suddenly disappeared.

He wasn't dead: Three months later, he came back from his summer vacation, which he'd spent without Internet access. By then, the Potters had already had Slightlymorbid.com up and running for two weeks.

A third site with a similar concept plans to launch in April. Legacy Locker will charge $30 per year. It will require a copy of a death certificate before releasing information.

Peter Vogel, in Tampa, Fla., was never able to reach all of his stepson Nathan's online friends after the boy died last year at age 13 during an epileptic seizure.

A few years earlier, someone had hacked into one of the boy's accounts, so Vogel, a computer administrator, taught Nathan to choose passwords that couldn't be easily guessed. He also taught the boy not to write passwords down, so Nathan left no trail to follow.

Vogel himself has a trusted friend who knows all his important login information. As he points out, having access to a person's e-mail account is the most important thing, because many Web site passwords can be retrieved through e-mail.

Vogel joked that he hoped the only reason his friend would be called on to use his access within "the next hundred years or so" would be if Vogel forgets his own passwords.

But, he said, "as Nathan has proven, anything can happen any time, even if you're only 13."

Yahoo! News - Deaths of gamers leave their online lives in limbo by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Reminds me of another gamer who died and had been mentioned/remembered on alla

[HAcoreRD]

last 'famous' wow player who died got their own weapon

Merciless Gladiator's Crossbow of the Phoenix - Item - World of Warcraft

[Olo401]

This doesn't just happen with gamers.. A couple months ago a fairly well-known political blogger died.. and if he hadn't been "exiled" for severe trolling a few months earlier I don't know if we would've fond out so quickly.

[Lordwafik]

When it comes to the online world, especially when you keep it distanced from your real life or don't share it with anyone around you, it's hard to tell anyone what's happened to you if something were to happen.

I like the idea of putting a USB in a safe deposit box that's to be given out to a trusted loved one apon death. Only problem would be you having to renew the information on it any time you join a new significant online blog/game/forum where you'd want people to know what's happened.

[TheShadyMan]

That's why you really shouldn't bother with the safe deposit box. Just keep it in a drawer or something. Let someone who needs to know what it is, know what it is, and where its at, and that should be fine. I don't think we've come far enough into the computer age for people to start scouring people's houses for USB drives with sensitive information on it.

[Devek]

If someone came on here and said so and so died, I would think they were trolling or attention whoring.

[TheShadyMan]

It would depend on who it was.

[fren.]

last 'famous' wow player who died got their own weapon

Merciless Gladiator's Crossbow of the Phoenix - Item - World of Warcraft

Not knowing dick about WoW, how rare/good is the bow?

[Zeb]

I've thought about it a little in the past. The best idea I've had is to leave instructions in an easy to get to email that I've sent to myself or a word documention saved to the desktop. Just give it an to recognize title.

Instruction #1: Delete F:\Media

[yayaok]

well it says that bow has one of the best designs ingame lol it must mean the stats suck

[Plow]

At the time it came out it was one of the best weapons possible in the game, and the best hunter pvp weapon period.

[Skjie]

Hmm, didn't one of the main guys from Dynamis Bums die a while ago?

[Izzy]

Hmm, didn't one of the main guys from Dynamis Bums die a while ago?

Yes, Fatman. We didn't find out until a week or two later. He had mentioned he wasn't feeling well a few days before he disappeared but we didn't think of anything until he stopped logging on. One of our members somehow contacted his family and they were the ones that told us. We setup a little donation and sent his family some money for whatever they needed it for. A couple of us went to the cemetery he was at to leave/read notes for him also.

It's pretty mindblowing when you find out someone you've been playing with will never play with you again. It's a lot different than when someone says they quit.

[Skjie]

It's pretty mindblowing when you find out someone you've been playing with will never play with you again. It's a lot different than when someone says they quit.

Well, it's always mindblowing when someone you spend so much time with dies. I'll never forget when I found out that 3rd trumpet from my old band died.

[Kohan]

Kuromomitoro may be the FFXI player that was referred to. His real name was Daryl Cook.

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