Really, it's the height of bad taste. Gatecrashing a funeral, killing the corpse, then turning on the mourners. But that didn't stop the members of the Serenity Now guild on the US World Of Warcraft Illidan server. The online funeral was for a troll mage called Fayejin, a character belonging to a real-world player who suddenly died of a stroke. Fayejin's guildmates planned a memorial service by the lakes of Winterspring - a snow-locked mountainside on the northern tip of Kalimdor. They asked other players not to interfere with the event - but just come and pay their respects.
"On Tuesday Illidan lost not only a good mage, but a good person. For those who knew her, Fayejin was one of the nicest people you could ever meet. On Tuesday she suffered from a stroke and passed away later that night. Tomorrow, we will have an in-game memorial for her so that her friends can pay their respects." - Yanoa, Illidrama
It was going well. Using her account details, Fayejin's guildmates had brought her character to the event. Fayejin stood by the lake, where those who knew her queued to pay their last respects. All wore tuxedos. All left their weapons at the bank. The mourners passed her as if filing past an open coffin. It was as sombre as WoW gets.
"The game is not real, nor are the characters within it. Having said that, the person who died was real. The people playing the characters that attended were real, their sentiments and efforts to do the only thing they could realistically do, acknowledge the time that they had with that person, in the fashion that they knew the person, was real." - Anon
A Night Elf materialised behind Fayejin, and stabbed her in the back. Three, four swipes, and she fell to the ground, dead. Over the hill charged 20 Alliance characters from the Serenity Now guild, armed and ready to fight. They cast their snowstorm and meteor spells as one - catching the majority of the funeral party in the blast. Any stragglers were pummelled - they had no chance without their weapons. Within a few moments, the entire party had been wiped out - most just respawned and headed home. There was no fightback, no organised retort. Serenity Now had "won".
"I did it to get those people that brought real-life drama into a public videogame. I did it because the idea of holding a memorial inside a videogame is ridiculous and uncalled for, and frankly I think it's embarrassing and even disrespectful to the deceased. The whole concept of acting out a funeral with your warrior cows or undead sorcerers is laughable to me, and I enjoyed crashing the event." - Pagy, Serenity Now
