Fallen Players immortalized

[Sqwall]

(Mind you, they can also face unique threats due to the nature of those worlds as well -- witness how many times various troublemakers tried to nuke the Molea Cemetery.)

Given the nature of FFXIV as a game (and the realities of the engine), what would almost make more sense is a picture frame where you can just tell it to display the portrait of a given character in the fashion of their Lodestone image -- whether or not the character is currently active. It doesn't have to be specific to a memorial, so you don't need any sort of review process or way to "prove" the character belongs to a deceased player; people could just as easily use it to put a portrait of themselves up in their house or have a portrait hall of the FC officers in an FC house or whatever. And you could limit the number of these dynamic portraits you could put up in one estate, so no one drags a housing server to a crashing halt by trying to put several hundred of them up in one spot, all pulling player portraits dynamically from the Lodestone. But even those limitations would still allow people to make little memorial spots within their house or FC house. Obviously, it leaves out folks who don't have housing, which is not ideal; we already have enough systems gated on home ownership (plant crossbreeding, FC workshops, etc.), and it irks me a bit to even suggest adding one more.

But otherwise, any real options for in-game memorials will often rely on the creativity of the players themselves... as with EVE's cyno vigils. (Or as with folks I've seen who create a person's character as a retainer and put the retainer in the FC house yard or whatever, so that the person is symbolically still around and remembered.)

(Trimmed down your quote.)

Love the direction here. I can't think a more touching way to build a community and a strong bond then coming together to remember those that we have lost. I had a player I ran with for nearly 6 years on FFXI pass away, and back then it was during a time in my life when I was very much alone. I saw them as a close friend and companion that I could get into crazy adventures with. I didn't think for a second what would it feel like to lose that connection and how much it would impact me.

I was lost....

Logging in just hurt. Knowing that I couldn't talk to him and ask him "What should we do today?". It was like I lost a friend that you only saw during the summer when you were growing up. You never forget them.

It reminds me of Haurchefant's grave....if I had just a place or something I could turn to pay respects and have it remind me to carry on...and find that next adventure. I would have a much deeper connection to the game.

I think a picture of the last lodestone image is perfect for this instance! Even if it was just a simple bitmap at 50k...it's a start.

[Packetdancer]

I had a player I ran with for nearly 6 years on FFXI pass away, and back then it was during a time in my life when I was very much alone. I saw them as a close friend and companion that I could get into crazy adventures with. I didn't think for a second what would it feel like to lose that connection and how much it would impact me. I was lost.... Logging in just hurt.

I feel you on this. While I've been lucky enough not to lose any of my FFXIV friends, one of my dearest MMO friends passed away back during the WildStar closed beta -- fairly close to the end, too. In earlier phases, we'd gotten into all kinds of mischief together -- much of which he'd immortalized in art. But now in the final beta phase, he'd been falling behind on the beta while most of our group was pushing on (since the later levels really needed some testing love), and was feeling left-out and sad. So I'd left one character -- my primary character, even -- sitting in an early hub, waiting for Bryan to get better and log in.

When I finally logged in that character for the first time after he passed away, I realized I was standing on top of a building. See, the last time I'd been on with that character, I'd taught Bryan a way to glitch-jump up on top of the town hall right at the end of the night, and we'd both logged out there. And for whatever reason, that just suddenly hit me hard and I burst into tears.

(I mean, it didn't help that I was also the one his brother found and contacted to let us know that our friend's "I think I've come down with the flu, I feel lousy, I'm gonna take a few days and rest up" had turned from flu into severe pneumonia, then a hospitalization, then death. So I also had to be the one to tell all of Bryan's other friends what had happened...)

At launch, though, a bunch of us glitched our way up on top of that building and had a little remembrance right where his character had last logged off; we'd all planned to have a big get-together once the game was actually out, and by doing that, it was a little bit like we could still include him.

Having some way to remember a friend can really help, sometimes.