Post by egyptiantigress on Nov 23, 2005 18:03:35 GMT -5
forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swggpdiscussion&message.id=75723
I copied and pasted just in case it goes away:
Yes this is a long read for some people but please read it and keep it bumped for others to enjoy.This is a must read folks!
Eaca/Jen-Li you are a legend!
Enjoy..............................
We've all seen them. Perhaps they were running around dath in newbie cloths, going overt with just master marksman because, well, they don't know any better. This is for all the people we've met that maybe didn't understand the game as well as we did, who had never heard of the forums, but would have been too scared to try. For those that never knew what legendary mind poisons were, who skilled up as far as they could running missions without armor and only using newbie weapons, who never begged or asked for help, because they weren't trying to be uber or leet, they just wanted to have fun. This is for the forgettable.
My story begins in theed cantina:
She was definitely forgettable. A hundred people may pass right in front of her, and none would notice. Her cloths so poorly matched that she was almost painful to look at. I still remember that yellow jacket *shudders*. She was an entertainer, working on dancer and musician, although she was not what you would call... entertaining. Silently tooting on her slitherhorn, seemingly oblivious to the world around her. Most would assume she was AFK.
She wasn't.
I sent her a few tells, she never replied, but something was different about this one... so I approached her and greeted her in spatial. At last she responded. I asked her some questions, and it became readily apparent that she was most likely very young. Her words were simple, it seemed if she didn't see your chat bubble, she would miss what you said, perhaps she didn't know to look in the chat box at the bottom. I asked her how long she had played, she replied about a month. I asked her what skills she had, she was almost novice dancer and musician... and she still used the slitherhorn. I quickly got her some more level appropriate instruments and asked her to trade so I could give them to her. She didn't know how. What followed was an hour and a half of walking her through precicely how to use the trade window, making sure I spoke in spatial because that's all she saw, giving her exact steps, making sure she was looking at the exact right thing before telling her to click it. It took quite a few attempts, but she finally got it, and now she could play the proper instrument.
Lermar had learned how to trade.
A few days passed of her being in the cantina and us talking, getting her a few new cloths and such, then one day I came into theed, she was online, but nowhere to be seen... after a few hours of frantic searching she showed back up in theed, quite black bar'd from fighting, I guess she wanted to learn to hunt. So I helped her get a set of hunting gear, including armor, and some better weapons, and traded them to her. Some of you must be thinking "oh great, trading again, that must have taken forEVER" but that was the great thing about Lermar.
She may have been slow, but she wasn't stupid.
I never once had to teach her to do the same thing twice. Sure the first time took forever, but once she got it, she got it. Speaking of taking forever, after the hunting incident I decided to get her to put me on her friends list, so I could /FindFriend her as needed, that took a while, but again, when it came time to add more people to her list later, she did it with ease.
I finally decided it was time she learned how to use tells. I decided some secluded area would be the best place to do this, so people wouldn't see me so simply laying out how to use something like tells and think badly of her and perhaps tease her (we all know people like that were around in far too large a number). In the park in Coronet was where she finally figured out the chat box and tells. Yeah it took a while again, but I was finally able to go out of spatial range, and I could talk to her, and she could respond to me. She also learned how to use group chat and e-mail that day!
Now it was time for lermar to get a house. I bought her a small round naboo and walked her through placing it, by this point she was starting to pickup new ideas more easily, each time it took less time to teach her. I gave her a modest amount of furniture and showed her how to drop things and move them around. At this point she had a supprise for me! She brought me to the other, empty room and began emptying her inventory on the ground. Seems in her hunting expeditions she had learned how to loot, and had quite a bit of it. (for a while she had a bad habbit of attacking "secs" which were the CorSec troopers wandering around c-net. Needless to say at her combat ability this was not the best of ideas, so I quickly introduced her to meatlumps) After she dropped everything on the floor she told me that "the goodie are for u", so there's a new term for you, it's not loot, it's goodies. Sure most of it was junk, but she did have a Glass Top Table Adhesive in there, which I promplty took and... made her a glass top table! From then on she would put whatever goodies she got in her house, send me an e-mail and tell me to come by and pick them up. I'd sort through it, junk the junk, and give back anything usable for her.
Shortly after this, Lermar decided it was time to come clean with me. She asked me to follow her one day, and led me to a quiet part of Theed where she told me a bit more about herself. In the past when we had asked her age, at first she had said 7, then later she told another friend of ours she was 4. She was a 50+ year old mother of 2, living in the suburbs of london, working in a factory that makes lawn care tools. The game was actually one of her sons, whom she was living with. He was at first not overly supportive of her playing the game, likely he thought she couldn't handle it. I never was told what her handicap was, if she had one, but I'm fairly sure she was at least mildly mentally retarded, and from the description she gave of her job, it sounded like one suited for the handicapped.
If you've read this far, you're likely wondering why the heck I did all this. I had nothing to gain, all she did was cost me money and a LOT of time teaching her the simplest of things. The reason I did all this was because when you saw her play, when you saw her finally figure something out and get it, while she may have been 50, it was kinda like watching a child learn to walk. She had an enthusiasm about her and about the game that you just don't see every day. Yeah the game was hard for her, but she put in the effort she had to in order to have fun with it. And she truely did have fun, she told me quite often.
When I met her she did not have JTL, and I had decided against recommending it, as I thought it would be a bit complex for her.
She got it anyway.
One day I log on and there she is, asking me to show her how to fly. Now you'd think with all the other troubles she had, that JTL would be even more. You'd be wrong. This girl was born to fly. After I showed her how to take off and land, and where to go to get her pilot missions, she was off! Her house started having less and less land goodies, and more and more space goodies. One day she logged on and took off into space. While she was flying around up there, she sent me an e-mail that was something like: "i love to fly in my ship -lermar". A few minutes later I saw her go offline... I knew something had happened. She logged on a few minutes later, at which point I recieved this: "my ship is broke, it won't go, plz help" and I knew what had happened, she had lost connection while dog fighting, and her ship had been destroyed, and by the time she came back, the game had auto landed her, she didn't have a chance to repair in space. I tried walking her through using repair kits, no good, since her skill had gone up quite a bit, she was ready for a new ship anyway, so I went out and got her a new chassis and parts to make a new ship, but she just couldn't figure out how to get them loaded. Finally she logged off in frustration, and came back the next day, where I continued trying to show her how to load. I was trying to show her how to load her booster, walking her thru step by step, I told her "tell me if you get it loaded" then for minutes... silence. I asked her "is everything ok lermar?" then all of a sudden she wasn't there any more, her location: Naboo Space Sector. Seems in her excitement in figuring it out, she forgot to tell me she got it. Once again she was flying around in hog heaven up there, her new ship so much better than her old one, she was loving life again.
Lermar kept on going and learning. She experienced a lot of things. She got a pet gurrcat, she got a few droids, combat and entertainer, she learned how to use them all. She got a bigger house and decorated it quite intricately, she learned how to move things around and up and rotate them slightly using the /move and /rotate commands. She had candles on her tables, posters on her walls, I'm being honest when I say, if you saw her house, you'd be impressed at the detail. Eventually her house got too full to keep her goodies there, so she got a second house, Lermar's goodie, where she would store stuff for me when I wasn't around. She would farm ship parts for me, which I'd go sell for her and give her 80% of the money, and keep 20% for me. I'd have given her 100%, but I knew she appreciated that now she could help me in return for all the help I gave her.
Lermar loved the game, but unfortunately, the game did not love her... You see, Lermar was pre-CU, and when the CU hit, she didn't take it too well...
They claimed that the CU was supposed to be easier to use, more "accessable". They never bothered to ask Lermar what she thought. A 50 year old handicapped woman thought that the original SWG was great, but the first time she logged on after the CU was the last... I tried to show her how to respec, unfortunately this was a hurdle she could not overcome....
I don't know what she did, maybe she was on the skill screen, maybe she pushed a wrong button, I don't know, but I do know I watched her "level" drop from 14 to 1 before I could say "STOP!"
And so many months of hard work were gone. Lermar stood there, skillless and broken hearted. She logged off. I petitioned the CSR's on her behalf to restore her skills to what they were before the upgrade, so she could try again, and supprisingly enough, they said they would. I say they said they would, not they did, because I never got a chance to find out. A few days later I noticed her houses were gone, I checked my guild roster, there was no Lermar, and I never got a member left guild message. Only one thing doesn't give you the member left guild message... deletion.
Lermar is gone.
I must say I do miss her sometimes. Yeah she could be a pain, and there were a few times I'd see her log on and cringe, but her whole hearted enthusasm about the game, hearing her tell me how much she enjoyed it, watching her do things that we both probably thought she'd never do gave a fresh outlook on things that you just can't find every day. I can honestly say I believe that when she played, she tried harder than any of us that will be reading these words. It was difficult for her, she had to give herself 100% to playing because she likely didn't have everything going for her that those of us here can claim. She was a true joy to watch grow and develop.
I miss you Lermar...
Some of you may think that I'm writing this as a form of brag, to say "look what I did, see how great I am!" and if you think that, you're totally missing the point. For over 6 months I've kept this to myself, and I only write this now because of one thing... What was that old saying? Oh yeah...
It takes two to tango
You see for however hard I worked, Lermar worked 10 times harder. At least. She was the one who made everything of herself, I just pointed her in the right direction. If anybody deserves praise it is her.
Every toon has thier story, thier own face behind the character. Even the forgettables...
I copied and pasted just in case it goes away:
Yes this is a long read for some people but please read it and keep it bumped for others to enjoy.This is a must read folks!
Eaca/Jen-Li you are a legend!
Enjoy..............................
We've all seen them. Perhaps they were running around dath in newbie cloths, going overt with just master marksman because, well, they don't know any better. This is for all the people we've met that maybe didn't understand the game as well as we did, who had never heard of the forums, but would have been too scared to try. For those that never knew what legendary mind poisons were, who skilled up as far as they could running missions without armor and only using newbie weapons, who never begged or asked for help, because they weren't trying to be uber or leet, they just wanted to have fun. This is for the forgettable.
My story begins in theed cantina:
She was definitely forgettable. A hundred people may pass right in front of her, and none would notice. Her cloths so poorly matched that she was almost painful to look at. I still remember that yellow jacket *shudders*. She was an entertainer, working on dancer and musician, although she was not what you would call... entertaining. Silently tooting on her slitherhorn, seemingly oblivious to the world around her. Most would assume she was AFK.
She wasn't.
I sent her a few tells, she never replied, but something was different about this one... so I approached her and greeted her in spatial. At last she responded. I asked her some questions, and it became readily apparent that she was most likely very young. Her words were simple, it seemed if she didn't see your chat bubble, she would miss what you said, perhaps she didn't know to look in the chat box at the bottom. I asked her how long she had played, she replied about a month. I asked her what skills she had, she was almost novice dancer and musician... and she still used the slitherhorn. I quickly got her some more level appropriate instruments and asked her to trade so I could give them to her. She didn't know how. What followed was an hour and a half of walking her through precicely how to use the trade window, making sure I spoke in spatial because that's all she saw, giving her exact steps, making sure she was looking at the exact right thing before telling her to click it. It took quite a few attempts, but she finally got it, and now she could play the proper instrument.
Lermar had learned how to trade.
A few days passed of her being in the cantina and us talking, getting her a few new cloths and such, then one day I came into theed, she was online, but nowhere to be seen... after a few hours of frantic searching she showed back up in theed, quite black bar'd from fighting, I guess she wanted to learn to hunt. So I helped her get a set of hunting gear, including armor, and some better weapons, and traded them to her. Some of you must be thinking "oh great, trading again, that must have taken forEVER" but that was the great thing about Lermar.
She may have been slow, but she wasn't stupid.
I never once had to teach her to do the same thing twice. Sure the first time took forever, but once she got it, she got it. Speaking of taking forever, after the hunting incident I decided to get her to put me on her friends list, so I could /FindFriend her as needed, that took a while, but again, when it came time to add more people to her list later, she did it with ease.
I finally decided it was time she learned how to use tells. I decided some secluded area would be the best place to do this, so people wouldn't see me so simply laying out how to use something like tells and think badly of her and perhaps tease her (we all know people like that were around in far too large a number). In the park in Coronet was where she finally figured out the chat box and tells. Yeah it took a while again, but I was finally able to go out of spatial range, and I could talk to her, and she could respond to me. She also learned how to use group chat and e-mail that day!
Now it was time for lermar to get a house. I bought her a small round naboo and walked her through placing it, by this point she was starting to pickup new ideas more easily, each time it took less time to teach her. I gave her a modest amount of furniture and showed her how to drop things and move them around. At this point she had a supprise for me! She brought me to the other, empty room and began emptying her inventory on the ground. Seems in her hunting expeditions she had learned how to loot, and had quite a bit of it. (for a while she had a bad habbit of attacking "secs" which were the CorSec troopers wandering around c-net. Needless to say at her combat ability this was not the best of ideas, so I quickly introduced her to meatlumps) After she dropped everything on the floor she told me that "the goodie are for u", so there's a new term for you, it's not loot, it's goodies. Sure most of it was junk, but she did have a Glass Top Table Adhesive in there, which I promplty took and... made her a glass top table! From then on she would put whatever goodies she got in her house, send me an e-mail and tell me to come by and pick them up. I'd sort through it, junk the junk, and give back anything usable for her.
Shortly after this, Lermar decided it was time to come clean with me. She asked me to follow her one day, and led me to a quiet part of Theed where she told me a bit more about herself. In the past when we had asked her age, at first she had said 7, then later she told another friend of ours she was 4. She was a 50+ year old mother of 2, living in the suburbs of london, working in a factory that makes lawn care tools. The game was actually one of her sons, whom she was living with. He was at first not overly supportive of her playing the game, likely he thought she couldn't handle it. I never was told what her handicap was, if she had one, but I'm fairly sure she was at least mildly mentally retarded, and from the description she gave of her job, it sounded like one suited for the handicapped.
If you've read this far, you're likely wondering why the heck I did all this. I had nothing to gain, all she did was cost me money and a LOT of time teaching her the simplest of things. The reason I did all this was because when you saw her play, when you saw her finally figure something out and get it, while she may have been 50, it was kinda like watching a child learn to walk. She had an enthusiasm about her and about the game that you just don't see every day. Yeah the game was hard for her, but she put in the effort she had to in order to have fun with it. And she truely did have fun, she told me quite often.
When I met her she did not have JTL, and I had decided against recommending it, as I thought it would be a bit complex for her.
She got it anyway.
One day I log on and there she is, asking me to show her how to fly. Now you'd think with all the other troubles she had, that JTL would be even more. You'd be wrong. This girl was born to fly. After I showed her how to take off and land, and where to go to get her pilot missions, she was off! Her house started having less and less land goodies, and more and more space goodies. One day she logged on and took off into space. While she was flying around up there, she sent me an e-mail that was something like: "i love to fly in my ship -lermar". A few minutes later I saw her go offline... I knew something had happened. She logged on a few minutes later, at which point I recieved this: "my ship is broke, it won't go, plz help" and I knew what had happened, she had lost connection while dog fighting, and her ship had been destroyed, and by the time she came back, the game had auto landed her, she didn't have a chance to repair in space. I tried walking her through using repair kits, no good, since her skill had gone up quite a bit, she was ready for a new ship anyway, so I went out and got her a new chassis and parts to make a new ship, but she just couldn't figure out how to get them loaded. Finally she logged off in frustration, and came back the next day, where I continued trying to show her how to load. I was trying to show her how to load her booster, walking her thru step by step, I told her "tell me if you get it loaded" then for minutes... silence. I asked her "is everything ok lermar?" then all of a sudden she wasn't there any more, her location: Naboo Space Sector. Seems in her excitement in figuring it out, she forgot to tell me she got it. Once again she was flying around in hog heaven up there, her new ship so much better than her old one, she was loving life again.
Lermar kept on going and learning. She experienced a lot of things. She got a pet gurrcat, she got a few droids, combat and entertainer, she learned how to use them all. She got a bigger house and decorated it quite intricately, she learned how to move things around and up and rotate them slightly using the /move and /rotate commands. She had candles on her tables, posters on her walls, I'm being honest when I say, if you saw her house, you'd be impressed at the detail. Eventually her house got too full to keep her goodies there, so she got a second house, Lermar's goodie, where she would store stuff for me when I wasn't around. She would farm ship parts for me, which I'd go sell for her and give her 80% of the money, and keep 20% for me. I'd have given her 100%, but I knew she appreciated that now she could help me in return for all the help I gave her.
Lermar loved the game, but unfortunately, the game did not love her... You see, Lermar was pre-CU, and when the CU hit, she didn't take it too well...
They claimed that the CU was supposed to be easier to use, more "accessable". They never bothered to ask Lermar what she thought. A 50 year old handicapped woman thought that the original SWG was great, but the first time she logged on after the CU was the last... I tried to show her how to respec, unfortunately this was a hurdle she could not overcome....
I don't know what she did, maybe she was on the skill screen, maybe she pushed a wrong button, I don't know, but I do know I watched her "level" drop from 14 to 1 before I could say "STOP!"
And so many months of hard work were gone. Lermar stood there, skillless and broken hearted. She logged off. I petitioned the CSR's on her behalf to restore her skills to what they were before the upgrade, so she could try again, and supprisingly enough, they said they would. I say they said they would, not they did, because I never got a chance to find out. A few days later I noticed her houses were gone, I checked my guild roster, there was no Lermar, and I never got a member left guild message. Only one thing doesn't give you the member left guild message... deletion.
Lermar is gone.
I must say I do miss her sometimes. Yeah she could be a pain, and there were a few times I'd see her log on and cringe, but her whole hearted enthusasm about the game, hearing her tell me how much she enjoyed it, watching her do things that we both probably thought she'd never do gave a fresh outlook on things that you just can't find every day. I can honestly say I believe that when she played, she tried harder than any of us that will be reading these words. It was difficult for her, she had to give herself 100% to playing because she likely didn't have everything going for her that those of us here can claim. She was a true joy to watch grow and develop.
I miss you Lermar...
Some of you may think that I'm writing this as a form of brag, to say "look what I did, see how great I am!" and if you think that, you're totally missing the point. For over 6 months I've kept this to myself, and I only write this now because of one thing... What was that old saying? Oh yeah...
It takes two to tango
You see for however hard I worked, Lermar worked 10 times harder. At least. She was the one who made everything of herself, I just pointed her in the right direction. If anybody deserves praise it is her.
Every toon has thier story, thier own face behind the character. Even the forgettables...
