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Where Are They Now? 2012 personalities, including the blind player and his 'guide dog'
At last, our look back at five years of WoW personality interviews rolls around to the duo everyone's been asking about: Hexu and Davidian, the British soldier blinded in Iraq and his redoubtable "guide dog" guildmate who steered him through full participation in current raid content. Their story exploded across the internet after we interviewed Davidian here on WoW Insider, and Blizzard recognized the dynamic duo with in-game helms with flavor text alluding to their inspiring bond of friendship. Hexu and Davidian are both still playing World of Warcraft -- but the duo is together no more. As of the new year, the ever-energetic Hexu has been raiding on a new rogue, Dirtypawz, in Unqualified on Stormrage (EU). "I know!" he replies to my unspoken exclamation of surprise and sadness. "It was just that people were only raid logging, and it got boring -- but it was all amicable and cool. I still speak to people in Die Safe. I just wanted to do more than raid three nights a week." Hexu/Dirtypawz says a "very nice bloke" named Vatic is serving as his current raiding "guide dog" helper. "The people in the guild are all nice people," he adds, "and there [are] always things going on." We'll visit with Hexu/Dirtypawz next month about how he's settling in and dig into his tips for the many sight-disabled players who've written to us during the past year trying to reach him for advice. Meanwhile, Davidian reports that the year since we interviewed him has been packed with recognition and encouragement. "The publicity was just unreal," he says. "Even to this day, I get people coming to our server just to say how much the story inspired them and restored their faith in the gaming community. The biggest thing of all, though, was the fact that it made its way to Blizzard, and myself and Ben got signed copies of the collectors edition of Cataclysm signed by at least 50 members of the Blizzard team, and [we] received in-game pets also. Then to top it off, having in-game items with our names on them was just outstanding -- I mean, to be immortal in a game that we love to play is just, well words couldn't possibly describe it." All good people connecting to play a game that's close to our hearts ... Keep reading for more updates about people who love World of Warcraft, from our interviews during 2012.
Player documents the two-headed monster of his own WoW addiction
The slow, viscous slide into a life consumed by gaming has become a media tale standard, usually including a bleary-eyed shot of the player blinking in the thin light of the computer monitor. Penned by journalists unfamiliar with the enveloping nature of MMOs, these stories skitter across the surface of a passion turned fixation. Without an understanding of the many positive forces of games like World of Warcraft, writers are unable to do more than entwine readers within a Lovecraftian tangle of gaming's most mind-numbing temptations, pushing them back into the light at the end with a complete, triumphant rebuke of the game in question. The tale of Sevrin's descent into and return from Azeroth takes a different turn. A third-year film production student from the United Kingdom, Sevrin hasn't blocked World of Warcraft from his every thought -- instead, he spent months poring over his experiences to create a documentary of his experience. IRL: In Real Life, a short film featured last week on WoW Moviewatch (watch it again after the break), takes a frank look at how incessant gaming nearly pulled a young man's life off track -- and then provided the fuel for the creative project that's helping him move on. If anyone could understand this kind of rise and fall, this dance with the glamors that wetly suck players into the virtual vortex, only to spit them out coughing and gasping with a renewed appreciation for life, it's fellow WoW Insider reader Keelhaul, aka The Mogfather, the player who racked up an incredible 1 million gold only to turn around and give it all away. "Brilliant," he commented simply on last week's Moviewatch showing of Sevrin's video. "Change a bit of the storyline and that's me as well." We suspect it's many of us, to some degree. Let's look inside at Sevrin's take.
