Shortly after starting the game, I ended up in Darkshore. I have no luck with directions IRL and that translated perfectly well into game as well. I asked once in the general channel if anyone was willing to help someone hopelessly lost finish a quest. A guy responded and we teamed up. He had 2 characters in party, and I'd come to find out later he had and maintained 2 accounts! He helped me finish my quest (he had a warrior and a priest) and we went on to team up through the remainder of the night. The next day when I came on, he invited me to group again. This happened day after day and soon we were inseparable. He had more free time then I did and would hold off leveling so that we could all be at the same place at the same time. We hit 60 together, were in the same guilds together, and explored end game content together. Our professions were complementary and we had 300 in each on our various alts. About 3 months ago he was shipped off to Iraq with no net access or phone access ... It's hard to lose contact with someone you talked with daily to someone you can't see at all. I think losing that connection with him for now is one of the hardest things about this game for me. The people make the game. How else can someone you could have never met in RL (He lived in FL and keeps to himself a lot, I'm very outgoing and talkative. He would have never approached me!) make such an impact in your life? [WoW, F, 27]

I have formed, over a period of two years, several very intimate friendships with people whom I will never meet, whose real names I will probably never know. We discuss in the most affectionate ways our deepest feelings, fears, experiences, children, books, sexual lives - in various degrees of depth. These relationships will NEVER be consummated by real life meetings. [CoH, F, 51]

One of the most memorable was when I was playing EQ, I had a cleric and she was working on the cleric epic, I posted that I needed help and I had a full raid force show up to help me, they were all friends that I had helped and made all the way thru game and they cared enough to come and help me out. It was the most amazing thing to me that people thought so much of me and how I was that so many would show up to help me. [WoW, F, 31]