devtrackers.gg
Bit of a long story, but certainly worth posting. And I did ask the individual involved to post on her behalf, to which she gave me permission. Her current situation prevents her from actually making a good post about this anyway ...
On December 13th, a faulty clothes dryer caught fire and burned down the home of a friend of mine, who is also a Guild Wars 2 player and fan. Her and her parents home burned to the ground along with everything in it. They literally lost their home of 21 years and all of their material possessions just two weeks before Christmas. Sadly, the fire caught so fast that there was not much time to get themselves out let alone several of their beloved pets, who unfortunately, did not survive the fire.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, a gofundme was setup to help the family deal with the situation and provide some degree of support to get them back on their feet. They were seeking a comparatively modest goal of $5,000 USD.
Progress was being made on their goal with several individuals contributing what they could ... until a truly amazing thing happened.
ArenaNet, out of the blue, made a donation of over $3,500 to meet the gofundme goal.
Unbelievable to say the least. But, there's more ...
A few days later, she received a large package in the mail from ArenaNet which she unboxed live on facebook. Within the box were numerous swag items, books, physical copies of Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2 and related expansions. Most of it autographed by what appears to be basically everyone that works at ArenaNet.
The donation was surreal, the follow up gesture and how it made this person feel; the simple joy and elation in her voice after going through losing everything was .. well .. words just don't do any justice here.
She wanted to share this with the community at large and publicly thank ArenaNet not just for the donation, but the care package that brought such joy to her.
She also asked that I add this personal message from her ...
"Never had I imagined that you would donate for my family. I never dreamed that you would help us so very very much.. I have had people give us clothes and food and blankets, and thank you is all I can say. It is a heartbreaking weak word to say in the light of such generosity.
But thank you...thank you all from our hearts!"
She also added, about the gifts ... "I will cherish them ... in a fireproof container, forever."
Below is a link to an image gallery of their home and the gifts that ArenaNet sent. https://imgur.com/a/fwxEg
I'm not sure if it's allowed for me to post a link to the gofundme, so I'll withhold that and any personal information for now. If a moderator allows it, I'd be happy to add the link so that anyone gracious enough can donate. In the meantime, I suppose you could message me for it - or any internet sleuthing would certainly uncover it.
Edit 1: I was given permission by the moderators and the family to post the gofundme link. https://www.gofundme.com/hunsucker-house-fire
Edit 2: Cleaned up the formatting a bit. I'm terrible at reddit ...
Edit 3:
So it doesn't get buried in the comments, Sia has posted to the topic:
"Thank you all for the well wishes and comments I miss all of you in game and when I get a working rig we’ll have one holy cats of a party! I can’t even express how much of a blessing Arena Net gave us. It’s beyond anything I ever imagined. When I went into my shell of my home, I found that the only game to survive was my nightfall ce. It was water soggy and dirty, but intact! I was sooo happy! It was the first time I had smiled after the fire. I have smile more since Monday than I ever though possible. It’s good to know that people care. That you all care. It’s enough to make me cry. Thank you Pickles for the post on my behalf. If anyone has any questions for me you can post them here. My internet isn’t great so I may take a while."
Edit 4:
Sia has limited internet access and is responding to comments of well wishes as she can. In the meantime, I'm continuing to pass along your kind words to her.
Edit 5:
Wow! Not sure what to say, the response here from the community been amazing. Thank you, from me and from Sia.
As far as how ANet found out, I'm not really sure. I believe a guild that I used to be in with Sia (which she is still a member) has an ANet employee. That could be how, but I'm only speculating. I'll ask Sia today to see if she knows how they got wind of it.
Edit 6:
Ok, so I spoke to Sia this morning and got the story on how ANet found out. Essentially, she posted a video to twitter of finding Nightfall in the ruins of the burned down house. That made it's way over to Rubi from ANet. Rubi reached out to Sia, expressed her condolences and asked for her address to send a t-shirt. After that, the donation came in and the care package arrived.
Edit 7:
Sia sent me a few new photos of the cards she received with personal messages from the ANet team. I added them to the imgur gallery.
Edit 8:
We've been cross posted to r/bestof :)
Edit 9:
Last Friday, Gita Jackson from kotaku.com messaged me for Sia's contact information so that she could write an article on this story. That story published this morning, the link is below:
https://kotaku.com/guild-wars-2-developers-donate-thousands-after-fan-s-ho-1822299397
Edit 10:
Holy crap ... this story has been cross posted to Rolling Stone.com and MMORPG.com!!
https://www.mmorpg.com/mobile/news.cfm?read=47137&game=473&ismb=1
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