Feb 25, 2015 04:40 PM
(This post was last modified: Feb 25, 2015 04:40 PM by WizeVibez.)
So one of my friends irl, he's on this site, sent me these pics of this story about this guy who lived in Russia and runescape saved his life. Its a bit long but I definitely recommend you reading it!
Also if your reading this hoff, sorry I beat you to it😝
The story (not mine!):
Hello, my name is Mikkel, I go by Mitch. I've been playing Runescape for 11 years now and I wanted to share my unique story about how Runescape probably saved my life. I'm using a throwaway because my girlfriend knows my main account and I've told her I haven't played in years.
I was born in a city in Russia called Nizhny Novgorod, grew up with a middle class family, everything was okay. My next door neighbor was British and their family had a son my age and we become good friends. Every time I went over to his house I saw him playing this game, Runescape. I was always pretty mesmerized by what he was doing but I didn't really know what was going on because the whole thing was in English.
I asked if there was a Russian version and he got down to explaining the very basics of the game and I learned that there was no way of playing Runescape in a non-latin based language (And to my knowledge, this is still true). So for a while I just watched because I thought it was so cool. Eventually he asked me to play even though my 8 year old self knew less English than my pets. Runescape is so addicting that my 8 year old self got past this language barrier and played intensively for the next year, getting up to level 55 in just a year (This is a big accomplishment for a 9 year old playing 2003 runescape not knowing English). With constant coaching from my friend, I ended up learning enough English playing Runescape that I could communicate with other players and that made the game a lot easier.
By the time I was ten I was playing for hours a day, and my English was obviously not perfect but I could safely say that I could "speak English." A few months later, my alcoholic father came home one night in an angry drunken rage and beat my mother to death. The police came and he's now in jail for the rest of his life. This was obviously very traumatic for me. I was an only child and now I had no parents. I was certain I would end up like my classmate that lived in an orphanage who would tell stories all the time about how they would beat him all the time and not be allowed to do anything. As horrible and insensitive as it sounds, I was probably just as upset thinking that I couldn't play Runescape anymore as I was about losing my parents. I spent the next couple weeks in some government building place with rooms for people, I honestly barely remember what place this was or why it had rooms or anything but they said I was probably going to be put in a Russian orphanage. I was crushed. Even my 10 year old self knew how terrible Russia was. I forgot how exactly but they figured out that I could read and write in English and told me that it qualified me to go to America for adoption.
So of course I was ecstatic. All I had ever heard about America was good things and all of my runescape friends were from there. So they put me on a plane and I ended up in an orphanage in South Florida where I would spend the next 8 years of my life. I never got adopted which was okay with me because they took really good care of us. I now go to college and still play Runescape to this day. (Albeit now I play old school)
So if I had never gotten into Runescape, I'd be in some dump in the middle of Russia, probably in some gang with no future and because I did, I now have a world of opportunity for me. Perhaps I continue to play because I almost feel a sense of owing my life to this game. I have over 200 days clocked in and I don't regret any of them.
TL;DR - Learned English playing Runescape, allowed me to go to America and not be part of the corrupt Russian system.
If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. I'm not trying to cash in on some karma, this is a self post on a throwaway account, I just really wanted to get my story out there because I think its worth hearing.
Thank you.
My username is "Basic Mitch" if anyone wants to chat
Also if your reading this hoff, sorry I beat you to it😝
The story (not mine!):
Hello, my name is Mikkel, I go by Mitch. I've been playing Runescape for 11 years now and I wanted to share my unique story about how Runescape probably saved my life. I'm using a throwaway because my girlfriend knows my main account and I've told her I haven't played in years.
I was born in a city in Russia called Nizhny Novgorod, grew up with a middle class family, everything was okay. My next door neighbor was British and their family had a son my age and we become good friends. Every time I went over to his house I saw him playing this game, Runescape. I was always pretty mesmerized by what he was doing but I didn't really know what was going on because the whole thing was in English.
I asked if there was a Russian version and he got down to explaining the very basics of the game and I learned that there was no way of playing Runescape in a non-latin based language (And to my knowledge, this is still true). So for a while I just watched because I thought it was so cool. Eventually he asked me to play even though my 8 year old self knew less English than my pets. Runescape is so addicting that my 8 year old self got past this language barrier and played intensively for the next year, getting up to level 55 in just a year (This is a big accomplishment for a 9 year old playing 2003 runescape not knowing English). With constant coaching from my friend, I ended up learning enough English playing Runescape that I could communicate with other players and that made the game a lot easier.
By the time I was ten I was playing for hours a day, and my English was obviously not perfect but I could safely say that I could "speak English." A few months later, my alcoholic father came home one night in an angry drunken rage and beat my mother to death. The police came and he's now in jail for the rest of his life. This was obviously very traumatic for me. I was an only child and now I had no parents. I was certain I would end up like my classmate that lived in an orphanage who would tell stories all the time about how they would beat him all the time and not be allowed to do anything. As horrible and insensitive as it sounds, I was probably just as upset thinking that I couldn't play Runescape anymore as I was about losing my parents. I spent the next couple weeks in some government building place with rooms for people, I honestly barely remember what place this was or why it had rooms or anything but they said I was probably going to be put in a Russian orphanage. I was crushed. Even my 10 year old self knew how terrible Russia was. I forgot how exactly but they figured out that I could read and write in English and told me that it qualified me to go to America for adoption.
So of course I was ecstatic. All I had ever heard about America was good things and all of my runescape friends were from there. So they put me on a plane and I ended up in an orphanage in South Florida where I would spend the next 8 years of my life. I never got adopted which was okay with me because they took really good care of us. I now go to college and still play Runescape to this day. (Albeit now I play old school)
So if I had never gotten into Runescape, I'd be in some dump in the middle of Russia, probably in some gang with no future and because I did, I now have a world of opportunity for me. Perhaps I continue to play because I almost feel a sense of owing my life to this game. I have over 200 days clocked in and I don't regret any of them.
TL;DR - Learned English playing Runescape, allowed me to go to America and not be part of the corrupt Russian system.
If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. I'm not trying to cash in on some karma, this is a self post on a throwaway account, I just really wanted to get my story out there because I think its worth hearing.
Thank you.
My username is "Basic Mitch" if anyone wants to chat
ॐ ◈ Y0ur 0nly L1m1t T0 L1f3 Is Im4gin4tion ◈ ॐ
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