Star Trek Online players gather on Vulcan to pay respects to Leonard Nimoy
Star Trek Online players paid tribute to Leonard Nimoy yesterday by gathering around a fountain on Vulcan, the home planet of Spock in the Star Trek series.
According to a post by barnacle999 on reddit, when he logged into the MMO "there were around 20 full instances and several partial," culminating in around 1000 players paying tribute.
Over on the STO forums, lead producer Stephen Ricossa announced the team planned to implement a standing in-game memorial to Spock and Leonard Nimoy on March 5 when the game receives its weekly maintenance.
"In this way, we hope to keep his memory as alive in our game as he is in all of our hearts," he wrote.
Normally, I'm not one to write posts pertaining to a celebrity's death, even if they have contributed to the video games medium, as it feels cheap somehow. This is why I held off on posting anything pertaining to Nimoy's passing yesterday. Plus, everyone around the world became privy to the sad news when it broke.
However, when I ran across the reddit thread on my RSS feed, I felt this warranted a post, as it was a fitting tribute to a man that brought so much to people's lives, whether they were a fan of his role as Spock, his art, writing, or music.
His contribution to video games included narration on the English version of Seaman released on SEGA Dreamcast; voice-overs in Civilization 4; the voiced the role of Master Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep; and he provided voice work in Star Trek Online.
On a personal note, I shed a few tears over the news, which I am not ashamed to admit. I didn't know the man personally, but it felt, to me - and to many others I assume - as though part of my childhood was lost yesterday.
My father and I have not spoken in years, but one of the few pleasant memories I can recall, is sitting beside him on the couch (I was so little, my feet didn't reach the edge of the cushions) watching syndicated reruns of the original series on our secondhand floor model television, eating my grandfather's homemade pickles out of the jar.
The outpouring of respect in Star Trek Online is a sweet and fitting tribute, and I'm pleased Cryptic will honor his contributions to the IP as well as the STO MMO. If I were still playing it, my toon would have been right there beside the other players on Vulcan.
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