[Editor's Note: this piece originally ran in 2014 in response to Blizzard's plans to commemorate comedian Robin Williams in World of Warcraft. Following yesterday's news about the company once again paying heartfelt tribute to one of its employees who sadly passed away, this time in Diablo III, we decided to repromote it to celebrate the lives of those that ended too soon, yet live on in the games they loved.]

When Robin Williams tragically passed away last month there was a global outpouring of grief. Across the world and from many different walks of life, individuals came together to mourn the man that made them laugh. Though we’ll each remember him in our own ways, within hours the gaming community as a whole had rallied together to ask popular developers to commemorate Williams, a life-long gamer, in their titles.

One of the companies approached was Blizzard Entertainment, following the news that Williams had spent a significant amount of time exploring Azeroth and its mysteries in World of Warcraft. Though the studio was initially silent on its plans, datamined files seem to suggest that when Warlords of Draenor launches later this year, it’ll do so with a memorial to the late comedian in tow. Yet Williams won’t be the first individual to be immortalised in such a way. In fact, MMOs have a long history of celebrating the lives of those we’ve lost, because they’re more than games to many of those who play them.

“MMOs are very much about people,” World of Warcraft game director Tom Chilton told me when I sat down with him recently. “The people you play with: that’s what makes MMOs special. Because it feels like a living and breathing world, you’re not just a visitor. You spend a lot of time in it and you really come to call it home. So creating these memorials in the world carries more weight and meaning than it would in a more transient game.”

That’s why people want to see Williams remembered in these games, and that’s why similar moves have proved so helpful in providing closure for online communities in the past. While we don’t know for certain what shape Williams’ online memorial will take, we do know how others have been commemorated in the past. The list of in-game MMO memorials is long - too long to cover in full here - but we whittled down six of the most moving in a bid to show the true power of such a gesture.

City of Heroes – Coyote

When the sun set on Paragon City in late 2012 and heroes from around the globe were forced to hang up their capes for the last time, there was a great deal of mourning. Of all that was lost, however, one of the most poignant things has to be the in-game tribute to Matthew Bragg, a CoH fan who unfortunately passed away shortly after the game’s original release.

In life, Bragg had been one of the first pre-beta members on the official City of Heroes boards, posting under the moniker of Kiyotee. Always friendly and helpful to new recruits, it was only fitting following his death that members of the development team decided to add a new NPC to the world in order to commemorate him.

The NPC superhero Coyote, who also bore the real name of Matthew Bragg, was Old Man Coyote’s avatar on earth, and found in the tutorial zone where he had a chance to kindly share his wisdom with newcomers long after his namesake was no longer able to do so. Though City of Heroes may be gone, memories of Coyote and the other heroes met along the way will undoubtedly live in the minds of Paragon’s denizens for some time to come.

Guild Wars 2 – Oldroar

For those unaware of how MMO communities operate, it’s not unusual to see groups of gamers that play together in one title all move to set up shop together in a new one when it’s released. Roger “Oldroar” Rall was one of the leading officers of Gaiscioch, a Celtic-themed guild originally founded during Dark Age of Camelot, though since making its presence known in titles such as Warhammer Online, Rift and The Elder Scrolls Online.

The run-up to Guild Wars 2 was accompanied by a massive storm of hype, with more than a few sites and guilds expecting it to be a genre-revolutionising title that would usher in a new Golden Age for MMOs. Rall was no exception, making plans for what challenges he’d help lead his fellow guildmembers through once the gates to Tyria officially opened.

Tragically, such a thing was not meant to be. Roger passed away suddenly before Guild Wars 2 launched, never getting the chance to explore ArenaNet’s MMO. Not content to let such a travesty pass unmourned, Oldroar’s guildmates wrote to the developer in their droves, begging the studio to acknowledge what had happened. One such tactic even saw Gaiscioch send wave after wave of cookies to ArenaNet’s offices in a bid to alert the studio.

Whether it was the baked goods that sealed the deal or the power of Oldroar’s story was enough on its own we may never know, but ArenaNet agreed that Roger should be commemorated. And so, it established a new Guild Wars 2 server called Sanctum of Rall, and it’s here the members of Gaiscioch can be found to this day.

Explaining why this option was taken, game director Colin Johanson reveals, “We talked about a lot of ideas, at the time we were right in the middle of naming a lot of the worlds for the game and so we felt one of the best things we could do was to name a world after him, especially because one of the areas he really felt he could help make a difference for the community was in World vs World. So we moved quickly, named it, and ever since it’s been one of the most popular worlds in GW2. For a long time it was one of the top worlds in WvW and I love we have a world with that history and hopefully we’re doing him proud.”

Additionally, ArenaNet added an NPC in the Charr capital of the Black Citadel called Historian Goshkia (which is a pronounced the same way as Gaiscioch and pictured above), who tells the story of an ancient Charr tribune known for his leadership. He was never defeated in battle, winning countless campaigns before retiring to teach others, and eventually passing away peacefully. His name? Rall Oldroar.