Friends leave. It's a sad reality, but it's still a reality, and it's hard to maintain a friendship when your only real common interest is a game that you no longer play together. Even though your friend might have left City of Heroes or Warhammer Online behind many years ago, you still think about your friendship and wonder about what the other person is up to -- but you were friends in the game and not elsewhere. There's no way to know, and nothing that can be done beyond sighing wistfully at the in-game horizon and hoping that your old buddy is still having fun.

Play a game for long enough, and you'll no doubt find old friends that move on even while some stick around. So what friends do you remember from the games of yore that you no longer play alongside? Were they former real-life friends that gradually became game friends until you lost touch, or are they just people you met while playing EverQuest II? What sort of memories do you have about the departed, and have you ever managed to reconnect with an in-game friend you thought was gone for good?


This article was originally published on Massively.