
Only when Mats was dead did his parents understand the value of his game - NegatioN
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrk.no%2Fdokumentar%2Fxl%2Fforst-da-mats-var-dod_-forsto-foreldrene-verdien-av-gamingen-hans-1.14197198
======
Syrawenn
Thank you for translating. I am one of those players in Starlight and good
gods, do we ever miss Mats. I am happy more people might read this and realize
that online games that promote social interaction open up a world of
possibilities for people who might otherwise not have that option. Of course
there's always the other side of the coin. Of course the news likes to focus
on problems, but THIS is the side of the coin that truly matters: friendships
forged, lives enriched through a game in which distance no longer matters.

~~~
gnulinux
This is translated by a machine, not a person.

------
NegatioN
I was a bit apprehensive about posting a google translated article, as some
parts may be slightly off, so it's great to see some people enjoyed it despite
that.

It's originally written by Norway's national broadcasting (NRK), and since the
art/pictures don't seem to be included in the translated version, here's the
original link for anyone who wants to check it out:
[https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/forst-da-mats-var-dod_-
fors...](https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/forst-da-mats-var-dod_-forsto-
foreldrene-verdien-av-gamingen-hans-1.14197198)

It has a few images of Mats, a few of his guildmates and a few drawings which
really help bring the story to life.

~~~
zidel
Human translation:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/akbdug/only_when_mats_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/akbdug/only_when_mats_was_dead_did_the_parents/ef3umkx/)

------
philliphaydon
That was a great read, very hard to read because I could imagine where it was
going. Makes me feel like I have a knot in my throat. :(

There's a netflix show called Dad of Light:

[https://www.netflix.com/sg/title/80178543](https://www.netflix.com/sg/title/80178543)

Based on a true story, it's worth watching.

The blog was translated:

[https://transnoteblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/the-father-
of...](https://transnoteblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/the-father-of-light-
table-of-contents-translation/)

------
kubakan
“I - or Rumor, then - acted a little on impulse; jumped out of the bushes and
snatched the hat off Ibelin. Stay silent for a moment, we looked at each
other. Then I ran away with his hat, without thought for where I ran, says
Lisette and smiles.”

You can’t do that in the game.

~~~
khalladay
It's possible that this was done entirely through chat. Ie/ Rumor types "
_Snatches Hat_ " in chat. As long as both players agree that what's typed in
chat is what happened, it doesn't matter if the game actually has an animation
to support it.

~~~
StavrosK
I used to MUD back in the day and there were role players who were very much
into the character, and if you typed "snatches hat", it doesn't matter if the
game didn't have support for it, that's what happened.

Given that this wasn't rare, it seems likely that that's what happened.

~~~
reissbaker
Yup. WoW has special servers marked for roleplaying (as opposed to the more
achievement-oriented "normal" servers), and it sounds like they were playing
on one of those.

~~~
StavrosK
Oh, I didn't know that, thanks. Yeah, that must be what happened then.

------
yosefzeev
I think it is a bit sad that the only connection people really had to him was
in the gaming world. I doubly think that it is sad that acceptance came only
in the form of a denial of sorts of his actual reality.

~~~
NegatioN
I guess this is part of what the article tries to comment on though. The
traditional viewpoint is: This is denial of reality, and it's sad.

But players themselves often just see it more as an extension of themselves,
where it easier to find like-minded individuals, or others who see themselves
like outcasts in some way. The fact that they're banding together in virtual
space is in my eyes not necessarily a negative, although excessive gaming to
run away from other responsibilities can be negative.

I think Mats was very aware of his own reality, and even seemed to write prose
about how these two worlds contrasted for him on his blog (which I can't find
directly atm, so I'm just basing that on the excerpts in the article).

The connections he made with people, were real, even though the space he made
them in was man-made, abstract or non-real. Which is probably something that
could not easily be achieved to this degree with the limitations he had in the
physical world.

------
cbharat
A very moving story! Inspiring to see the rich emotional connections Mats made
in his virtual life that was not possible in his real life due to his physical
limitations.

------
tonetheman
That is a great read/translate.

~~~
howard941
Didn't it read as if translated by a native English speaker? I thought so too.
Amazingly adept/scary, with only one really tiny niggle exception for the
quoted "Uff" that transliterates better than it translates.

~~~
lostmyoldone
The structure of the English was very good, but there was a few places where
it seemed to translate Norwegian as if it was Swedish, and quite a few places
where it seemed to "guess" what a word meant.

In most cases it didn't loose much of the meaning, but the sentence translated
as "It was even nicer that Mats himself, who was lying in the white coffin,
had not met these people either." should be translated more like: "Even
stranger was that Mats himself ..." or possibly "The only thing more strange
was ..." Not fluent in Norwegian so I don't know for sure. But as a Swedish
speaker I'm well aware that "rar" ( stem of rarere ) is not translated as
nice, as it's one of the more common causes for miscommunication with out
western neighbors. In Norwegian "rar" a false cognate with the Swedish "rar",
which actually means nice. However, they likely also share common etymological
roots, so are cognate and false cognate with each other simultaneously.

~~~
schoen
It's amazing to see what's happened to English "nice" itself over the history
of the word
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nice](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nice)

I think technically in the case you describe the two words are true cognates,
but with different meanings. Cognate means that they share an etymology, not
necessarily that they share an etymology and a present-day meaning. Wikipedia
distinguishes false friends from false cognates this way:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend)

------
moocowtruck
this was nice to read, thanks for posting

