2012 Real World Hero Charity Drive

[Mr. Wentworth]

The Wentworth Country Club and its many friends and supporters proudly announce the


We invite the City of Heroes community on all servers to come together
once again in support of this player created charity drive.

Thursday, November 1, 2012
- through -
Saturday, December 15, 2012

Please join us for a variety of fun events aimed at promoting awareness of the charity drive within our City of Heroes community and beyond. A list of these events is included below and will be updated as new events are added. Visit RealWorldHero.com for additional updates and information throughout the charity drive.

Current Total Donations:
$4189.12
(Updated 12/1)

Over the last three years, City of Heroes players have donated over $29,000 to charity through the Real World Hero charity drive! We're very excited to see the community come together once more to help those in need, and judging from an onslaught of emails we've received, you're just as excited as we are! Not familiar with Real World Hero? Well, read on heroes!

With your support, RealWorldHero.com will aid the following charities this holiday season and 100% of your donations will go directly to these non-profit organizations.

• Child's Play - A community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. Since it's founding by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of the online comic strip Penny Arcade in 2003, Child's Play has donated more than $9 million dollars in toys, games, books, and cash for sick children in hospitals across the U.S. and the world. (Tax ID 20-3584556)
  
• Donate Games - Founded upon the belief that people can change the world by simply donating their unwanted video games, Donate Games is a charity dedicated to funding research and support for children and their families of “orphan” diseases and the millions of Americans affected by them. Donate Games collects new and used video game donations and then resells them online to help the millions of young people suffering from these neglected disorders. (Tax ID 26-3438815)
  
• Operation Gratitude - Sending over 100,000 care packages annually filled with snacks, entertainment items and letters of appreciation to U.S. Service Members deployed in hostile regions, their mission is to lift morale, bring a smile to a service member's face and express to all our armed forces the appreciation and support of the American people. (Tax ID 20-0103575)
  
• Heifer International - Heifer International works to end the cycle of chronic world hunger and poverty and protect the earth. Through gifts of livestock, training and "passing on the gift," Heifer has over thirteen million families in more than 125 countries around the world improve their quality of life and move toward greater self-reliance since 1944. (Tax ID 35-1019477)

We would appreciate your support in helping to spread the word about the charity drive. Please feel free to reply to this thread about contests, parties and other in-game events held throughout the drive that you hear about or decide to host. If you or your supergroup already have an event planned, please make a brief announcement about Real World Hero and invite people to visit the website to consider donating.

• 2012 Real World Hero Kick-Off Party
  • Date: Friday, November 2nd, 2012
  • Time: From 6:00pm PST to 8:00pm PST.
  • Location: Atlas Park 33 on Virtue.
  • Come to show your support at the kick-off for the charity drive. Get inspired, get informed and get back to your home server to spread the word!
• Online Charity Auction
  • The auction is very popular event and helps raise thousands of dollars each year while generating additional interest in the charity drive.
  • If you are a person or business interested in donating items to the auction, please contact info@realworldhero.com
  • Bidding opened at 9:00pm PST on Thursday, November 1st, 2012
  • Bidding closes at 9:00pm PST on Saturday, November 10th, 2012
  • Join us in AP33 Virtue from 7:00-9:00pm PST as we countdown the end of the bidding!
  • Grand total of winning bids: $1,736! Well done!
• To Be Continued... Rally
  • Date: Friday, November 30th, 2012
  • Time: From 6:00pm PST to lights out
  • Location: Atlas Park 33 on Virtue and anywhere heroes and villains gather to share final moments
  • In the hours leading up to midnight, please drop by and share some time with friends.

There are a lot of easy ways you can support Real World Hero and help make this a year to remember! Help raise awareness of the charity drive both in-game and elsewhere.

• Add a Real World Hero banner to your website, forum sig, etc.
  Several sizes are available here.
  
• Mention Real World Hero in your Supergroup or Global Channel MotD.
  It's easy to do! To change your Channel MOTD use something like:
  /chan_motd "Channel Name" Make a heroic donation at realworldhero.com
  and to change your SG or VG MOTD use something like:
  /sgsetmotd Make a heroic donation at realworldhero.com
  
• Mention Real World Hero at an event you are hosting.
  It doesn't have to be an event specifically for Real World Hero. You can always give a shout out for the charity drive! Want to host an event just for Real World Hero? That's great, too! Please post in this thread details about your event or a link to your event so we can join in.
  
• Talk about Real World Hero on Facebook and Twitter. #RWH
  
• Like RWH on Facebook http://facebook.com/realworldhero
  
• Follow RWH on Twitter http://twitter.com/realworldhero
  

Please contact info@realworldhero.com with any questions, suggestions, comments, etc. We would love to hear from you!

[Mr. Wentworth]

Things are a little different this year, naturally, but we are determined to continue on and have felt the support of quite a number of our fellow heroes. The auction is indeed underway and has over $200 in bids with 5 days remaining before bidding closes. We are working on additional events to share time with our community in game and promote Real World Hero to any friends who have not yet heard of what it is.

Most importantly, we want everyone to know that the charity drive is not ending on November 30th when the servers go dark for City of Heroes. As terribly sad and upsetting as it is, we hope the Real World Hero charity drive can continue on and do good for a long time to come. Bring Real World Hero with you into whatever game or community you may find yourself and let us know where you are. We hope to find welcome among the broader world of gamers and invite them to take part.

Let's make this a really great time of fun, good works, and community! We won't have spiffy gold titles anymore, but we will always consider you all to be Real World Heroes! (with a little invisible title floating just above your heads.)

[sultrysiren]

We're so excited about this year!! I hope that you'll all help us spread the word through out our community and others you participate in. The folks at Paragon Studios often said that City of Heroes had the most amazing, giving and kindest players...lets show them and the gaming world at large that no matter what, that is -exactly- what we remain.

[Aggelakis]

Because I can't load the bidding stuff for some weird reason, you are mentioning in all of the auctions that contain 'codes' (game boxes/costume codes/etc) that the winner won't actually be able to use them, right? Even if you emailed them the codes before sending the physical bits, they shut off all codes on Sept 19th.

Just wanted to make sure you're mentioning that they're bidding for unusable memorabilia only, nothing valid in-game.

[Sekoia]

Because I can't load the bidding stuff for some weird reason,

I was unable to open the auction items in a new tab. But when I clicked on them normally (without sending to a new window or tab), they loaded okay. Perhaps try that?

[Mr. Wentworth]

Because I can't load the bidding stuff for some weird reason, you are mentioning in all of the auctions that contain 'codes' (game boxes/costume codes/etc) that the winner won't actually be able to use them, right? Even if you emailed them the codes before sending the physical bits, they shut off all codes on Sept 19th.

Just wanted to make sure you're mentioning that they're bidding for unusable memorabilia only, nothing valid in-game.

Thanks for bringing this up. I had included text in the description that was perhaps a little tongue in cheek, so I added new language to help clarify that any codes in the auction can no longer be applied to game accounts and that all items are to be considered collector's items. We certainly don't want to have unhappy bidders.

The auction listings are displayed with javascript as an AJAX popup window. Could it be your browser settings that are keeping you from seeing the listings fully? I've been able to view the auction with Firefox 16.0.2, Chrome 22.0.1229.94, and IE 8.0.6001.18702.

[DrakeGrimm]

My name is Hawthorne Grimm, and I support this charity.

Regrettably, this year finds me once again in financial straits. I'm unable to donate to any of these worthy causes.

For that reason, I urge each of us who can to do so. Stand up. Be a hero. Fight injustice on multiple fronts. Do what I cannot, and show the world that City of Heroes has the greatest, kindest, most caring community in all of gaming.

It might be cliche by now, but the words still echo with solid weight behind them.


We are heroes. This is what we do!

[Mr. Wentworth]

If you haven't been by the RWH Facebook page, please do stop by and give us a 'Like'. http://facebook.com/realworldhero

You can also follow RWH on Twitter. http://twitter.com/realworldhero

There are approximately 3 days remaining in the charity auction. EVERY item in the auction comes with a Commemorative Unity Rally patch donated by Tim the Enchanter (see pic below), and there are several individual patches in the auction as well. Don't forget to bid! http://realworldhero.com/auction-2012

[Mr. Wentworth]

Join us in AP33 Virtue to countdown the end of the auction bidding this Saturday, November 10th, from 7:00-9:00pm PST!

[Zolgar]

If any multi-auction winners read this:
One of our rank wants one of the AP33 patches, but his financial situation is frelled to the point he could not bid on auctions. I was hoping to get multiple, but I only won one auction
If you have more patches that you are wanting, and would be willing to part with one, let me know I will gladly pay the shipping for it to be sent off to him.

[Risha]

I've been out of town and missed the auction, but I've modified my blog so the banner is near the top.  Robin D. Owens

[Hyperstrike]

I disagree with this sentiment.

I sometimes think access to cash is the greatest superpower of all

[sultrysiren]

I want to thank those of you that were able to participate in an impromptu costume contest on Infinity in the last hour of the game for AP33 Unity Rally Patches. Thanks also to the rest of the Wentworth SG, TonyV, Taxibot Belle, Taxibot SPC Polly, Taxi Thermist, and Taxigirl Heather for helping us judge the contest.

We will be giving away several more AP33 Unity Rally Patches over the next two weeks, so be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter:
https://www.facebook.com/realworldhero
http://www.twitter.com/realworldhero

Don't forget, the drive doesn't end until December 15th, so there's still plenty of time for our community to show how amazing we are to the world. Spread the word, heroes!

[Angelus Animi]

My patch was waiting in the mailbox this morning.  AP33 forever.  Big thank you to the Wentworths!

[Golden Girl]

Whatever the status of CoH and related projects next year, we totally need to do this again.

[faith.grins]

I pitched $15 into the piggybank for ya.  I think I'm going to resolve that from this day forward, the $15/month that I used to spend on City of Heroes will now go into a separate account which will go towards some sort of charity.  Hopefully Real World Heroes will continue their good work and I can contribute to the legacy of our community, but even if not, I want to live knowing that even if I can't be a Hero in Paragon anymore, I can still do some good somewhere.

[Mr. Wentworth]

We're going to try and help motivate voters in the MMOsite 2012 Reader's Choice Awards by offering some more Commemorative AP33 Unity Rally Patches.

Visit the Real World Hero website (http://realworldhero.com) and you'll see a giveaway widget in the current post. You can earn multiple entries in the random drawing by completing each of the tasks listed. Yes, it’s a real world task force!

If you haven't seen them yet, here's a picture of the patch made by TimtheEnchanter with inspiration from the original art created by espionageDB7. They really are quite nice!

[Tubbius]

Well, there're a couple of votes and an entry.    Thanks, Real World Hero!

[OzonePrime]

Beautiful patch! Voted and entered!

[Risha]

Done...to operation Heifer.