How Heroes of the Storm taught me how to be a good person. Also, Mafias is the bee's knees

Close your eyes, and picture a gamer. What do you see? I imagine most of you imagine some kind of pale-skinned troglodyte hunched over his keyboard and furiously typing racial slurs at other dweebs online who will never know the touch of a woman.

Though that particular cliché certainly exists, and a large swathe of douchebaggery is still rife in the world of gaming, I think that in reality most gamers I meet are curious, sensitive and clever people. Maybe not the best social skills in the world, though even there you’d be surprised at which alpha males you see strutting around the bar are also in the Grand Master’s league of Starcraft 2.

Case in point is a guy I often play Heroes of the Storm with, called Mafias. I know Mafias through my idiot friend Charli. Mafias is charming, patient and intelligent. I wish he was my friend instead of Charli. But you know what they say: You can’t choose your friends. Wait, is that it?

Anyway, I like to think I’m a good guy despite being a gamer. Though the truth is that I’m not as nice as I like to imagine. My brother and many of my friends often surprise me with their capacity to be thoughtful and supportive.

Meanwhile, I’m so wrapped up in all my endless, pointless projects (such as this blog?) that I’m using up all my energy trying to avoid doing any work. Why do you think I play computer games? When am I ever going to find the time or energy to think about somebody else? The thing is, every time I do engage in the odd act of altruism, it’s deeply satisfying.

Heroes of the Storm tries to teach me this lesson, in particular with a character called Rehgar. He’s known as a “support hero”, which means he befuddles the enemy and aids allies. For a change, I’ve decided to photoshop my face on Rehgar’s body:

Another one of my sexier looks

Rehgar is a big green orc, plucked from Blizzard’s Warcraft series of games. For some reason he can transform into a blue wolf, and he has something to do with totems. He also heals allies.

One of his ultimate abilities is to send a shower of green healing energy from on high onto one character to recover a dramatic amount of health. The key is to do this at just the right moment – the enemy think they have an assured kill as they focus on one of your allies, but whoosh! You heal the ally just in time and the tables have turned.

Did I mention my wonderful team mate Mafias? He’s great. I met him once in person, and he was awesome-sauce. Well, recently I was playing a game with both him and Charli. Mafias was playing as Xul, a Cryptic Necromancer from Blizzard’s Diablo series. Here’s a picture of Xul (unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of Mafias’ face to photoshop on top, which is a pity because he’s so good-looking, and talented):

At one point, through no fault of his own (he’s so great) he’d got himself into a spot of trouble. Let’s face it, it was probably Charli’s fault.

The enemy had almost killed him, and he had been poisoned. If you look at this image, you’ll see Mafias’ health bar is grey-brown, with no blue. That means his health will gradually decrease until he is killed. No! Not Mafias!

Mafias no!!!

Well here I come to save that day! I cast my ult on the necromancer, and he’s a new man, ready to fight another day.

Down comes the healing goodness

And Mafias is as good as new!

And in a characteristically generous way, Mafias indicated his appreciation. Ah! How uplifting.

That little heart means the world to me

It really is a pleasant sensation when you pull that off. Usually in Heroes of the Storm you’re concerned with getting the kill and destroying the enemy’s base. And don’t get me wrong, achieving those goals is great fun, but being able to come in and save your friend is satisfying on a much a deeper level.

Could it be that being kind makes you happier than focusing on your selfish goals?

Well yup, and this phenomenon has been tested by an economist, of course. They think they can use economics to explain everything, which is part of the fun of economics.

A series of studies conducted by Michael Norton at Harvard showed that people report much higher levels of happiness when they spend money on others rather than themselves.

This study has done the rounds on various radio shows and podcasts, of course. Norton has written a book called Happy Money (which I also haven't read; why would I?), and his study has even appeared in English Language Textbooks (New English File Advanced, unit 3c, page 47 to be precise).

Podcast time? Not exactly, have a TED talk and hear it from the horse’s mouth:

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_norton_how_to_buy_happiness?language=en

The great thing about this is that it works even if you know about the study and are cynically exploiting it for your own happiness. Certainly it has worked in the past for me, but I don’t engage in “pro-social” spending as much as I should.

Maybe I should take to heart the lesson Rehgar has taught me. He’s probably the happiest warrior in the nexus.