Last year a tragic attack was carried out against the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya. The attacks claimed the lives of several Americans, one of which was EVE Online player Sean 'Vile Rat' Smith. And while the EVE Online community may have a reputation for perpetrating scams and carrying out notorious acts of sabotage in-game, they are a tight-knit community, and one that has never failed to impress when they set a goal to help those in need in a time of disaster.

Following the death of Smith, his friends in Goonswarm Federation partnered with website Something Awful to raise funds for the Smith family. The generous members of the EVE Online community joined together and raised an impressive $127,000, showing both how unified and generous the gaming community is despite our often childish forum arguments, and the attempts of mainstream news networks trying to over-sensationalize the falacy of a connection to video games and violence for ratings to portray us all as maddog killers waiting to be set off on a killing spree. Gamers are in a sense, a huge online family.

Over the weekend, members of EVE’s CFC organized with other alliances to honor their fallen comrade with another in-game event so bright that lit up the darkness of space. The first of the NPSI (Not Purple, Shoot It) events was held last year to honor the fallen Vile Rat. This year’s event did the same and also provided EVE players a golden opportunity to highlight some problems with the game, something else that would have made their fallen ally proud. You can read more about the event and what was learned over at TheMittani.com.

Source: CFC Holds Vile Rat Memorial NPSI Op