Auction week has come and gone. The bids have all been tallied and the 2011 Real World Hero Charity Auction has raised $2276.97 for charity.

Thank you to Paragon Studios and all of the people and players that donated items to the auction and placed bids. There were over 1300 bids in all! Congratulations to the winners and thanks to the rest for bidding things up. We’re collecting donation receipts and will begin shipping items to the winners this coming week.

But the Real World Hero Charity Drive is far from over! Donations can still be made through December 30th, 2011. We’ll be doing more in-game events, so keep your eyes and ears open for the details. Keep spreading the word in-game and out!

I received a message from a player I know that went above and beyond to tell others about Real World Hero. @Fantastic Flying Red does a lot through his workplace in support of the Wounded Warrior Project, and he is a big fan of our support for Operation Gratitude as well. It turns out he is also part of a Civil War reenactment group and took it upon himself to add a message about Real World Hero in the latest newsletter, sent to the 5000 members of that community.

I know this is the “time of giving” and all, but outside my life as a college student, worker bee, reenactor, every so often I get to game.  Yeah I said it, I’m a gamer.  Anyway, one of the renewed projects this year is called real world hero.  Last year our gaming comminity raised over 11,000 for the charities listed.  One that has returned is operation gratitude.  This charity sends care packages to over seas active military. Since we have so many vets and we are a veterans organization, please if you can make a donation.

Visit http://realworldhero.com/ and click the chipin link. The link to the charity can be found there as well If it asks about a server use infinity.  Through this game I’ve made some really great friends – some of whom I will see when I’m in NOLA and they are a kick a** community.  If you can donate please do, if you can’t you can at least see what your kids are up to when they play that MMORPG.  Thanks All.  Kind of ironic I would be asking for assistance of active duty military today of all days.

Thanks, Red! I know there are a lot of us that have made great friendships through the CoH community. Thanks also for doing so much to tell others about Real World Hero. Go Infinity!

It’s time to start bidding! We’re excited to bring back the charity auction this year. It is sure to once again spark interest within the City of Heroes community and beyond. Once again, we’ve received many generous donations for the auction. Thank you to everyone!

Click here to view the auction and bid.

The photo above displays just a few of the amazingly cool items in the auctionthis year; A 2011 Paragon Studios Team Shirt signed by a whole bunch of people, a couple of promotional glossies, some beautiful original art, posters, signed retail game boxes, lots of 2011 COH Freedom Player Summit t-shirts, a few costume cards, and a LOT more to surprise you!

There are a ton of great people that get involved in the charity drive each year, no doubt. If you’ve recently returned home from the recent Player Summit held by the Paragon Studios team in the Bay Area, then you know exactly what I mean.

You met lots of really awesome folks, right?

Well, @Firemoth is one such bundle of awesome! Before Real World Hero even got started, she had emailed me to let me know that her donations this year would be matched by her employer. She had already done the paperwork to donate $50 to each of the charities and there would be a matching $25 donation for each. So, when you look at the total donations collected above, make sure to include an additional $300 thanks to @Firemoth!

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

Friday, November 18, 2011

- through -

Friday, December 30, 2011

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.

Yes, we will be awarding special gold titles to donors again this year!

Over the last two years, City of Heroes players have donated over $22,000 to charity through the Real World Hero charity drive! We’re very excited to see the community come together for the third time 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.

• 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)
• 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)
• 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)
• 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)

Watch this thread for updates about various contests, parties and other in-game events held throughout the drive.

• 2011 Real World Hero Kick-Off Party
  • Date/Time: Friday, November 18th, 2011 from 9:00pm EST to 11:00pm EST
  • Location: Wentworth’s Consignment House on Exalted server
  • Come to show your support as we kick-off the charity drive. Get inspired, get informed and get back to your home server to spread the word! There will be a costume contest for 1 billion inf and other special goodies, trivia to keep us entertained, and lots of excitement!
• Online Charity Auction
  • The auction last year was a very popular event and helped raise over $3,000 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 opens at 9:00pm EST on Friday, December 2nd, 2011
  • Bidding closes at 9:00pm EST on Friday, December 9th, 2011
• Level-a-Thon
  • Make a new character, enter them into the 48 hour Level-a-Thon, and ask friends and family to pledge a donation amount per level you earn.
  • We’ll count the levels you earn from 9:00pm EST on Friday, December 9th, 2011 through 9:00pm EST on Sunday, December 11th, 2011. That’s a full 48 hour weekend of possible playtime.
  • Play as much as you choose. participants are not required (nor expected) to play continuously during the Level-a-Thon
  • At the end of the weekend, we’ll let your sponsors know how many levels you earned and give them a link to make their donation to their choice of the charities supported.
  • The Titan Sentinel badge-tracking utility from the awesome folks at Titan Network will be used to track and record your level progress in real time.
• Concluding Celebration
  • As always, we will celebrate this wonderful gaming community of ours with a big bash to be held on the server which generates the most in donations.
  • You can bet there will be contests and prizes, too!
  • Date/Time: Friday, December 30th, 2011, from 9:00pm EST to 12:00am EST

There are a lot of easy ways you can support Real World Hero and help make this our best year ever! 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! Instructions are available on our FAQ page.
• 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! Post your event in this thread to let us know.
• Talk about Real World Hero on Facebook and Twitter.
  • Follow RWH on Twitter http://twitter.com/realworldhero
  • Like RWH on Facebook http://facebook.com/realworldhero

If you have any questions, suggestions, comments, etc. we would love to hear from you!

[Disclaimer: This is not an NCsoft event, but one created by players and members of the City of Heroes community.]

If you haven’t yet heard, or forgot to remember until just now and needed a helpful reminder, some of our favorite people are going to be raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals this weekend and could use your support. Paragon Studios is participating in the Extra Life 2011 weekend by playing games for 24 hours on Saturday, October 15th. That’s…tomorrow!

So, here’s what you need to do. It’s not too late to swing on by their team page on the Extra Life website and pledge a donation. They’ll get busy playing some games on the Paragon Studios Ustream channel to keep us all entertained throughout the day and you’ll do a good thing for kids in your area!

The Paragon Studios team has always been a great supporter of charitable causes and we think they’re a bunch of Real World Heroes! Good luck guys!

- Mr. & Mrs. Wentworth

It’s such a busy world we live in! So much has happened in both the real world and our virtual favorites over the past few months. But it is nice that some things stick around to keep us grounded from year to year. Hopefully the Real World Hero Charity Drive is becoming such a thing for you. I know it has become one of my favorite yearly activities!

We began with a secret goal of raising $1000 in 2009 and you blew that out of the water by giving ten times as much, over $10,000 to charity! Then you gave a repeat performance in 2010 bringing total donations through Real World Hero to over $22,000. I have every confidence that generosity and goodness is alive and well this year. So many people have been asking if we would be doing another charity drive this year. Let me be the first to assure you with a resounding, “YES!” You’ll be hearing more soon…

There are so many ways to provide support and aid to the people of Japan in the wake of the massive earthquake off the coast of Japan last week. One such way is through an excellent page of information assembled by Google. There are news updates and excellent resources available to keep informed of the situation and links to several active organizations involved in relief efforts on the ground. Click the image below to visit the page.

If you are aware of other links or are doing something in particular to help, please share it with us in a comment so that others may be inspired to join in as well.

We’ve completed our second annual charity drive!
Total contributions this year reached $12,010!

Thank you so much to everyone that participated. This event would simply not be possible without the incredible support and generosity of the City of Heroes community and our friends at Paragon Studios (especially the OCR Team).

We also have to give extra thanks to the people and businesses that donated items to our first ever charity auction. It was exciting to watch the bids rise higher and higher and see some really great swag and collectibles go for a good cause. So, thank you to TFAW.com, ThinkGeek.com, Jones Soda.com, Merceds Lackey, Melissa “War Witch” Bianco, and Matt “Positron” Miller along with many others.

We encourage everyone to continue supporting the efforts of these charities and any others close to you. Every little bit you do matters very much, big or small.

$4380 raised	$1660 raised
$3260 raised	$2710 raised

We’re still collecting donations from the Real World Hero auction, but they are coming in quickly! In addition to the more than $3000 collected from winning bids, there are plenty of additional donations coming from generous people who may not have had the winning bid.

There have been so many nice comments from everyone regarding the auction and it was so exciting watching bids rise higher and higher! Congratulations to all of the winning bids! And huge thanks also to bidders who are donating their bid amounts anyway! You are all wonderful!