Two weeks ago I wrote a piece about the imminent death of Asheron’s Call 2, the online world. On Dec. 30, the game was shut down — and winked out of existence. Ellen Ripley, a longtime resident of the world, showed up for the grand finale and recorded screenshots and the dialogue as the end times approached. My favorite parts? The totally surreal warnings from that flashed onscreen — “This world will be shutting down in 1 minute. Please log out” — and the banter of the remaining residents, which mixes deeply heartfelt good-byes with howls of anguish and nerdcore quotings of The Lord of the Rings and Douglas Adams’ ouevre:

Ctf: so long and thx fer all the FISH!

Mona Lee: so sad”

Royer: thanks for all the pulls jorgen :)

Ch’Tau Pei: bye all

Alty: thanks all, goodbye

Aken-Lotus: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”

Royer: peace

Bodo: bye :

That picture above shows people vanishing into the aether as the server finally shuts down.

(Thanks to Ellen Ripley for this one!)