DesMephisto Levels Warriors While Spreading Autism Awareness
DesMephisto is a world record holder and speed-leveling master who has 49 max level warriors in World of Warcraft while spreading awareness about autism. DesMephisto set the world record for leveling a character from 20 to 120, with 18:29:42 being his final time. He’s also unofficially set the record for reaching the current max level in the alpha test of the upcoming expansion, Shadowlands, in simply 12 hours. World of Warcraft is available for PC and Mac, with the Shadowlands expansion coming out later this year.
“For me, someone with autism, I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for World of Warcraft,” said DesMephisto. “When people hear autism, they might think that person is a loner, that they don’t like people, that they don’t want to interact. But, for many of us, we desperately want to be social, we want friends. We want to feel like we belong. We just can’t do it in a standard way that’s acceptable. So I would always try to go out and make friends and often it resulted in me being beaten up because I didn’t know that I was being annoying. I didn’t know that I was asking too many questions or that I was hovering around people too much.”
“A lot of the other classes never really connected with me,” said DesMephisto. “I love the idea of being able to dual wield weapons and the combination of also being able to take more hits than everyone else. In a lot of ways, I guess it parallels real life where you get knocked down, then you always bounce back up. So I was able to feel that kind of connection with my character… MMOs also let us feel powerful. They take us from a world where we feel, I don’t want to say meaningless, but where we feel like our lives have less value and then put us in a world where we get to create that value. We can become something and it is a very helpful experience.”
Are you a World of Warcraft Warrior? What other ways could people spread awareness about autism? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: PC Gamer