How to make amends when you completely misread someone's intention?

Question

I am playing an audiogame. I am killing some animals in the forest area of the game in order to achiev a milestone. I am the only one in this area. Suddenly a new guy appears (called x). I could tell he is a new player due to his username flag. I payed him no attention until I got hit by sniper fire. It was several shots and I took heavy damage. Knowing that x is the only player around, I proceeded to honor him and fight him completely. Since he is now an enemy that might prevent me from getting my milestone, I decided to destroy him until he got bored of coming to my area (at least while I'm still there). I managed to kill him three times before he signed off. While we are battling each other, I got alerted to several incoming private messages. Due to me completely focusing on tracking and destroying x, focusing on my screen reader giving me tracking information and separating x's sound over all other animal sounds in the area, I ignored all those private messages. After the battles, I checked my PMs. Those are from x. They mostly contain the following:

Sorry. Are you hit?

I wanted to help you kill the animals.

and

I only wanted to help.

I am completely shocked. In my defense, it's pretty hard to know he was just trying to help when the battles we did are very difficult. My problem is the PMs came during the battles. I should've been more alert. What really bugs me is if I only handled things better, x could've been my new friend.

Some information that might be relevant: The game we are playing is an online audiogame. Audiogames are games where no visuals are involved. These are usually played by blind humans. In this particular game, we are in a 3d audio environment. We track and kill other players and animals by sound or tracking information provided by screen readers. Due to difficulty of separating your opponent's sound over other sound in the environment, and considering the opponent is moving, accidental fire is not uncommon (I realized this by now).

My questions are:

• If he comes back, how do I express to him how sorry I am."
• How to explain to him the situation at that time? How to convince him that I totally did not understand his intent? This is one of the first games I have played and it is pretty depressing how I handled other players.

Answer 1

As a gamer myself, I have been there and completely empathize with your situation! If you are able to send offline messages, doing so as soon as you are able would be best. If you can only message them while they are online, it may be difficult but I think it would be worth trying to find them and let them know. (I've even added people to friends lists so I can see when they are online to send PMs.) Once you can apologize you both will feel better. It can be tempting to just let things go, but in my experience I end up fretting over it for a long time and then it becomes weird to address a week later (but still worth doing no matter how long it has been). The nice thing about it being online with strangers, you can really just say exactly how you feel. In my experience, sincerity of true expression makes up for any awkwardness.

An example of what you could say is:

I am so sorry about the other day. I completely misunderstood the situation and didn't notice the PMs until you were gone. I would like to make amends for my mistake and become friends as you seem like a nice person.

This is short but still says everything that needs to be said. You can save any elaborations for after their reply and adjust accordingly. It could be good to also add a suggestion on a way to amend, such as making them something, helping them with some achievement, or something specifically helpful for new players. If you are nervous about mentioning friendship, you could save it for when you two are playing together as part of you making amends.

If you really want to go for it and want to express yourself but are nervous about it being too dramatic, I would say just go for it. I'm usually considered pretty dramatic but when I've told someone, "Hey I completely misunderstood and am appalled by my actions, please do me a favor and let me try to make this up to you. I could craft you some gear, run a dungeon with you, or whatever you like!" My results range from friendship, just making amends and then no more interaction, they just say it's ok (and it ends there), and sometimes there's no replies but never has it gone negatively for me. They may respond with saying how they felt during the time, which may seem like they are angry with you, but just listen to them, acknowledge how they feel, and repeat that you sorry and would like to do something to make amends.