Introduction
Established in early 1996, The Syndicate® is the most successful Virtual Community in the history of Online Gaming.
We specialize in Game & System Testing, Strategy Guide Writing, Consulting On Systems Design and Round Table Feedback. We are a very well organized, professional, mature organization that has been involved with MMO projects for many years.
The quality of our work and our ability to deliver on time and maintain the secrecy of the projects we are currently working on is one of our hallmarks.
In addition to Game Development focus, we have a strong focus on growing our community, building friendships and in making the online gaming community better for all gamers. Some of our current projects include our alliance with industry leader Prima Games to help create the best Strategy Guide content possible; consulting relationships with Game Developers to help create better "next gen" gaming content; formalized testing agreements where we focus heavily on providing value added feedback to improve the final gaming product; and finally we have or are currently participating in nearly all MMOs.
By the time most MMORPGs launch, The Syndicate has been playing them for months (and in some cases for well over a year) as part of one of our engagements. We usually maintain an "outpost" within those games of current Syndicate members while the bulk of the guild moves onto our next major project. We do not add new members for games we only maintain an outpost in. We have actively played just about every game including, but not limited to: EQ & EQ2, Warhammer, Conan, LOTRO, DCUO, Rift, SWTOR, Aion, DDO, Wizard 101, Runescape, DAOC, Eve Online, Shadowbane, Tabula Rasa, Planetside and PoTBS. Syndicate outposts cover the landscape of MMORPGs. We only actively recruit new members for our presences in two major MMOs which are the worlds of Ultima Online and World of Warcraft.
The Syndicate isn't a guild, we are the industry leaders in gaming excellence and the most successful virtual community in the history of online gaming.
There is far more to share about The Syndicate and what we stand for. Come in and explore our site. Read about our rich history, browse articles written about us, check out our Charter and FAQ to learn what makes us tick, read about the games we are a part of and much more. Step inside, for The Legend of The Syndicate awaits..
News
Web Presence Has moved
December 2011
Due to problems with AT&T Webhosting and a lack of ability to resolve them, The Syndicate has switched hosting services. If you are seeing this news article
then it means you are viewing the site at our new host.
Syndicate Announces SWTOR Presence At SyndCon 2011
August 2011
The Syndicate held its 10th annual Syndicate World Conference (also known as SyndCon) in Seattle Washington. It was attended by over 200 Syndicate members and guests. Among the guests was a team from Bioware. As part of the annual guild meeting, a discussion of The Syndicate's future direction and plans took place. One of the big announcements was that we will have an outpost presence in Star Wars: The Old Republic. We expect there to be several hundred Syndicate members playing the game and we will formally fly The Syndicate banner within that gaming universe. Whether we recruit new members for SWTOR remains to be determined. If we do, an application form will be added to this site.
Beyond The Legend Is Released!
May 2011
In May of 2011, our second book, Beyond The Legend went live. Responding to feedback on what readers wanted to have seen in our first book, our second book is described as:
Continue on a fascinating journey through the history of online gaming as seen through the eyes of The Syndicate, one of the oldest and most successful player organizations in the history of gaming.
Learn the secrets to creating, maintaining and growing your own stable online community. More than fifteen years of Syndicate experience are boiled down into a formula for success that you can apply to your guild. Time tested methodologies and lessons are shared to help you create success for yourself and your friends.
Look into the future of MMORPGs. The key to the future success of online gaming is meeting an ever changing set of player expectations. We explore those expectations and how developers can and should meet them in the years ahead. The successful games of the future will be the ones nimble enough to meet those expectations.
With Foreword's by Curt Schilling (who described the book as: "In this book you will hear from someone who as 'done it.' Sean's been there and done that for well over a decade...") and John Smedley (who described the book as: "This book does a great job explaining the things that make The Syndicate work and how to take those lessons and apply them to making your own guild."), Beyond The
Legend is a great read and contains content that is valuable, insightful and entertaining to read. You can pick up at copy at
LULU.COM or at Amazon.com among other places.
Syndicate Teamwork In Action
April 2011
The Syndicate worked together as a team, with several hundred members queuing up quests over the prior weeked such that when the World of Warcraft servers reset on Monday 4/4/11 at 3am EST, we were able to coordinate our efforts to turn in those quests, gain the experience to remove the "cap" and then level ourselves to the max level of 25. A large amount of preparation, team work and friend focus occurred in the week leading up to the Realm First. Congrats Syndicate members!
