2006
Stratics Interviews The Syndicate
(Nov 2006):
Lady Alessandra from Stratics did an indepth interview with Dragons in Nov of 2006
exploring the current status of The Syndicate in both UO and overall.
An exerpt from the article is:
Lady Alessandra: When was the name LLTS trademarked, and why would you
trademark a name of a guild?
Dragons: The Syndicate is not "just" a guild. A regular guild is an
entity that exists to play a game. The Syndicate is an online community
that does not exist for UO or WoW or any other game. We exist for
ourselves and we use online gaming as a way to grow our community.
Specifically we are an online gaming guild providing in game
opportunities for proliferating game expertise and camaraderie among
gamers supported by a web site featuring multimedia materials. Said
another way, we play games to build our community stronger. But in
addiiton to the games themselves we have a number of other gaming
related activities that we are involved in. We have partnered with
Prima Games (the industry leader in print media strategy guides) to
help write gaming strategy guides with them. You may have seen our name
and logo on the cover of the recent BF2142 guide or the recent Might
and Magic: Dark Messiah guide. Several more are in the works now. We
have an online store. We have a book deal with a book publisher. We
were approached by the BBC to be filmed for a show they are doing. We
are part of a world travelling MMO photo exhibition. We have written
articles and chapters in books about gaming. We consult/have consulted
for a number of MMO companies. We have several formal beta test
relationships with companies. We have a corporate sponsor. We have
annual conferences attended by 120+ members and numerous developers.
You can click
here for the complete story.
Massive Magazine
(Oct 2006):
Back in July of 2006, Massive Magazine interviewed The Syndicate for an
article they were doing for their first issue about MMOs and guilds.
Over the next couple of months the article and magazines focus changed
and adjusted with the decisions of the editors and staff into what
eventually became the inagural issue of Massive Magazine in late
Sept/early October.
You can click
here for the complete story.
Runegate Interview
(Sept 2006):
Rhyutel of the gaming news site Runegate approached The Syndicate about
doing an interview. We accepted and he fired off more than 20 questions
probing back to our earliest days. An exerpt from the article that
tells the story of an early pk battle is:
The door burst open and
in strode Ironman, Squad Leader for Dragon Strike squad. In his hands
he carried a black leather bag. He approached the large table around
which Dragons and the other Squad Leaders were gathered.
“M’Lord. All twenty scouts returned successfully. None report
being spotted by the enemy. All report their missions were successful,”
he said as he handed the bag to Dragons and moved to take his spot
among the other squad leaders.
Upending the bag before him, Dragons dumped a pile of gray
oval stones on to the table. Each stone had a glowing golden rune
marked on it. Each rune depicted a location that had been embedded in
it by force of magic by one of the scouts. Syndicate wizards could use
these runes to open a gateway to the location of each rune. Through
those gates entire armies could pass. If the scouts had done their jobs
correctly, as they no doubt had, the runes would encircle the enemy
base.
You can click
here for the complete story.
Alter Ego Interview
(June 2006):
Tracy Spaight interviewed the Syndicate for his book "Alter Ego". That
books is based of a photo exhibition that went all over the world which
featured a massive group shot of The Syndicate (in game and in real
life) from our Myrtle Beach conference. An exerpt from the article is:
We
do everything together within the games we play. Due to our huge size,
we very rarely need to go outside the guild for anything. So we hunt
together.. we do in game events together.. we raid (large groups of
members working in coordination to defeat content that is only
defeatable by large groups of players) together.. we level up
together.. we craft together.. we hunt resources together.. and we
spend ALOT of time socializing and building friendships together.
Rarely will you see Syndicate members off hunting entirely with another
group or with nonmembers. There is almost always a group of members
with a spot for one more member to join in. Sometimes game mechanics
and the time of day make it so that members do adventure outside the
guild but by and large its Syndicate groups at work and even when we
are outside the guild, chatting in our voice tools and in our chat
tools remains active and guild only.
You can click
here for the complete story.
Wow Warcry Interview
(May 2006):
Jonathan from Themis/The Escapist/WoW Warcry interviewed The Syndicate
about the guild and our WoW presence. An exerpt from the article is:
The
Syndicate trademarked our name and logo to insure that our efforts at
developing The Syndicate for over 10 years would be protected in the
online gaming world. We do recognize this is a relatively new topic for
the online gaming community, but it was done to address an issue common
in the gaming world where aliases and identities are so easily assumed
and discarded. Over the past few years we have dealt with individuals
and guilds not only using our name but outright claiming to be us. This
has happened a lot over the past 10 years and I am sure it has been an
issue for some other old and/or well known groups.
You can click
here for the complete story.
Gamespy's Onlife Column
(Feb 2006):
A popular Gamespy column known as Onlife, written by Miguel Lopez
interviewed The Syndicate and wrote an article about us. An exerpt from
the article is:
On the other end of the spectrum are guilds of such
enormous magnitude that their influence starts to extend outside of the
virtual worlds they inhabit. You may have heard of The Syndicate. If
you haven't, it's one of the player organizations responsible for
providing the template for what guilds resemble to this day. The
Syndicate, run by a player named "Dragons," celebrated its 10 year
anniversary this month. First operating in Ultima Online, the guild has
maintained a presence in most of the big name games of the past 10
years. Today, it operates exclusively in WoW and UO, with a roster of
over 550 players, annual real-life guild conventions, and even a
corporate sponsorship.
You can click
here for the complete story.
10 Year Anniversary
(Feb 2006):
The Syndicate turned 10 years old in February, 2006. Stratics was one
of the many major news organizations to put up an article comemorating
the event. We have had a long, positive history with Stratics and
appreciate their support over the years. An extract from that article
is:
Feb 2006, The Syndicate celebrates a DECADE of existance as a
guild. The Syndicate formed in Feb of 1996. Ultima Online was a vague
concept at the time. Meridian 59 was in beta. The Realm was in beta.
Neverwinter Nights (the America Online version built off the old Pools
of Radiance engine) was the closest thing to an MMO that you had and
Gemstone was the pre-eminent subscription text RPG (and it was in
partnership with AOL as well). Personal websites were very few and very
far between. In fact our initial webspace was 5 megabytes in total
storage and out initial webpages totaled 150kb. Netscape was around
version 1.0. There was a very basic version of IE out that hardly
anyone used. Windows had just launched WIN95 but Win 3.1 was the
dominant version. Modems were 14.4 (soon to go 28.8 and if u were
really the shizzle u could get 32.2 if your ISP supported it).
You can click
here for the complete story.
