Adam

Sean from The Syndicate was kind enough to agree to our interview and answer our users questions.

Below you'll find our interview with Sean, Guildmaster of The Syndicate.

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1. What has made The Syndicate® so successful that they have been around for so long?

The short answer to that question is: read the book (Legend of The Syndicate from AvariPress.com or Amazon.com). The answer to that question is actually extremely lengthy hence why we have a book published. We have been around since 1996 but if we were to found our guild today and make the mistakes we made back in the first couple of years, we wouldn't last as a guild. We made a number of mistakes that we survived because of the nature of the 'perfect storm' that existed back then. The gaming world was nothing like it is today. Expectations were different. Technology was different. People were lucky to have 32.2kbps modems and websites were few and far between and forums even more so. There was no site like uoforums.com for example. So we were able to make rookie mistakes and survive them because there was no one to step in and offer to do things 'right' when we were doing them wrong (like having poor recruiting standards). Fortunately, we made a commitment early on to learn from our mistakes and not repeat them. So because of that we matured into a very successful, very organized, extremely low turnover, highly unified guild. But we did have our bumps along the way, especially at the start, that are common "killers" of guilds. So one of the reasons we published Legend of The Syndicate was to share the mistakes we made and how we overcame them which in turn may help other guilds, that use a similar structure to ours, avoid the same pitfalls.

2. Does The Syndicate® have any plans to move to other major online games besides UO & WoW?

The Syndicate has a presence in just about every game out there. We beta tested just about everything out there. We consulted on a number of games that are popular today. And our members play just about everything. But... we only recruit for WoW and for UO. We have no plans to widen recruiting to other games in the near future. We will, at some point, have several hundred members playing some other major game and we will recruit for it. Since we recruit based on who are good friends with, we only tend to add new members when we have a substantial presence in a game that we can develop those friendships with a large number of members.

3. Is there a "high" limit to membership and how does membership application work?

While we have no firm upper size limit per-se, we do try to maintain the guild at roughly the size it is now. Of course, a couple years back I would have said we were trying to maintain the guild at roughly 500 members and then 550 and now 600. The reality is that our overall size does creep up over time. The reason for that is that we ONLY (no exceptions) recruit people we are friends with. We ONLY recruit people with the same values, play styles and gaming goals as ours. We ONLY recruit people with a desire to be a member for the long term that have a personality that is compatible with those already in the guild. In short, we recruit like minded people that we are friends with. By having that focus, we have virtually no turnover. We lose about one person every two months to quitting for another guild or unhappy with some rule. Conversely we receive more than 4,000 applications to join each year. We actually lose more members due to needing to leave online gaming entirely (for work, health, parental or spouse related issues) than we do from any other reason. We have virtually no drama and no infighting and no backstabbing etc.. within the guild. So by having that recruiting focus, we do reject a massive amount of applications but we create a very stable guild that stands the test of time. It also means we only grow very slowly over time so while there isn't an upper limit to the size, there is pressure to only add in the exact right people for our team.

4. Is there a "fear" of getting "too big"?

That was a major issue in our early years. As I alluded to in an answer above, we made mistakes in our early years. One of those mistakes was the decision to absorb any other guild out there that we could get to join us in those early months. That was both a bad mistake (as it caused us to get too big with too many differently minded people too fast) and also what helped us succeed (because despite all the pain, it gave us a nucleus of core people that did share our values that we could build upon). Today, however, there is no focus in The Syndicate on size. Our ENTIRE focus is on each other and having fun. Since we only recruit people that are similar to ourselves who we are very good friends with, there isn't really such a thing as "too big" since we are all good friends and we grow verrrryyy sloowwwly allowing for plenty of time for Trust, Friendship and Loyalty to grow.

5. I have followed The Syndicate® for the past year or so after learning about you through the planned publication of your book last year. I know Ultima Online is where you began as a guild and wondered if and how recent changes to the game have affected The Syndicate® at all and if so how?

The Syndicate has a unique perspective on UO and all games. We are not a "Ultima Guild". We are not a "WoW Guild." We do not exist to play UO or any other game. We are, instead, a virtually community of friends that exists for the purpose of growing our friendships and community and to having a positive impact on the overall gaming community. One of the tools that we use to do that is playing UO. Another tool is our guide writing relationship with Prima Games. Another tool are our consulting relationships with gaming companies and so forth. We are not a guild that exists for a game. We are a community that uses gaming as one tool to further our goals. That is a rather long answer to your question. The short answer is: Changes to the game have little impact on us. We play for each other. We enjoy each others company. UO has a number of wonderful mechanisms that allow us to build friendships and have fun together and we see no reason why our presence in UO won't continue for years more.

6. I would like to know why The Syndicate® feels like they can branch out to other shards.

Every so often I get an email asking if I will create a branch on another shard. The answer has been and will always be 'no.' There is simply no reason to do so. Since we exist for the primary purpose of growing our friendships and community, to have little branches here and there (or even big branches here and there) is not supportive of that goal. Its the building of Personal Relationships that make us strong. So with more than 600 active, adult (the average age in the guild is about 33 years) members split between UO, WoW, our guide writing team and our consulting and testing team, there is little value in creating branches on other servers that would effectively be isolated from the majority of the Personal Relationship building going on. We want every member that joins us to have a wonderful experience, make hundreds of friends and know that they truly matter to our community and we cannot offer that by creating small outlets on lots of servers.

7. Since starting to play, I have have always found The Syndicate® a very attractive guild to join, yet I play on Legends. Guilds of this quality seem to just come and go here. Is there any chance the Syndicate will consider expanding, setting up auxiliary associations on other shards like Legends? I am sure I wouldn't be the only one willing to affiliate with them.

Unfortunately, for the reasons stated in the previous question, we do not have any plans to locate to Legends. All of the qualities you see in the guild that make you interested in joining exist because we are consolidated together and able to focus ourselves on building and growing our Personal Relationships. We could not offer you the true Syndicate experience if we had just a branch office there. There are some wonderful people on other servers that we would love to get to know more and who might make great Syndicate members. I would encourage them to make a character on Atlantic shard and get to know us there or possibly to look us up in the next "major" game we put a sizable presence in.

8. Ask them why they state in their book that you have to know another member to get in.. but in their book drops on all shards, they ask people to come over and join them..

Unless someone dropping a Blue Book on a shard other than Atlantic has adjusted the text, all the books say basically the same thing. In fact, they aren't intended to be direct recruiting tools although there is a very clear argument that can be made that they do serve that purpose. Their primary purpose is to share information about our guild and our events which are free and open to the public (like Craftsman Day every Sunday at 4pm at our castle in Trammel.. and our Lottery events held about every 6 weeks). A secondary purpose is to meet more people and grow personal relationships. And a tertiary purpose to turn some of those personal relationships into future memberships could be argued to exist.

9. About Ultima Online. Do you have preference for 2D or KR? What do you think of the big KR performance patch recently released, and has it changed your opinion of KR & your usage of KR?

Internally to our guild, we have an effort underway to educate all of our members on the features and benefits of KR. We have an internal secured page where our resident expert puts out a weekly column on one feature or another and how to make the most of it. KR still needs more work but it has made vast improvements since it was released. I feel the #1 hurdle to switching from 2D to KR is muscle memory. Some of us have played on 2D for a decade or more. That is alot of muscle memory in doing things a certain way. KR does change some things but it also gives players many of the features we have been lacking for years like an improved chat system (tells, friends etc..), hotkey bars and better macros, an improved map, an improved inventory system etc.. and it improves upon things like the Crafting system. But, it is a change. Humans inherently dont like change. That makes KR a hard sell. In our guild we have an increasing number of members using KR and really enjoying it. The last patch made doing TMaps in KR possible for the first time. We have people that do Champs and Peerless in KR. Most of our Pvpers still use 2D at least for PvP. Our crafters love KR. With some additional work, KR could become "the" client. I think they could most easily make that switch possibly if they gave 'full' 2D graphics support in KR. Alot of old timers are very used to the old graphics and like them alot. If they could allow full 2D graphics in KR that would help make a great many people give it a shot.

10. What is your opinion of the recent Doom/Bag of Sending/Powder of Fortification/etc. changes implemented recently?

People inherently don't like change but if we can objectively look at the economy of UO today, changes are needed. When I first began in UO, you could buy small 7x7 house deeds. They then added in more deeds but lets just focus on those small 7x7s a second. They cost 11,000 gold. To get 11,000 gold we had several hundred guild members making fancy shirts and skull caps out of thread that you would buy and convert to cloth and tailor. We would then load up ships full of them and have other members that sailed them from port to port to sell as many as you could before the NPC stopped buying them for hours or even until the next server boot. Each sale netted only a couple of gold in profit and you could only sell a few to each NPC. Sounds like alot of work right? It was. But it is no different than farming millions of gold to buy an artifact today. You still put in tons and tons of hours of work to get the gold. However, the only reason you need to do that much effort is because inflation in the economy has grown and grown in the past decade. An equivalent effort to get 11,000 gold a decade ago would now result in hundreds of millions of gold. So, is it harder to get gold out of Doom? Sure. But is that really a bad thing? I don't think so. The reality of an economy is that prices rise in accordance with your ability to pay. If its harder to get gold, prices fall since no one will buy your product. They will simply farm it themselves or make it themselves or buy from a competitor who sells it cheaper. So while it is a shock when something is "taken away" it really wasn't taken away since prices adjust based on the amount of gold available. In the short term we may perceive ourselves as poorer but in the long term things even out.

11. Do you play any computer games at this time and if so which ones?

I personally am a computer game junkie. I like them all. I play just about everything. I recently finished up COD4, Crysis, World in Conflict, UO: Afterlight (yeah so im a year late on that one), yet another round of Medieval Total War 2 (great game!) and the Company of Heroes expansion. The Syndicate has an internal "FPS" gaming night for our members and in a few weeks we have one of our twice yearly Lan Parties as well.

12. What was the very first computer game you played?

I owned the original Pong machine on a black and white TV. Two vertical bars on the right and left sides and a square shaped "ball" that bounced back and forth. That was uber high tech for the day.

13. Who is your favorite fictional book series?

I have several that I like. I really enjoy George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series. David Gemmel also has a series of books that I enjoyed.. everything from his Troy series (an alternate reality telling of the time before the fall of Troy) to his Druss the Legend and related books. He is a good story teller.

14. Would you/Have you ever thought of designing your own game ?

Sure. I'm personally not a programmer but I think nearly all gamers have an idea in their heads of the best game ever that they hope to make one better. The Syndicate has a bunch of members that are game developers ranging from code monkey's to owners of companies. We chat on a regular basis since we are good friends.. and we share ideas and things that work/dont work and talk about game design a great deal. So while I have personally never coded a game, there are pieces and parts of a number of games out there, even UO, that at some point in the past originated or were fleshed out or revised in a Syndicate chat.
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Many thanks Sean for a great interview!

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Nok

Good interview gentlemen! Thanks!

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buddy lee

good read

Solidchrome

Yay! Mega tnx

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Snugglebug

Awesome! Thank you!

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AdamD: You made me cry tears of pink sadness and despair!

kitiara

Very good answer to #9 - the "muscle memory" comment is a great way to phrase that. Indeed, that was the hardest part for me in switching to KR. After a decade in 2D, some things are just so ingrained in the way I play the game that I felt lost for a while... but it was worth it and I truly do prefer KR now.

Thanks - good read!

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Nok

Exactly. At first I didn't quite grasp how KR worked. Just didn't feel like 2D. So I tried the demos for LOTRO, WoW, and some other games... and then it clicked.

I had a light bulb moment... I now understood how KR worked.

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Tabbitha

Top Class Interview,and good solid answers,making a lot of sense.

Thanks to Adam for taking the time to do all this and Sean for taking part.

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Silverfoot

Excellent interview!
And also a great choice. A great read for those who think gaming is just gaming. It's a tremendous social interaction.

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StoneCypher

Sweeeet! Thank you Adam! I hope you don't mind that I stole the interview and put in on our guild site with full credit to Adam of course. Woot!

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StoneCypher

kingtony

really good read nice

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For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.

kitiara

LOL it was kind of like that for me too - a lightbulb moment, sort of like a revelation!

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[Photography blog: http://www.photon00b.com] - [Bird blog: http://www.myavianfriends.com] -
[Geek blog: http://geekgoesmeow.blogspot.com] - [My Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/phlyersphan/]