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Legend of the Syndicate
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jun 26, 2007 12:46 PM
from the guild-is-life-guild-is-death dept.
from the guild-is-life-guild-is-death dept.
In the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Games, guilds live and die like generations of fruit flies. In the time it takes you to read this review, another group of friends will probably have decided to go their separate ways. Due to what is commonly referred to as 'drama', and the nature of the currently most popular online game, the modern MMOG guild tends to be a short-lived affair. A book published about a single guild, then, has to be discussing a singular organization. And indeed, The Syndicate has lasted for over a decade. Well known in both Ultima Online and EverQuest, and going strong into the days of World of Warcraft, they've had numerous public successes and some notorious failures. Their tale is a strange, and utterly personal view of the history of Massive games. It's also highly self-aggrandizing and probably contentious, but that's to be expected. Legend of the Syndicate is a publication worth reading by anyone interested in the history of the Massive genre, or the future of social networks online.
To hear Sean Stalzer tell it, The Syndicate is the noblest, most amazing online community ever formed. Guildleader of the organization, founder, and head of the guild's social network via a 'benevolent dictatorship', Stalzer is also the author of this title. The book primarily consists of written descriptions of the guild's history interspersed with fictionalized accounts of in-game events. On the page, guild actions become larger than life; at over 500 members, the guild itself seems the same way.
At first blush, it's hard not to see the whole thing as a little silly. Massive games are an incredibly important part of the future of gaming. Outside of guilds who compete in pro gaming events, though, I think most gamers see guilds as a convenient way to make friends and play the game. Organizations to be taken seriously, for sure, but not something you really consider being a part of your life ten years from now.
The Syndicate, just the same, is a very different outfit. What Stalzer has set up, and what the book is 'selling', is a group hundreds strong that operates under the slogan "In Friendship We Conquer." Over the years the organization has trademarked its name and logo, has beta tested over a dozen Massively Multiplayer games, and consults with a game guide publisher. The Syndicate now seems as much a business arrangement, or fraternal organization, as a gaming guild. They have a yearly conference that regularly draws more than hundred people, with game company representatives attending to brief them on in-development titles.
As a history of the guild, it actually works very well as a reflection of the Massively Multiplayer genre. The group moves with the trials and tribulations of Ultima Online, through to EverQuest, and then on to World of Warcraft, as I imagine many other individual players and guilds have done. By examining and discussing the guild's successes as an organization, Seltzer does a surprisingly insightful job of highlighting their good points. Though they've been decried as elitist and single-minded, The Syndicate can honestly make many claims to success.
What marrs the good story (the fictional one) and the inspiring tale (of real-life camaraderie) is the propagandist tone of the work. It is to be expected that Seltzer would feel pride at what he's put together, but likely as a result of this being a first published offering the book sometimes reads a lot like a recruiting pamphlet. Another 'first effort' sign is the lack of polish in phrasing and (unfortunately), spelling. The list of games that they've tested is riddled with errors. Further runs of the book, one would hope, will correct these fundamental errors.
Ultimately the audience for this book is somewhat narrow; folks interested in the history of the Massive genre will find this interesting, and avid players of EverQuest or UO have probably at least heard of the guild. Certainly, for members of The Syndicate, they now have something guaranteed to wig out their family members. "There's a book about your little club?" Outside of novelty value, I'm not sure there's a lot of other people who might find this text enlightening. For those few, though, a peak behind the curtain at The Syndicate will be fascinating. Propaganda aside, you have to hand it to a group that's kept it together for over a decade. The chance to see how that worked out is a unique one, and well worth taking.
If you're in any way interested in the book, Gamasutra has a full chapter of the book available online. The offered text, Chapter One in the book, takes a look at the guild's formation.
You can purchase Legend of the Syndicate from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
At first blush, it's hard not to see the whole thing as a little silly. Massive games are an incredibly important part of the future of gaming. Outside of guilds who compete in pro gaming events, though, I think most gamers see guilds as a convenient way to make friends and play the game. Organizations to be taken seriously, for sure, but not something you really consider being a part of your life ten years from now.
The Syndicate, just the same, is a very different outfit. What Stalzer has set up, and what the book is 'selling', is a group hundreds strong that operates under the slogan "In Friendship We Conquer." Over the years the organization has trademarked its name and logo, has beta tested over a dozen Massively Multiplayer games, and consults with a game guide publisher. The Syndicate now seems as much a business arrangement, or fraternal organization, as a gaming guild. They have a yearly conference that regularly draws more than hundred people, with game company representatives attending to brief them on in-development titles.
As a history of the guild, it actually works very well as a reflection of the Massively Multiplayer genre. The group moves with the trials and tribulations of Ultima Online, through to EverQuest, and then on to World of Warcraft, as I imagine many other individual players and guilds have done. By examining and discussing the guild's successes as an organization, Seltzer does a surprisingly insightful job of highlighting their good points. Though they've been decried as elitist and single-minded, The Syndicate can honestly make many claims to success.
What marrs the good story (the fictional one) and the inspiring tale (of real-life camaraderie) is the propagandist tone of the work. It is to be expected that Seltzer would feel pride at what he's put together, but likely as a result of this being a first published offering the book sometimes reads a lot like a recruiting pamphlet. Another 'first effort' sign is the lack of polish in phrasing and (unfortunately), spelling. The list of games that they've tested is riddled with errors. Further runs of the book, one would hope, will correct these fundamental errors.
Ultimately the audience for this book is somewhat narrow; folks interested in the history of the Massive genre will find this interesting, and avid players of EverQuest or UO have probably at least heard of the guild. Certainly, for members of The Syndicate, they now have something guaranteed to wig out their family members. "There's a book about your little club?" Outside of novelty value, I'm not sure there's a lot of other people who might find this text enlightening. For those few, though, a peak behind the curtain at The Syndicate will be fascinating. Propaganda aside, you have to hand it to a group that's kept it together for over a decade. The chance to see how that worked out is a unique one, and well worth taking.
If you're in any way interested in the book, Gamasutra has a full chapter of the book available online. The offered text, Chapter One in the book, takes a look at the guild's formation.
You can purchase Legend of the Syndicate from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:2)
Re:Sex, drugs and on-line relationships (Score:5, Funny)
And that was the day I stopped three-boxing. Sorry about that!
Parent
This meme isn't yet relevant (Score:2)
I've never heard of them (Score:2)
Re:I've never heard of them (Score:5, Informative)
I've heard of the Syndicate, but they were always in that "tier 2" level of guilds. The kind of guild that the top guilds usually recruited from. They were good, but they didn't usually finish expansions before the release of the next one, and that left them behind in the second wave of finishers.
~Rebecca
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm part of a guild that is, as far as I can determine, the oldest MMO guild still active, and is interesting as a social network for other reasons: we have families with members of three generations in the guild, for example. Occasionally we do something impressive in one of the games that th
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If my memory serves me correct, LLTS or the Syndicate was an Atlantic shard which I played on a lot back in 1997 to 2000.
I wasn't a member, but I PK'd a few of them and vice versa during some major guild wars. Of course seeing they just about let anyone join their guild and were the biggest guild on Atlantic and it was hard not to miss them.
Of course with a guild that big, it their structure was kind of diluted and we even had a few guild me
More Syndicate hype (Score:5, Insightful)
Like most close-knit online communities, there's a tendency to see your community as far more important and influential than it actually is (see: bloggers). This is just another example of a group with a charismatic leader believing its own hype.
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Never heard of syndicate. Cool they are published tho.
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Kinda like that one fat chick who hangs out with the hot chicks, and, therefore, over-estimates her own hotness....
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How do you... (Score:3, Funny)
Sean will do anything to make a buck. (Score:3, Informative)
Who in the hell would buy a book written by the founder of an online club? And lets face it, its a club- like the 4H Club.
This is about profit and money for himself, and over the years, you can see a Sean emerge from ultra-paranoid and stealth identity, to a person who has taken extra steps to thrust himself into the public eye.
My own experiences in this guild as an adult member of 3+ years says this:
The size of this is grossly exaggerated- their registry of members never changes
The roster also is full of duplicated members- so if you are a member and playing 5 games, you have five alias, and thus those 5 names count as "membership"
There is an "elite" group within the organization that simply dont pay for their resources, thanks in part to the fair number of members that are minors who are willing to pay "dues" so that the elite group can be paid.
The list goes on- but so freakin what.
Not much different from FPS games, then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like MMPORG's, some groups were casual (they did it more as a social event than anything competitive or rather, 'striving to be the best'). Others have members that perhaps loathe each other, but at the same time they're such good players, they stick together for the success rate.
Drama and BS aside (which happens quite often), once in awhile you simply fall into a pile of friends you meet at a server and everyone just clicks. It doesn't matter what game it is, you simply hang out and enjoy the hell out of each other as much as you enjoy the game. (I'll happily spare the planet a long boring tale of how many an odd night was spent while the ex was at work, and I was playing on an old Quake2 Weapons Factory server. Suffice it to say that many of the players on that old TCA-owned box had come to recognize each other as friends. It was also kinda funny to have someone in spec reading poetry over chat, while we were killing each other repeatedly. Crap - too late. Sorry 'bout that).
IMHO, nothing really changed from the days when everyone was an LPB and everyone played something that didn't require much thought beyond (maybe) what the other team might be doing to steal your flag.
oops: LPB != HPB. (Score:2)
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I hadn't heard of m0o either when I joined eve, however that clan is instrumental in across the board structural changes to how Eve is played purely by how they played the game.
Leadership is key (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? The answer is simple -- people really only care about *playing the game,* and of course they see drama as a hindrance in that regard. Once they see that they spend less time playing the game and more time worrying about "what will happen to the guild," they want out.
The guilds that survive for extended periods of time are laid-back ones that put the goal of just playing the game first, and make it a point to ignore or avoid all of the surrounding personal issues that come up.
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This is because in MMOs, the main criteria for "leadership" is often simply the sum of hours one is willing to commit to pursuing goals in a video game, with other leadership qualities becoming secondary considerations. Oftentimes the sheer willingness to dedicate inhum
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I for one, and the successful guild leaders I've known, are very far from playing the game much. I log onto Guild Wars for at most 1 hr per evening, mostly to check up on people, say hi to everyone, and possibly help someone out on a quick quest or participate in a player-vs-player battle. Most of my work as le
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Actually given the number of active accounts in WoW, I doubt 2000 is the number one's looking for there, either. It's probaby a couple of orders of magnitude larger.
This Is Spinal Tap (Score:5, Insightful)
So, let me get this straight: this is a serious book -- autobiographical no less -- about a bunch of adults who take themselves seriously as game players?
This is like irony folding time....
Re:This Is Spinal Tap (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Laughing (Score:2)
it begins... (Score:2, Funny)
Vanity publishing strikes again. (Score:3, Informative)
If this had been published by an outfit like Baen (or, Jesus, like Prima for that matter), it might have been worthy of comment or review. The fact that these jokers can't even be arsed to do proofreading and spell-checking speaks volumes of their professionalism.
Groups of Friends Last Longer (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not believe in a group having a legacy for influencing this or doing that. At the end of the day, the only thing that counts are the friendships your forged and ended up valuing more than a great record, an epic item, or prestigious rank/title. I would boost the accomplishments of my group of friends to be far and above more impressive than any accomplishments an 'entity' has achieved.
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I still game with guys I met on kali playing war 2 back then. Usually when a new game comes out that has some passing interest we all ping each other back and forth over icq or something and get together gaming.
Not to put this group down but it's not really anything special. Most of the "old school" gamers as we are
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I doubt it. (Score:2)
Goonswarm (Score:2)
So? (Score:4, Insightful)
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O rly? (Score:2)
Wrong guild? (Score:2)
Or even something about the old Mercs guild when this here interweb was still young to most of the public.
Though I guess in the case of FoH this book was already written via their public forums.
Still, I wouldn't consider the Syndicate to be *the Guild of Guilds* or anything so I find it somewhat odd that this was done, and that it made Slashdot.
Syndicate game. (Score:2)
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Wow . . . (Score:2)
Literary tea-bagging. Who'da thunk?
Club lasts for ten years, so what? (Score:2)
Being a group of people who share a common interest but are separated by distance and communicate via distance-media tools, umm well that's been going on for some time too.
Sorry, struggling to see the novelty in this..
Spelling (Score:2)
I for one.. (Score:2, Funny)
I for one would like to welcome our new Self important Goglike MMO Guild Overlords.
Read the phamplet and you too will know of thier greatness and overall power in the gaming community!
I heard of them in DAOC, assuming it is the same group. They were a nice size and they were "evaluating" the games worthiness for thier guild. If they like it, the server would be filled with Syndicate members who would then rule the server. After that 30 minutes diatribe from them, I said
Wow (Score:3, Informative)
That was the most self-serving, pompous piece of fluff I have ever laid eyes on. "The first kick of the baby in the womb"? Awkward metaphors ahoy.
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I wonder if older guilds like this realize that theres a HUGE number of us who have been MMOing since the Majormud learn-to-type-or-die-pvp days. We arent special, we're gaming dorks =)
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