Mr. Shrever,
Upon looking up your information in old records, you have not been a part of the guild for going on eight years now. Your time in the guild would correspond to a period where there was more drama and more turnover. The book goes into that period of the guild and discusses the issues in those early years. Back then recruiting standards were more lax and the mix of people that got into the guild were not always compatible with each other in goals, personality, play styles etc.. The Syndicate of today has evolved its recruiting practices to the point that we solely recruit people of similar personalities, goals, values, play styles etc.. and we solely recruit people that we know extremely well. Again, the book covers that evolution. While your opinion of the guild is frozen in time back from 7 to 8 years ago when you were a member, the guild has matured and grown since then.
You are correct in that members do have different accounts in different games with lots of characters/aliases. We, however, record every person in the roster one and only one time. We internally track every character that belongs to every member both mains (i.e. aliases) and their alts. However, the size numbers we speak of about our guild are unique, individual people that compose the guild. While we haven't taken the time to sum up characters/aliases/persona (since that is irrelevant to our guild) it would be in the thousands and not simply around 600 unique members. So while you are definitely correct that our members have lots of characters in many gaming worlds, when we speak of the "size" of the guild, we speak of unique people, not characters.
In closing, we are sorry your membership did not work out so many years ago and that you carry such venom for the guild today based on how things were years ago but we do wish you the best in whatever you pursue.
One of the characteristics of The Syndicate is that we do not often post in public. Rare exceptions are made and given this unique opportunity from Slashdot, we wanted to take a moment to clarify some facts about The Syndicate, as it exists today. There are a great many personal opinions expressed here and none of those are being commented on since we do believe in everyone being entitled to an opinion. We did want to clarify some factual inaccuracies.
A) The book is not about a 'guild.' It is about the creation of a virtual organization that is part guild, part community and part many other things. The questions asked by several in the vein of "what makes xxxx guild so special as to have a book about it?" are accurate ones. Guilds are a dime a dozen but I think you will find something interesting and different about The Syndicate since we are not a guild. We are an online organization.
B) Some comments were made about The Syndicate recruiting anyone and actively spamming gaming worlds for recruits. We definitely do not do that. We actively solicit NO ONE in any gaming world. We reject nearly all applications that come in. And we only add people we are very close friends with which most often means we add relatives, real life friends and co-workers and people we have gamed with for a long time that share our values, goals, playstyles etc... Details of our policy can be found on our site as well as in the book.
There are some guilds out there that have chosen to use our trademarked name that may exhibit those characteristics but The Syndicate of today does not do that. Back in our very early days we did have lower standards which we also talk about openly in the book. The standards of 8 years ago are not the standards of today. We have learned from the mistakes of the early days back when the one posted who indicated they were a "3+ year" member was with us.
C) A comment about us having a presence in DAOC was made. We have not had a presence in DAOC. That is/was one of the copycat groups.
D) A comment was made that we espouse ourselves as a high end content guild. That is not accurate. The Syndicate is not an online gaming guild. We do not exist for the purpose of playing X or Y game and defeating content. We are, among other things, a virtual community that exists for the purpose of growing and enhancing our friendships (among other things). We use online gaming as one mechanism for growing those friendships. And some of our members do participate in end game content whether that be raiding or pvp or whatever the game offers.
E) A comment was made that our roster is artificially inflated such that every persona a member has in any game they play is individually recorded. That is inaccurate. Currently The Syndicate has about 600 individual, active people who are members. They are divided between UO, WoW, our guide writing team and our beta (formal and informal) testers. We have about 120 people on an Inactive list that we do not count towards our total. We do not count persona's or characters. If we did the number would be in the thousands.
F) As part of an incorrect statement that we recruit everyone with a pulse it was alluded to that we have large turnover. Currently, we lose about 1 member every 3-4 months who choses to join another guild. We have no internal drama.. no members quitting over fighting.. no personality issues resulting in quitting etc.. Our only real source of "turnover" is people that leave online gaming entirely due to real life reasons. There was a time in our history that was not the case which we also go into in the book. Today's Syndicate has more than 85% of the guild having been with us 1 to 11 years and that percentage goes up every month.
In closing, we want to say thank you to Slashdot for taking the time to review our book.
Slashdot Mirror
Mr. Shrever, Upon looking up your information in old records, you have not been a part of the guild for going on eight years now. Your time in the guild would correspond to a period where there was more drama and more turnover. The book goes into that period of the guild and discusses the issues in those early years. Back then recruiting standards were more lax and the mix of people that got into the guild were not always compatible with each other in goals, personality, play styles etc.. The Syndicate of today has evolved its recruiting practices to the point that we solely recruit people of similar personalities, goals, values, play styles etc.. and we solely recruit people that we know extremely well. Again, the book covers that evolution. While your opinion of the guild is frozen in time back from 7 to 8 years ago when you were a member, the guild has matured and grown since then. You are correct in that members do have different accounts in different games with lots of characters/aliases. We, however, record every person in the roster one and only one time. We internally track every character that belongs to every member both mains (i.e. aliases) and their alts. However, the size numbers we speak of about our guild are unique, individual people that compose the guild. While we haven't taken the time to sum up characters/aliases/persona (since that is irrelevant to our guild) it would be in the thousands and not simply around 600 unique members. So while you are definitely correct that our members have lots of characters in many gaming worlds, when we speak of the "size" of the guild, we speak of unique people, not characters. In closing, we are sorry your membership did not work out so many years ago and that you carry such venom for the guild today based on how things were years ago but we do wish you the best in whatever you pursue.
One of the characteristics of The Syndicate is that we do not often post in public. Rare exceptions are made and given this unique opportunity from Slashdot, we wanted to take a moment to clarify some facts about The Syndicate, as it exists today. There are a great many personal opinions expressed here and none of those are being commented on since we do believe in everyone being entitled to an opinion. We did want to clarify some factual inaccuracies. A) The book is not about a 'guild.' It is about the creation of a virtual organization that is part guild, part community and part many other things. The questions asked by several in the vein of "what makes xxxx guild so special as to have a book about it?" are accurate ones. Guilds are a dime a dozen but I think you will find something interesting and different about The Syndicate since we are not a guild. We are an online organization. B) Some comments were made about The Syndicate recruiting anyone and actively spamming gaming worlds for recruits. We definitely do not do that. We actively solicit NO ONE in any gaming world. We reject nearly all applications that come in. And we only add people we are very close friends with which most often means we add relatives, real life friends and co-workers and people we have gamed with for a long time that share our values, goals, playstyles etc... Details of our policy can be found on our site as well as in the book. There are some guilds out there that have chosen to use our trademarked name that may exhibit those characteristics but The Syndicate of today does not do that. Back in our very early days we did have lower standards which we also talk about openly in the book. The standards of 8 years ago are not the standards of today. We have learned from the mistakes of the early days back when the one posted who indicated they were a "3+ year" member was with us. C) A comment about us having a presence in DAOC was made. We have not had a presence in DAOC. That is/was one of the copycat groups. D) A comment was made that we espouse ourselves as a high end content guild. That is not accurate. The Syndicate is not an online gaming guild. We do not exist for the purpose of playing X or Y game and defeating content. We are, among other things, a virtual community that exists for the purpose of growing and enhancing our friendships (among other things). We use online gaming as one mechanism for growing those friendships. And some of our members do participate in end game content whether that be raiding or pvp or whatever the game offers. E) A comment was made that our roster is artificially inflated such that every persona a member has in any game they play is individually recorded. That is inaccurate. Currently The Syndicate has about 600 individual, active people who are members. They are divided between UO, WoW, our guide writing team and our beta (formal and informal) testers. We have about 120 people on an Inactive list that we do not count towards our total. We do not count persona's or characters. If we did the number would be in the thousands. F) As part of an incorrect statement that we recruit everyone with a pulse it was alluded to that we have large turnover. Currently, we lose about 1 member every 3-4 months who choses to join another guild. We have no internal drama.. no members quitting over fighting.. no personality issues resulting in quitting etc.. Our only real source of "turnover" is people that leave online gaming entirely due to real life reasons. There was a time in our history that was not the case which we also go into in the book. Today's Syndicate has more than 85% of the guild having been with us 1 to 11 years and that percentage goes up every month. In closing, we want to say thank you to Slashdot for taking the time to review our book.