Ten Ton Hammer: As a guild that spans multiple games, one of The Syndicate's organizational precepts is to have a guild presence in only two games at a time. As of now, those games are Ultima Online and World of Warcraft. Is a change in sight with games like Age of Conan and Warhammer Online set to be released in 2008, or isn't The Syndicate close to contemplating a move at this time?

Sean: Yes, we do limit our presence to two major games at a time.  Will be shifting our presence to new games in the future?  Definitely.  Will it be AoC and Warhammer?  Probably not both.  Perhaps not either.  I realize that is a vague answer to a direct question but the reality is, we have 225+ people active in UO and really having a great time.  We have 300ish people in WoW and really have a great time.  We have 75ish people divided among our beta testing team, consulting team, strategy guide writing team and some that are not active in any game right now. 

We don’t migrate to new games just to move games.  We do so when we are basically ‘done’ with a game.   We don’t appear to be done with UO or WOW at the present time.  At some point we will be.  With that said, we play everything.  We have a block of members in every MMO out there.  We even have a “secret” name for guild entity that we create in those games just for members only to be a part of.   We only recruit new members for our core two games (since its real hard to get to know someone really well and build a friendship if you aren’t actively gaming with them) but we have members playing everything.

Ten Ton Hammer: In the ten-plus year timeline of Legend of the Syndicate, we've seen the total number of MMO gamers double many times.  Despite this growth, do you feel that the focus of the average online gamer has become more self-centered in this time, and has this impacted the time it takes to sift through and find recruits that fit The Syndicate's mold?

Sean: I don’t know that I would say the average game is more self-centered.  There are some really outstanding people playing MMOs.  I would say that there are a lot more self centered people today than a few years ago but that is because, like anything in life, the larger you get the more bad apples you turn up.  I think the average gamer is still basically a good person looking to have fun.  However, we all take notice of the jerks, kiddies and morons that mess things up for everyone.  You could have 500 players in a zone all having a great time and one moron starts spamming something ridiculous and human nature is to make the leap to “boy there are sure a lot of morons around these days.”  Perhaps so.. but I don’t think they make up a larger percentage of the population than before. Rather, the population itself is larger and thus their numbers are correspondingly larger.

Ten Ton Hammer: Now that the book has been out since August, is there anything that you now wish you'd written about that you didn't cover in the original manuscript? Would you rule out a sequel or accompaniment to Legend of the Syndicate or related work at some point in the future?

Sean: Yes.  There is a huge amount I wish I could have covered.  We covered a great deal of the first 10 years of MMO history in the book but there is more that could be said and every day there is new stuff that I see that would make a great chapter.  I keep a log of chapter ideas that I add to all the time.   The reality is that the first 10 years of major MMO gaming were, in many ways, an awakening for players.  After years of gaming we are currently at a phase where our expectations are growing faster than the innovation in gaming is happening.  Or perhaps better said, players expectations are growing faster than the rate at which the people with the money are willing to trust their developers to take some risks. 

I think the next couple of years will generate a huge amount of content for a future book.  Does the WoW model get copied a bazillion times until it implodes under the weight of too many clones doing the same thing?  Does a company take a risk and innovate in a creative direction that players flock to?  Do we see a number of half hearted attempts at innovation that implode due to lack of foresight, funding or both such that it makes investors leery of making more games?  Time will tell but gamers now have years of experience under their belts and years of expectations. As such the next couple of years are likely to see a number of historical failures and successes that will make a great next book.

Thanks to Sean "Dragons" Stalzer for sitting with us for this interview. You can find our review of Legend of The Syndicate here, or get 25% off the retail price when you order the book directly from the publisher.

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