Craftsman Day, Community, The Syndicate & More..
The Syndicate is one of the oldest gaming communities in all of online gaming. It has been involved with Ultima Online since the pre-alpha stage of the game back in the beginning of 1996. We have seen UO's growth ebb and flow over time and experienced all of the 'doom and gloom' bugs that some said would end the game, but never did, and the wonderful advances and improvements. As Stygian Abyss looms closer and closer, another evolution of those wonderful advances and improvements to UO is shaping up to come to pass. In that light, we would like to share several news related things.
Craftsman Day
For those on Atlantic Shard, we would like to remind all players that we offer a free service that is open to all players. Each Sunday at 4pm EST for more than a decade, we have offered what we call Craftsman Day. Once every month or so we offer an extended version that offers some of the less frequently asked for services and expands beyond the CD scope to offer other cool options such as taking out newer players to tame a mount.
The core weekly Craftsman Day event offers item repairs, created and enhances. We do so free of charge. We offer the service as a way to help newer players get established in the game and as a way to give something back to the wonderful Atlantic shard community as a whole. All players are welcome and it takes place at our Tram castle (or you can look for gaters at the major banks with LLTS over their heads). When Stygian Abyss launches you can expect to see all of the new options being offered as well. You can get locks picked on chests. You can get potions made. You can get weapons sharpened. If its crafting related, we offer it free of charge to those attending the event.
Lottery
About every other month (with the next one coming up in late August) we offer what we call the Lottery event. Perhaps a better name for it would be "lots of free stuff" because ultimately that is what happens. We give out 25 bags of prizes that include power scrolls, artifacts, rares, checks of gold, commodity deeds etc... Additionally there is always some kind of bonus for all who attend. One of the recent bonus rounds included us covering one of our castles in power-scrolls. More than 200 were laid out. After the core lottery was done, the doors were opened and it was a free for all to collect the scrolls. The whole idea behind these events is to generate community interaction and to make Atlantic shard a little more fun for those who live there. Look for more news soon about the late August lottery. We hope you can attend!
Community
The Syndicate is an extremely large (more than 625 adult members) gaming community that spans several gaming worlds and has a large consulting and testing arm that does work for game developers. Our Ultima Online presence has about 200 adult members some of whom seemingly never log off and some of whom are less active and others who fall somewhere in between. We are based on Atlantic shard and have our only UO presence there.
Our core focus is Friendship and building our community and having a positive influence on the overall gaming community. In addition to huge logistics and friendship support in Ultima Online, we offer our members a multitude of other opportunities from writing strategy guides for Prima Games to consulting on future MMO development to testing changes to current MMOs in a structured and methodical manner. We offer a massive, private forum and private ventrilo servers and IRC servers. We offer every opportunity within UO and opportunities to grow and meet other members in a variety of gaming worlds and in real life. Coming up in just a couple of weeks, for example, we have our eight annual conference (discussed below).
If you are looking for a community where you can make a difference; where you matter as a person; and where you can build friendships that last for many years (more than 500 of our members have been with us for 1 to 13 years. Turnover is virtually non-existent within the guild) then you may want to check out our site and read more about us or seek out members in game and get their opinion.
Success
There are many ways to measure success. One of the hallmark successes that we like to point to is our annual conferences. This year marks our 8th Annual conference. With more than 150 members and more than a dozen different developers attending, it will be our largest guild event to date. At our annual guild meeting on of the keynote speakers that is relevant to UO is Lord British himself. There will be tours of several developer studios; round table design and discussion sessions with some developers; a LAN party sponsored by Alienware; a massive charity raffle with thousands of dollars in prizes up for grabs to support our chosen guild charity and much more.
The conferences are one of the perks of Syndicate membership but more importantly they are a major reason why 600+ people can be so closely unified and have such low turnover. With a massive percentage of the guild having attended 1 or more of the conferences, very personal relationships have been formed that transcend the games we play. That is really how we measure success. The conference is a tool towards creating that success but the bonds of friendship that help us move forward as one unified team are the real payoff from those events.
So after many years in Ultima Online, The Syndicate remains a staunch supporter of this outstanding MMO. We are very excited for Stygian Abyss and looking forward to many years of UO fun for the whole community of players.
Submitted by Dragons, GM of LLTS
The Syndicate is one of the oldest gaming communities in all of online gaming. It has been involved with Ultima Online since the pre-alpha stage of the game back in the beginning of 1996. We have seen UO's growth ebb and flow over time and experienced all of the 'doom and gloom' bugs that some said would end the game, but never did, and the wonderful advances and improvements. As Stygian Abyss looms closer and closer, another evolution of those wonderful advances and improvements to UO is shaping up to come to pass. In that light, we would like to share several news related things.
Craftsman Day
For those on Atlantic Shard, we would like to remind all players that we offer a free service that is open to all players. Each Sunday at 4pm EST for more than a decade, we have offered what we call Craftsman Day. Once every month or so we offer an extended version that offers some of the less frequently asked for services and expands beyond the CD scope to offer other cool options such as taking out newer players to tame a mount.
The core weekly Craftsman Day event offers item repairs, created and enhances. We do so free of charge. We offer the service as a way to help newer players get established in the game and as a way to give something back to the wonderful Atlantic shard community as a whole. All players are welcome and it takes place at our Tram castle (or you can look for gaters at the major banks with LLTS over their heads). When Stygian Abyss launches you can expect to see all of the new options being offered as well. You can get locks picked on chests. You can get potions made. You can get weapons sharpened. If its crafting related, we offer it free of charge to those attending the event.
Lottery
About every other month (with the next one coming up in late August) we offer what we call the Lottery event. Perhaps a better name for it would be "lots of free stuff" because ultimately that is what happens. We give out 25 bags of prizes that include power scrolls, artifacts, rares, checks of gold, commodity deeds etc... Additionally there is always some kind of bonus for all who attend. One of the recent bonus rounds included us covering one of our castles in power-scrolls. More than 200 were laid out. After the core lottery was done, the doors were opened and it was a free for all to collect the scrolls. The whole idea behind these events is to generate community interaction and to make Atlantic shard a little more fun for those who live there. Look for more news soon about the late August lottery. We hope you can attend!
Community
The Syndicate is an extremely large (more than 625 adult members) gaming community that spans several gaming worlds and has a large consulting and testing arm that does work for game developers. Our Ultima Online presence has about 200 adult members some of whom seemingly never log off and some of whom are less active and others who fall somewhere in between. We are based on Atlantic shard and have our only UO presence there.
Our core focus is Friendship and building our community and having a positive influence on the overall gaming community. In addition to huge logistics and friendship support in Ultima Online, we offer our members a multitude of other opportunities from writing strategy guides for Prima Games to consulting on future MMO development to testing changes to current MMOs in a structured and methodical manner. We offer a massive, private forum and private ventrilo servers and IRC servers. We offer every opportunity within UO and opportunities to grow and meet other members in a variety of gaming worlds and in real life. Coming up in just a couple of weeks, for example, we have our eight annual conference (discussed below).
If you are looking for a community where you can make a difference; where you matter as a person; and where you can build friendships that last for many years (more than 500 of our members have been with us for 1 to 13 years. Turnover is virtually non-existent within the guild) then you may want to check out our site and read more about us or seek out members in game and get their opinion.
Success
There are many ways to measure success. One of the hallmark successes that we like to point to is our annual conferences. This year marks our 8th Annual conference. With more than 150 members and more than a dozen different developers attending, it will be our largest guild event to date. At our annual guild meeting on of the keynote speakers that is relevant to UO is Lord British himself. There will be tours of several developer studios; round table design and discussion sessions with some developers; a LAN party sponsored by Alienware; a massive charity raffle with thousands of dollars in prizes up for grabs to support our chosen guild charity and much more.
The conferences are one of the perks of Syndicate membership but more importantly they are a major reason why 600+ people can be so closely unified and have such low turnover. With a massive percentage of the guild having attended 1 or more of the conferences, very personal relationships have been formed that transcend the games we play. That is really how we measure success. The conference is a tool towards creating that success but the bonds of friendship that help us move forward as one unified team are the real payoff from those events.
So after many years in Ultima Online, The Syndicate remains a staunch supporter of this outstanding MMO. We are very excited for Stygian Abyss and looking forward to many years of UO fun for the whole community of players.
Submitted by Dragons, GM of LLTS