The Early Years
Compared to the rapid change of todays gaming world, change occurred very slowly in the early years.
With no game actually out to play and other guilds just coming onto the scene and no
real tangible in game goals to accomplish, things changed slow. It was very funny
to watch early guilds "declare wars" on each other and threaten to kill the others in game. All
that posturing and burning of energy amounted to exactly 0. Those guilds are gone and their
threats with them. But it did help pass the time before the games began rolling out.
Even in those days, guilds would rise and fall all the time. Early Syndicate growth came from
seeking out and offering membership to the best of these members. Most of those
very early members have since left online gaming but several are still around and
are key leaders of The Syndicate today.
When The Syndicate had grown to nearly 25 members, it met a guild known as The Amalgamation.
Let by (2) 13 year old brothers, Amalgamation was around 25 members as well. Its Asst. GM (Thor)
and many of its members were unhappy with the guild and were ready to make a move. Using
an early communications tool (Pow Wow.. alot like IRC but each person was in their own "room" and
everyone could see everyone elses room) Dragons met with Thor and their joining
The Syndicate was arranged. Chaos, a "squad leader" in Amalgamation came over and led a squad
for The Syndicate. He continues to lead Black Dragon squad for The Syndicate as
of Jan 2000.
Many months passed and many more guilds rose and fell. A guild known as the Karlaka Thieves joined
The Syndicate giving us our first thieves squad. Kromel and Cliron (friends in real
life) became the squad leaders for The Syndicate and Lightnjac (BE squad leader as of Jan 2000)
joined a short time later and became a Lt along with Lt. Torin. Eventually Cliron and Kromel
left the game. Last we saw them Cliron was moving to Europa and Kromel was doing well
and is sometimes seen around.
As the UO beta drew near and many months had passed, The Syndicate had already topped 200
members and was receiving many new applications a week. Strict acceptance procedures
were put in place that continue until this day as we seek only the best veteran players
who are referred by existing members.
At this time we knew little about what UO would actually turn into. Very stylized ideas
still existed. We had a squad called Wave Raiders that we hoped to make the navy of the guild
to dominate the seas over our enemies. Boats, as all UO players know, are nearly useless entities
now. We also had a squad called Dragons Blood led by a 16 year old kid named Sanguine. Sanguine
was a power hungry person always seeking more than what he had and pretty much doing things
his way. At that time The Syndicate didnt have a chatzone so communications were
handled by weekly lengthy emails from Dragons and several shorter ones each week. The
squad leaders were supposed to send these onto their squads.
Sanguine stopped doing this. Instead he would tell his squad the guild hated them and
that communications sucked and that things were just horrible here. ICQ hadnt been invented and
without a chatzone for people to have a common place to chat, his words appeared true. It
was little surprise when one day he tried to break off and take his squad with him. The
squad was about 25 people at the time (or maybe 1/10th of the guilds size). Of that 25, about half had
friends in other squads and read the updates and knew he was full of it. The other
half, sadly, bought his story of no communications etc.. hook line and sinker. They left
with him and forge Dragons Blood guild. We promptly formed Dragon Strike squad to replace it.
So what ever happened to DB you ask? They fell apart long long ago. First they quit Atlantic. Next
they quit all together. In late 1999, Thaik (Sanguines Lt) contacted Dragons and gave
him a quick update. DB was a failure because it was based on lies and not on teamwork and friendship
like The Syndicate. Sucks to be them I suppose.
If you would like to check out some of the logos and images from our early guild
days check out
this page.
