Since re-forming The Council a few weeks ago (currently rank 8) we have added some pretty amazing people, all of whom are proactive and supportive. We now have a teamspeak clan server (The Council) and continue to move forward. We are still looking for a few more officers to fill our ranks and plan to start open in-game recruitment in the next couple weeks.

In the end our unique kinship experience of being role-based and storyboarded will fill a gaming void for many players. Instead of a kinship based on followers or so casual to the point of being inert, The Council will provide quantifiable support and in a very fundamental way expand every members gaming experience.

I have been an avid MMO gamer since Diablo and UO. I started my first kin, Starshadow, in Ultima Online with some other dice dealers at the Rio.

Our plan was simple, a casual guild that was more then just a friend in-game but rather one which would consist of quality people eager to proactively promote its members from the ground up. Every one of us took an active role in the welfare and prosperity of each and ever member. We did not just make that claim, we made it part and parcel to how we organized the guild. Members were appointed to specific roles that involved class mentoring, quest completion, world lore etc. Beyond the titles earned, these members were given a specific criteria to fulfill and expectations to be met. Our members wanted and reveled in these roles and of course the larger guild benefited immensely.


Our specific brand, some vocal leaders and a hyper active calendar helped us to grow to more then 320+ unique players and quickly become one of the largest guilds on our server.

Then came EQ, Asherons Call, Dark Age of Camelot, Eve, COH, WOW and others. Over the years we became a guild spanning 12 games, 17 servers and 18 official guild entities. We counted some 4000 unique members and supported one of the most active guild sites within the MMO space. On WOW alone we had 4 separate guilds on 3 servers covering both factions and so numerous we exceeded the guild tabs ability to track members. Within Asherons Call our nearly 1200 members on Harvestgain alone represented over 10% of the server and of course we had a presence on 3 other servers.

Over the years our core ideology remained the same and most of our real changes were dictated by the reality of each world as opposed to any internal problems. The more we grew the better we were organized. Most Starshadow guilds were headed by leaders appointed or accepted by our central or “Inner Council”. Some Starshadow guilds were simply started by miscreants looking to exploit our good reputation and branding. Many of these same leaders even claimed to be me.

Through it all we were a bonafide success attracting the attention of gaming companies and hardware developers. At one point our guild site was posting 100k unique hits per month with more then 7k registered members and $500 per month in corporate sponsorships with dozens of free product disbursements such as Microsoft Sidewinders which were given to all of our Inner Council members for word-of-mouth advertising.

After nearly 10 years of relative stability we finally met our slow and sad demise. I should add that even now Starshadow lives on, quietly perpetuated by small groups in various games with a few leaders with ties to the past but mostly made up of people who have little knowledge of our storied history.

Among my many mistakes there were a few that ultimately led to our disintegration, my retirement and ultimately the end of any central organization.

For one, I never took my own leadership role that seriously. After all we were playing games and I just did not recognize how emotional this gaming connection was for so many people. I was happy giving each guild autonomy as long as they respected and incorporated our special brand of guilding. Given our success this was always an easy sell. We were a nicely wrapped package.

My 2nd big mistake and some would argue my biggest problem in general is my constant desire to micro-manage every level of the guild. Yes we had plenty of people to do various tasks but I always wanted to be in the mix. I am not the type of person to take anything for granted. In fact a good part of what I considered fun was having some type of presence in nearly every game we played. There were days when I would log-in and participate in 5-10 different game worlds in a single day. When I was basically stuck in my house for periods of disability, this level of virtual activity gave me purpose and provided me with a social life that I would not have had otherwise. (I participated in the film Avatars Offline to highlight the benefits that come from virtual socialization for people with disabilities if you are interested in learning more visit avatarsoffline.com)

And what I consider my own worst mistake was changing the brand and succumbing to the “success” of World of Warcraft. It was at a time of weakness and like so many millions was completely captivated by the grind and simplicity of a brilliantly executed world. We started off simply enough with a few dozen people from other Starshadow games. We focused completely on our brand and organization. It was apparent to most of us right away that WOW offered little in terms of community development and immersion. There were no houses, no kin halls, no purpose for taverns, no guild rewards or accomplishments, basically nothing that emphasized the “WE” over “ME”. Instead WOW brought the loot, the battles, the quests and a brightly colored ...