Friday, September 21, 2012

the guild season 6 will be on geek & sundry!!!

Have you heard of The Guild? If you haven't, then I'm officially pulling your geek card. It's written and directed by geek darling Felicia Day. The web show, which will be entering it's 6th season this fall, chronicles the IRL (mis)adventures of a MMORPG guild. It's enjoyable, funny and endearing even if you're not a gamer.

The star of the show is Cyd Sherman, an out of work concert violinist who, at the beginning of the series, admits to being a shut-in with a series addiction to an unnamed WoW clone. Crisis brings her into real life contact with Zaboo, with whom she's been carrying on a computerized coquest; Vork, the guild leader; Clara, a stay-at-home mom; Bladez, a rogue online and off; and Tink, who seems to prefer keeping a screen her and the real world at all times.

The best moment of season 1 is definitely (SPOILER ALERT!) the boss battle against Zaboo's mom. The conversation choices of each "friend" reflects their role in the game. Is this what Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD)[1] would have been like if it had supported party play? I shared The Guild with my brother and a small group of geek friends. I think it's this moment that always clenches the win.

Season 6 of The Guild is being shown on Geek & Sundry, a web channel developed by Felicia Day, Kim Evey, and many other talented folks. I also watch a couple of other things on Geek & Sundry.

The flog, Felicia's weekly video blog, is probably the flagship program. Each week, she recommends 3 products or websites, tries to learn a new skill, and responds to a letter writer with an actual, honest-to-goodness typed letter. I really like when her brother joins the show and they (poorly) play co-op video games of the 8 and 16bit era together. Wil Wheaton's show TableTop is also great. Each week, 3 celebrities join Wil to play a table top board game. An episode lasts about 30 minutes. The trash talking is fun and I'm always glad to get a demo of a board game I haven't played before.

For fans of Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin appeared on Sword & Laser. Levar Burton has been on, too.

In other words, do yourself a favor and subscribe. Currently, they're running a drive to reach 500,000 subscribers. As they meet tiered goals, various prizes and giveaways are unlocked. So join up today!





[1] Legend of the Red Dragon was an online fantasy role-playing game hosted on Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) back in the early days of commercial internet. You can think of it as an early forerunner of modern MMORPGs like WoW.

Thursday, September 6, 2012