Oct 20, 2011

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United We Stand: Here Comes Everybody

United We Stand is an Ask A Jedi series focusing on guilds, groups, and other communities in Star Wars: The Old Republic. By examining the communities that we form, we can create a stronger game for ourselves, build relationships that will last a lifetime, and perhaps even change the world itself.

This past week I was rereading Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, and I was reminded of how kickass of a time we live in. Seriously: the development of the internet into a ubiquitous tool, the development of the personal computer, and of course most importantly the creation of the MMORPG. Not only is this time cool, but it’s really important as well. We don’t know what kinds of changes that these new technologies are going to bring; all we know is that they are coming. “The politics get interesting when the technology gets boring.” If you have to read this book for a class, it’s wonderful, although this article will probably give you enough to get away with not reading it.

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Oct 14, 2011

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United We Stand: If We Play Together, We Stay Together

United We Stand is an Ask A Jedi series focusing on guilds, groups, and other communities in Star Wars: The Old Republic. By examining the communities that we form, we can create a stronger game for ourselves, build relationships that will last a lifetime, and perhaps even change the world itself.

So, here’s where we’re at: We’ve talked about how you should never be afraid to share and talk about how much you love online gaming because our interactions with others are what makes the online real. So real, in fact, that communities formed online will slowly emerge into offline communities. But why is this important? Who cares if a bunch of random people play video games together and then occasionally awkwardly talk about said video games at TGI Friday’s? One answer is how important they are to our own personal stories, if you want proof just look at the stories in the comments. For us, it’s the experiences of meeting people online, making friends, working together, and getting the purples that makes it important. However, I wish to make an argument to you that guilds are important for a lot more than just friendships.

If you will bear with me, the first part of my argument begins with the difference between Star Wars: The Old Republic’s guilds, EVE Online‘s corporations, Lord of the Rings Online‘s kinships, and Star Wars: Jedi Academy’s  clans. Now, each of these types of communities can be classified as a guild or a clan. This distinction at first seems petty, that this is just two ways of saying the same thing, but this is actually important. Guilds are created in games where the game supports and allows you to create player organizations, as opposed to games that do not support player organizations and players create clans anyway.

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Oct 6, 2011

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United We Stand: You’re Just Going To End Up Talking About Video Games Anyway

United We Stand is an Ask A Jedi series focusing on guilds, groups, and other communities in Star Wars: The Old Republic. By examining the communities that we form, we can create a stronger game for ourselves, build relationships that will last a lifetime, and perhaps even change the world itself.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about how online relationships are real and how you should never be ashamed of your connection to an online community. These things got me thinking, and I’ve come up with an idea that will be useful to any current or aspiring guild leader. When I started college, I was blessed with two random roommates who both played World of Warcraft. I had quit at this point, but I started over in order to join their guild. Together, we started doing five man dungeons together, building the guild together, and eventually holding consistent 10 man raids with a group of some of the best friends I have ever made online. This offered me a number of unique experiences and internet firsts, for example most of the guild knew one or more other members offline. My roommates and I lived together and there was an extended family crisscrossing most of Virginia. What I found was that I was experiencing something very important to any online community: the state of emergence.

Never The ‘Twain Shall Meet

One day, our dear guildmate Niantae messaged me and my roommates saying that she was going to be in town one weekend and wanted to meet with us. We all froze, for meeting with someone you met over the internet has long been against the great and ancient cardinal rules of the internet. We got over it when we realized this was not a matter of us trusting her, but her extraordinary courage to trust the three of us. Why is this okay? At what point does it become okay for online friends to become offline friends? I’m sure this story is not unique to me, and many others out there have had similar experiences and have asked themselves similar questions. Those questions sound ridiculous now, but you remember the horror stories you hear on the news occasionally when something goes terribly, terribly wrong. Something has fundamentally changed with the internet and it has allowed for this emergence. Our culture is no longer grounded in the need for sharing physical space to validate a social connection, and that statement (if it’s true) is worth a whole book in itself.

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Sep 28, 2011

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United We Stand: I Swear They’re Real Friends!

United We Stand is an Ask A Jedi series focusing on guilds, groups, and other communities in Star Wars: The Old Republic. By examining the communities that we form, we can create a stronger game for ourselves, build relationships that will last a lifetime, and perhaps even change the world itself.

I can only imagine the difficulty that my parents have when they explain to their friends what their son is doing in college and what he wants to do with this life. I think half of it is simply a lack of a frame of reference; I imagine that what I say here only really resounds with those who have had a lot of experience with online communities. The other half I think is a misunderstanding, a faulty assumption on the part of the listener. Unfortunately for us, the news media and first impressions are not helping us very much in arguing that online communities are important. First among the false impressions is that what takes place online is not real because it takes place in a virtual world, interaction and relationships only matter in the physical world.

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Sep 22, 2011

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United We Stand: Show Them A Love They Can Never Destroy

United We Stand is an Ask A Jedi series focusing on guilds, groups, and other communities in Star Wars: The Old Republic. By examining the communities that we form, we can create a stronger game for ourselves, build relationships that will last a lifetime, and perhaps even change the world itself.

I find that I often have trouble explaining to others how much I love stuff like Star Wars: The Old Republic, guilds, E-sports, etc and I don’t think I’m the only person that has this kind of problem either. All the time I hear about disgruntled nerds how they can’t find or don’t think there are others who love and understand video games the same way they do. If they don’t say it, then they just act ashamed. Oftentimes then you pass off this shame onto others, blaming them for being shallow and not looking underneath the surface to find a “truly nice person”. I’m sure it’s not true if I were to say that I have never been one of these people, but for me it seems like there are always more people out there that understand then you would at first expect.

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Sep 20, 2011

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Exclusive: Interview With Actress Sno E. Blac – aka Satele Shan!

Last week we brought you news of actress Sno E. Blac and her portrayal of Jedi Grand Master Satele Shan in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Well this time, we’ve got something even better – a short interview with Sno E. herself, plus an exclusive photo gallery!

About a year ago, Sno E. was hired to portray the image of the then-unknown Satele Shan. Part of that process was having a 3D scan of her head and face to capture the likeness and expressions we would see in the future Jedi Grand Master.

Sno E. was nice enough to take some time and answer a few of our questions, so without further adieu… Enjoy! And don’t forget to check out the gallery after the jump!

Photograph © Sno E. Black All Rights Reserved

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