Happy Guildversary!

At some point I'll write a longer post about my admiration of Felicia Day, Queen of the Geeks, but today is a special anniversary: 4 years ago, the first episode the web series The Guild was released. I wish I could say that I was there when it started, but I'm glad I discovered it last summer. I watched the first 3 seasons before ever playing an MMORPG and thought it was fun and funny. I watched the whole thing again after playing World of Warcraft for about 4 months and loved it.

In hindsight, watching the webisodes may be what finally pushed me into trying an online multi-player game. Cool girls play too! Those look like people I'd want to be in a guild with and maybe even know in real life!

The Guild panel was the only one I made it to at Comic Con over the weekend. We stood in line with several other thousand people. It was totally worth it, technical difficulties and all.

Season 5 started yesterday, and Felicia Day is busier than ever. She's the poster child (no pressure) for illustrating that web-created shows can and do work. Personally, I think The Guild is an even better example of how fan support, crowd-sourced funding, and use of social media tools to market & get the word out can make an incredible difference.

Happy 4th Guildversary!

If you watch the show, check out this behind-the-scenes from design specialist Greg Aronowitz. Great pictures and clips!

And I leave you with this. It's true, my avatar is hotter than reality by far:

The Guild

I caught the cold that is going around and it sucks. It especially sucks because I have no pay channels (HBO, Showtime) let alone extended cable (SyFy, FX, TNT, TBS, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, you get the point). I also watched all my Netflix DVD's and caught up on all the shows I'm watching from both my DVR and Hulu by Sunday afternoon. Honestly, I'm not even sure I could rattle off what all I saw during my congested stupor.

But one thing stood out. As I cruised the Netflix instant play programs, I saw something new in the recommended list: The Guild. Netflix summarizes it as a:

Web series about a quirky group of gamers who take part in all sorts of heroics online but are far less skilled at navigating real life. (Felicia) Day plays Cyd Sherman, a young woman whose virtual-world obsession has led both her boyfriend and her therapist to dump her -- at the same time that her cyber-friend circle, or "guild," has begun to acquire a life beyond the Net.

I wish I was watching more web-based series, but between the TV, DVDs, books, movies, and hours of endless Internet re/searching, I just haven't gotten that far. So I apologize if I am late to the game on what could be an Internet sensation and didn't know it.

You may recall Felicia Day from another Internet sensation, Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog." I loved this one to no end and will probably make an excuse to rewatch it again soon because I HAVE to write something about it here.

Anyway, Felicia Day wrote and stars in the The Guild as Codex, a member of a small online gaming guild, which I'm pretty sure is supposed to be World of Warcraft. It appears the show is such a hit that they are also making a comic book of it (Day writes it, of course).

While I'm sure my friend Erica will appreciate this webisode even more than me, I thoroughly enjoyed The Guild. It's super low-budget, has great, quirky characters, and some funny dialogue. Most of the characters are so pre-occupied with their in-game lives that they've neglected their "real" lives. However, the game brings them together out-of-game where their relationships get more interesting -- after all, who we are online isn't necessarily who we are in the physical world.

Seasons 1 and 2 are available on Netflix, and it looks like quite a bit of it is on YouTube (though personally, I like being able to watch it all at once on Netflix, but that's me). I haven't pinned down Season 3 yet, but am happy to see that Wil Wheaton guest stars in several episodes.

One more clip, mostly because it shows the Intro with all the great avatars. And because I love Zaboo.

I love, love, love the discussion between Codex and Zaboo about the T1 line toward the end of this clip.

Addendum: Season 3 is available on watchtheguild.com -- and it is awesome.