eason two of The Guild debuted last week, and we got the chance to chat about the online sitcom “written by a gamer, about gamers, and for gamers” with Felicia Day, the writer and star. If you haven’t heard of The Guild, don’t worry. A lot of people haven’t. But that’s fact is changing even as you read this, because now every 4-6 minute episode is available for free download on Xbox Live and MSN Video. This includes all future episodes as well, which are updated weekly. Season one earned Best Series from Yahoo! and YouTube Video and also won ON Neworks/SXSW Greenlight Award for Best Original Production. Impressive. Felicia Day explains how The Guild originated and why we should be even more excited for season two.

Game Informer: What is the Guild? What is it about?

Felicia Day: The Guild is an online web series about a group of online gamers and how they interact online and offline. The episodes are 3-7 minutes, and it follows a guild. You might recognize various online games in it [such as World of Warcraft and Everquest], but we try to keep it game neutral to focus on the characters and the comedy.

GI: How did The Guild originate? Where did the inspiration come from to write a show about of a clan of MMORPG players?

Day: I've [played] MMORPGs all my life; it's been my vice. Some people drink a lot or do drugs. I do MMO's. My whole college years were soaked in Diablo and other MMOs like Ultima Online. I've always been an RPG addict, mostly on PC. I had a two-year addiction to World of Warcraft. It got to be so out of control I would not socialize with anyone else. It got to be really bad, so when I quit, that was one of my therapeutic things, to create something as a writer. So that's how The Guild originated. 

GI: Have any publishers approached you to sponsor their game in your show?

Day: We've actually had a couple people approach us early on. They wanted us to feature their game [but we chose not to]. Honestly, we have so many non-gamer fans too that it would be a disservice to both gamer fans and non-gamer fans, and not having a specific game forces me to write the show about the characters rather than everybody arguing over somebody’s crit rating.

GI: How did you fund your independent Web show?

Day: For season one we put up a PayPal button, and we were funded by fans, which was surprising to me that anyone would donate to keep the show going. That just shows how fantastic our fans are. When we set up for season two, we knew we'd have to have funding in order to make the show bigger and up our production values and be able to roll out episodes faster than once every six weeks [as we did in season one].

GI: Did sponsors approach you for funding of season two?

Day: We were approached by a lot of sponsors -- dozens of them, really - for almost a year. I've been turning down deals because I really wanted to find the right production to grow our show and that really "got" the vision of the show and not only expand our fan base but enable us to provide faster roll outs and higher production values. It wasn't until after we started filming season two that Xbox came in and said, "Hey, we'd like to help you distribute and release the show to millions more people." It happened to be the perfect fit, and I'm really glad I held out long enough to really get the partner that would be best for the fans and best for the show.

GI: And The Guild Web site (www.watchtheguild.com) helped generate a fan base as well?

Day: Yes, I put up the website the minute we launched season one. It's all homegrown.

GI: If I'm a gamer but haven't ever played massively muliplayer online games like World of Warcraft and Everquest, how will I still enjoy The Guild?

Day: A lot of our fans are not gamers, and they love it because it's geeky humor so you don't necessarily have to know what QQmore means or what a crit is to get the humor. Also, in not specifying a game in the show, it forces me to write using general role-playing terms. My goal is to write something for the gamers and something for the non-gamers every episode.

GI: Are you surprised how well the show has been doing so far?

Day: I guess it's surprising that so many people like it, but at the same time I'm so passionate about my show that I feel like I want everybody to know about it. So at the end of the day, it's all about having faith in what you're creating and wanting to share it with the people who appreciate it the most. The subject matter and length of the show [is what viewers online] I think are looking for.

GI: There will be weekly episodes, correct?

Day: Yes, the episodes launch weekly on Tuesday at midnight on Xbox Live in HD internationally in eight languages. At the same time we have it streaming on MSN Video, and it's downloadable on the Zune Marketplace. We're able to provide the show for free across all platforms so everyone can enjoy it.

GI: There's a rumor that your character [Codex] falls in love with Sandeep Parikh's character Zaboo, and that Zaboo's mom falls in love with Jeff Lewis' character Vork? What are your thoughts on that?

Day: What!? [laughs] I would say that those are probably unfounded. I think that's there's a big twist in episode four that fans might look forward to.

GI: Is production on season two complete? Is season three in the works?

Day: You just made my heart stop [laughs]. No, we're actually finishing filming season two this weekend. We're doing a big four-day shoot. I'm probably going to wait until the end of the year to start on season three, although I already have all the storylines all mapped out. So, if we end up doing a season three, I already have storylines ready to go.

GI: After winning the YouTube and Yahoo awards, you promised fans you would show video of you playing Dance Dance Revolution (like a maniac), and you did. It was, well, interesting. Can fans expect a similar reward if season two is just as successful?

Day: Interesting, I've never thought about that. I would have to get back with you on that. After we finish filming maybe that's something I can think about. [laughs] What more embarrassing thing can I do than DDR, really? 

GI: Where do you see The Guild one year from now? Five years from now? What’s your ultimate goal with The Guild?

Day: A year from now maybe season three will be out, and we'll be finishing that up. It's hard to say where we'd be five years from now. I mean five years from now we could all be floating around in hovercrafts. I don't know. [laughs] We're moving to a place where everybody can be downloading content on demand.  I would hope that the show is a pioneer in that field.