Ideas from FPS Clan Leaders

[TIGR]

To the many experienced leaders in the FPS gaming community: how about sharing some of the wisdom you've garnered from your time leading gaming clans?

I'm primarily a CoD4 gamer, and I see literally thousands of servers that sit empty most of the time and hundreds of clan web sites with half a dozen members and one post per week. This is the Internet—we should be able to pull together and organize better than this, bring people together better and stop wasting resources (game servers aren't cheap!). I think we can make gaming better by sharing some wisdom to help fellow and future clan leaders avoid the pitfalls of leading a clan.

Clan leaders often have the best intentions but lack the experience and/or resources to establish a clan that will persevere through time and help everyone have the best gaming experience possible.

They have to fight hackers and other abuse in their servers, accusations of various types from other clans, drama within their own clan, and more. They have to keep order within a group of people that tends to be younger and less mature by the nature of what it is that draws them together (gaming). They have to be [or have someone else] around almost 24/7 to deal with complaints and problems. They have to stimulate and maintain a healthy level of activity and involvement from clan members, and as those of us who have been leaders in the gaming community have learned, you can't force people to be more active than they want to be. Competitive clans have to find and schedule matches and practices, often while dealing with members from many different time zones.

This makes leading a clan sound like a lot of work (and for many, it is)—but the goal here is to avoid making the gaming experience a tedious job while getting done what needs to be done so that everyone can just chill and have a blast.

Answers are going to vary from clan to clan and game to game, but what have you learned in your time as a clan leader? How do you fight drama and problems while helping everyone (members and guests) to kick back and have a great time together? Please, share your suggestions for making the clan gaming experience all it can be. We will all benefit.

I will chime in about my own experiences later in the thread, but at the moment I am in the process of planning a new clan called Regenesis (tags [RE]) with a few good friends. [RE] will be working not only to provide its own members with a great clan experience, but also will provide resources to help other clans connect and grow, so many of the suggestions in this thread may contribute to that end. If you're interested in being involved in that effort by doing more than just posting here, PM me.

By the way, also feel free to add me on XFire! My username is TIGRCS.

 

[Daverino]

In my experience, clans/orgs/guilds need to be:
1. Focused on a game.
2. Offer an additional experience beyond what you can get without it.

I say this having been a leader of a now pretty much defunct DoD:S org for about five years. In the end, Steam actually killed our org, as far as I can tell. When our org was at its strongest (pre-Steam), the only way that you found a good server with decent players and strong administration was trial-and-error until you found a place you liked. But communities were still server based. Now with Steam Friends, that has changed. You're much more likely to play with your friends first and just follow them to a server. It reduces the need for very well maintained servers and the need for a tight community. Also, you don't get the new people coming to your server and sticking with it, which is the source of new members. I'm not saying Steam Friends is bad, but it makes things harder for server based communities.

Orgs that are strong either have a small-moderate population and are very focused on a single title or very large and not focused. Focusing on a title nowadays is tough. People will eventually get bored of the title and will drift away. Getting new people in to replace them is hard because of the Steam Friends issue and that the life cycle for any title is pretty short. CoD4 was super hot and the MW2 came out and then BF:BC2. Transitioning to a new game can easily kill an org. Many members will still want to play the old title and many more may not have the hardware to play the newest games. Splitting your community between two games, a new one and and old one, does just that: split your community. You may as well be two groups.

 

[JoshGuru7]

I think Daverino is right that there has been a big transition moving from server based clans to Steam. It used to be that playing against good competition required at least familiarizing yourself with good clans via IRC to get access to their servers and public servers were extremely uncompetitive as a result. That function of clans with dedicated servers really isn't needed anymore.

These days, I would say the purpose of clans is 1) to provide players of similar skill levels the opportunity to work on teamwork with a static group and 2) compete against other clans of similar skill. Those are both major challenges for a guild leader now with the decline of ladder gaming.

 

[triggerpappy]

Its funny how everybody wants to start a clan or group but have you checked to see if there are communities that already exist that you can add value to?

A Clan that tries to follow one game will die when that game dies. To me that is a team and not a clan. For example teams are always forming to join Cevo and other leagues just to compete together. A clan is much more than just a bunch of dudes playing a game. It takes more than renting a vent and game server to make a clan successful.

To me a real clan is not about the game its about the people and friendships that come with interacting together. A true clan that will last will have its members come into voice chat even when they are not playing and post in the forums to say hello or that they are going on vacation. All the clans that have been around for years stay together through active and slow times and know the other clans that have been around. Its a brotherhood.

I am a part of a Gaming Community of clans and guilds that meets informally about once a month over voice chat. Most clans are already organized and we already talk to each other and give each other pointers. There are many communities of clans where we help each other out. Just a couple months ago we all met and sent a manifesto to the gaming companies at E3 about what we want out of FPS games. We worked together to get 250,000 signatures protesting lack of dedi servers for MW2. There are plenty of places including here with good experiences to share. You just have to look around.

The biggest mistake I see with clans is people trying to reinvent the wheel, underestimate the work effort or do everything themselves. If your clan is a one man show and can't function without you then you are doing it wrong. Many people start a clan or group when instead they should be joining one that's already doing things right.

My suggestion to you is search the net a bit and see what the clans that are doing it right are doing and join a community that has clan leaders. You are welcome to join ours if you wish. We also have a few interviews with clan and guild leaders from our podcast on our site that you are free to listen to.

 

[thebomb]

Its funny how everybody wants to start a clan or group but have you checked to see if there are communities that already exist that you can add value to?

A Clan that tries to follow one game will die when that game dies. To me that is a team and not a clan. For example teams are always forming to join Cevo and other leagues just to compete together. A clan is much more than just a bunch of dudes playing a game. It takes more than renting a vent and game server to make a clan successful.

To me a real clan is not about the game its about the people and friendships that come with interacting together. A true clan that will last will have its members come into voice chat even when they are not playing and post in the forums to say hello or that they are going on vacation. All the clans that have been around for years stay together through active and slow times and know the other clans that have been around. Its a brotherhood.

I am a part of a Gaming Community of clans and guilds that meets informally about once a month over voice chat. Most clans are already organized and we already talk to each other and give each other pointers. There are many communities of clans where we help each other out. Just a couple months ago we all met and sent a manifesto to the gaming companies at E3 about what we want out of FPS games. We worked together to get 250,000 signatures protesting lack of dedi servers for MW2. There are plenty of places including here with good experiences to share. You just have to look around.

The biggest mistake I see with clans is people trying to reinvent the wheel, underestimate the work effort or do everything themselves. If your clan is a one man show and can't function without you then you are doing it wrong. Many people start a clan or group when instead they should be joining one that's already doing things right.

My suggestion to you is search the net a bit and see what the clans that are doing it right are doing and join a community that has clan leaders. You are welcome to join ours if you wish. We also have a few interviews with clan and guild leaders from our podcast on our site that you are free to listen to.

When are you guys doing your interview with Brad Wardell?

 

[Lonyo]

Recruit the right guys (who share a similar mindset/way of playing the game).
Guys who can bond, share the same timezone (to a reasonable level), can all communicate with each other (being European, that can mean either being a country-specific clan or specifying English only).
The clan had 2 divisions, a European and an American one, and between the two the guys chatted and sometimes played together, but for matches etc it was mainly divided by US and EU to make sure there were no time difference issues.
If someone was making a US-only clan, then an east/west divide could work in a similar fashion.

With my guys, we were all active on IRC as our primary mode of communication, and we had a forum to organise and discuss things.
We tried the own server thing, but it didn't work (not used, expensive etc), so in the end we shared a server with another clan which reduced costs and increased activity level.

You have to arrange stuff, both clan games, practices, and just playing as you like but together. That's also one of the ways to obviously increase your own server activity, get all your guys to play there and others will join.

If you have the right guys, there is no real drama. Everyone got along and we enjoyed playing together.
There were other clans which were for example German speakers only, or Finns only, and they had their own approaches, and were more "serious". One clan was very much a dictatorship, run by a single guy, and people worked under him.
For me, we were more open.

Like you say, connection is important, and having a central "area" for various clan leaders to gather is always beneficial. For us, we used the main IRC channel of our ladder, and most clan leaders were there (as well as members) and it was easy to both organise clan matches on the ladder (through IRC discussion and issuing challenges on the website) as well as organise friendly games with other clans and talk with members of other clans.


This was all a few years ago, but really IMO you need to just make sure you are gathering like-minded guys, giving them the opportunity to communicate and hang together, and maintain contacts with other clans for various purposes (be it friendlies, proper matches, server sharing or just generally making sure you get along within the community).

 

[triggerpappy]

When are you guys doing your interview with Brad Wardell?

We have done part of it but he's a busy guy writing a book and bug fixing elemental war of magic. We should be releasing the interview via our podcast in 2 weeks. Post in our forums if you have any questions for him.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I'm currently playing for a team that has been around since the Tribes days, and all I can say is that it pays to be selective about who you allow into your group. I've been playing with the same people(not necessarily on the same team) for almost 6 years now. When a new game comes we give it a shot. Haven't had much luck lately with good competition games, but we had something like 600 wins on TWL for cod4 or something like that lol.

Smaller groups are easier to make friends with and keep together for a long time.

Look for Divine Talent in CoD Black ops in november people.

 

[triggerpappy]

Look for Divine Talent in CoD Black ops in november people.

DT sucks :sneaky:

JK you know we love you Vulgar. We look forward to playing with and against you guys again:awe:

 

[TIGR]

I'm appreciating the wisdom shared so far. Bump for more responses!

 

[Sentrosi2121]

Answers are going to vary from clan to clan and game to game, but what have you learned in your time as a clan leader? How do you fight drama and problems while helping everyone (members and guests) to kick back and have a great time together? Please, share your suggestions for making the clan gaming experience all it can be. We will all benefit.

I've been gaming with the same people for over 8 years and have been on both ends of the spectrum. By being the Protocol Officer of CDL it is my responsibility to draft any rule changes to our Code of Conduct and to ensure that any conflict within is handled in accordance to our CoC. In the 6 years I've served as Protocol Officer I've had to update the CoC once and have been a part of our discipline procedures only twice.

I believe the core functions of any clan is that a Code of Conduct be the formost document that is used to GUIDE the group. I bolded the word guide simply because there is no document that you can draft that can address every single problem that comes up during a gaming groups lifetime. Used as a guide, you can draw strength it.

Another essential function of a group of gamers is that the authority is clearly defined. This is where the Divisional part of the CoC comes into play with us. Here it clearly states that, while any Dragonwolf can decide to lead a division, one of the divisions officers MUST be a serving line officer of the CDL. And the officers and I do not use our influence over any division; we want our gaming group to flourish and become a family within.

We are highly selective in who we bring in. Now I'm sure about 70% of gaming groups out there say that, but we take the time to interview our recruits. As spelled out in the CoC, it's actually a process. Thankfully this process weeds out a good portion of recruits. Our attitude is, "If you don't want to take the time to go through this process, then we don't want to take the time to game with you."

Quite honestly, I could have just provided the link to CDL to answer your question OP, but I think that the CDL is perhaps the strongest gaming group I've ever played with. Even now, with games in a sort of limbo, we regularly get about 30 people visiting our forums over a 24 hour period. Yes, it's mostly all of us just posting about our lives and the occasional Old Republic post, but we really are concerned with what our family has done outside of CDL. As a matter of fact, from Aug 2nd through the 6th, CDL will have its 8th Rally in Tennessee. It's a testament to our longevity, with members of CDL from all over the country come together for a week of real life interactivity.

 

[triggerpappy]

When are you guys doing your interview with Brad Wardell?

http://www.fragworld.org/frag/interviews/interview-with-brad-wardell.html