The Kin of Gaming

Building a Gaming Clan - Part V- The Gaming

noreply@blogger.com (SC_Prophet) — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:17:00 +0000

Now were in the category that will make or break your clan, if you fail and build a failing program lots of members could potentially leave right off the bat, I refer to these people as clanhoppers. that is when your recruitment agenda is put to the test on the crowd you pull in. Tough but it happens, while everyone wants to win right off the bat it's not going to happen, it takes quite a bit of work to get competitive.

1. Practice Practice Practice!

While some would beg to differ from me and just start playing matches instantly, it doesn't give you a chance to sort through your gameplan, although public games won't do much good either. If you can, I would say a private match and server to practice either your teamwork, strategies or playing skills, the more you play and communicate with each other, the better.

How you go about it is completely up to you, smaller clans usually just practice when everyone is on, bigger clans map out the days of practice, while both have their flaws, my personal preference is planning the practice times mainly because I am a control freak and do not like to waste time, if you choose this make sure your players can be set on a certain time.

2. The Gaming

To play competitively you'd probably like to know where to, while some games have built in ladders most do not have them. Here is a list of a few competitive ladders and tournaments, most of them free.

http://gamebattles.com
http://www.teamwarfare.com/
http://www.ggl.com
http://www.gamingahead.com/
http://www.caleague.com/
http://www.mlgpro.com/

This unfortunately is the conclusion of our Building a Gaming Clan series it was however just a first taste of the content to come so look out for many more future posts.

Building a Gaming Clan - Part IV - Recruiting

noreply@blogger.com (SC_Prophet) — Sat, 17 May 2008 22:01:00 +0000

Recruiting new members to your clan can be one of the most frustrating experiences, whether you want to recruit a dedicated small amount, or build a massive army, I am here to help.

1.The Places

Where you look is one of the most crucial specifics in getting the right crowd, more often than not the best people are found in game, while not everyone may be instantly willing to join your clan, it is a much better field of getting to know people and building a small friendship, they may or may not want to join, but getting to know anyone that is aware of your clan can help in the long run.

Forums -

Forums are a big hit or miss for attracting a crowd, make sure the forums you choose is the right location for the players you want to draw in, once you figure that out, now it comes down to presentation, if your in a clan recruitment forum more than likely your competing against other threads to be viewed by potential prospects. When you do get views to your recruitment thread, you need to win them over with your clan proposal.

I won't get to specific on the details as it is your clan, but use proper English, get your clans message across and show them why you deserve their attention.

2.Recruitment Process

I have seen many new clans faced with the dilemma of how their recruitment process should be ran, how long, strict etc. It is just a matter of how much quality and quantity you want, clans with a really long recruit process (two weeks - month) tend to have less players stick with it that long, but in the end you will have a small but dedicated group.

The advantages of a shorter process is more applicants but a drop on quality, more active but a bit of a revolving door. Some clans don't have one at all but those don't usually work out to well, find a nice balance that is suitable to your goals.

While my jibber jabber may be fine with you, I could very well be missing something in my post that is crucial to your understanding. If so, I am more than happy to help people out personally, just leave a comment and lets have a chat.

Building a Gaming Clan - Part III - Communication Tools

noreply@blogger.com (SC_Prophet) — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:49:00 +0000

As any team player would know, communication is key, depending on your clans game, platform, size etc, you may or may not want to have all of these tools, take what you need according to your goals.

1. Website

A website is a great way for any clan to get their rules, games, motto, roster etc across to potential recruits, there are free hosting services such as http://freewebs.com or http://clansitemanager.com/ while these are useful for people low on cash, if your completely serious about it I recommend getting your own hosting and .com domain if you can.

2. Forums

Another great tool for members and recruits to communicate out of game while also great for posting announcements for the entire group. Probably the most common form among gamers even more so than websites. Just like websites there are plenty of free hosts that will give you complete control over your own forum with ads of course, I recommend the board type phpBB, you can get one at http://www.phpbbweb.com/

If you already own your own website you can download phpbb at http://www.phpbb.com/downloads/ and host it on your server.

3.Voice chat

While many people would disagree I feel its absolutely required to play at a high level and I'm not talking about skype or xfire chat, Of course if your a Xbox360 or PS3 clan your already set, but for the PC gamers keep reading.

There are two major voice clients, Teamspeak and Ventrilo in both of them you connect to a voice server which then everyone communicates via microphone and can even setup different rooms, either through you hosting it on your connection or through a host yes more stuff to pay for! But it is well worth it for the best quality and durability, I recommend Instant teamspeak and Instant Ventrilo same hosts the best prices on the market they even have great game servers which leads to...

4. Game servers

Once again if your a console gamer or play any MMORPG you can skip this section.

Now unlike voice servers I find these optional and only recommend to well established clans as they are very pricey, but can add so much in terms of options, its your server so you can kick annoying people out (My favorite) set the map rotation for maps you need to work on, switch it to private instantly for matches or practices, it is great also at attracting players, I recommend http://www.light-speed .com/

5. IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

Can be great to just idle and chat casually with members and allows guests to talk directly, not a requirement but a nice feature, you can download the program here

After you download the program and everything, you can pull up a list of servers, each server has countless rooms, you can get your own clan chat room by simply joining your own room on one of the available servers.

Well that about wraps up this part of the series, next time we'll start going into recruiting so keep on the lookout for that.

Building a Gaming Clan - Part II - The Name

noreply@blogger.com (SC_Prophet) — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:54:00 +0000

So you have the whole clan idea in your head now? Good, but before we do anything, we need to set the defining object that will be partnered with your clan.

The Name

This is where clans can be creative and usually what gets people pumped to start a clan, to have their own name tag or slogan advertised as to the world that will forever be associated with that clan. While have a elite name is nice, it really doesn't make a difference, the name does not define the clan.

It doesn't matter if it in anyway, shape, or form relates to you. Be creative and stand out from the crowd, if you go to a sight like gamebattles.com look at any team ladder and look at the names, all trying to be unique in some way. It's all just a pitch to attract attention, which believe me is beneficial.

In example you are more likely to remember a clan name like "oMiNoUS PReSeNcE", than say "silent killers" (just google it and look at the results)

I know I know I promised more technical stuff in this post, but for the sake of a extremely long post, I'm saving it for Part III which will inform you of all the ways of communication within your clan.

Building a Gaming Clan - Part I - Infrastructer

noreply@blogger.com (SC_Prophet) — Sat, 10 May 2008 23:08:00 +0000

Ok so your new to this whole clan business? First thing first, building your own clan is not a easy job if you take it lightly or do not put in all you can in to it, it will not go anywhere. It's going to be you running the clan, getting people to join etc. As much as all clan owners would like their respective clan to be self ran on its members, it's not going to happen as you just start out.

Now that you're still here, it's time to figure out what type of clan you will be creating.

1.Types of Government

One of these will be the way your clan is structured and ran, whether your looking to be a big or small clan your going to need to figure out how your clan is going to run most new comers including myself only thought 'hey I'm the clan leader I run the show' mindset, if that is in your case you're best suited for...

Monarchy -

Yes the all mighty ruler of the clanning universe, nearly all clans use this system or some form of it where the leader has final decision on everything, basically a dictatorship. Not that its a terrible system, the internet is however a free society so you can act all "God-like" as much as you want, but remember people are free to come and go as they please, and people will not stay for long with that cavalier of a leader.

Types of variations of this system are what I refer to it as a "partial democratic monarchy" this would entitle a small three to four man council to handle with some parts of the clan, but overall, the leader still has the say over anything, or a two man leadership over the entire clan i.e President, Vice President.

Democracy -

Ah the lost art in gaming, few if any still use this system, why? Because it requires the leader to step aside and let the clan run the clan which not too many want to do that, this is not an easier system than a monarchy and I do NOT recommend it as your just starting out a clan in a early fragile state. I was fortunate enough to be in a democratic clan for over a year while there is not a perfect form to it, it can be one of the most rewarding and satisfying that I have ever experienced in a clan.

In a Democracy their is literally tons of ways to run it. The way we did it was the leaders were elected via an election of direct popular vote then the leader would pick four executive officers to manage the clan, as long as it was within our constitution aka rules, guidelines etc it had amendments that could be changed by a direct vote of the members, which our original leader put in place, who still technically owned the clan the closest thing it would come to in real life is a Constitutional monarchy that England has in place.

I did not cover everything that was involved in our democracy but you get the idea, I hope to delve more into this system in later posts as there really are many ways to run it.

These systems are just examples because it all should be pertaining to your needs and wants in a clan, big or small, multi game or not extremely competitive or more casual find a system that works for you whether it's on this list or not.

In Part II of "Building a Gaming Clan" Will all be about actually taking strides to set up a clan on the technical side before we start attracting players.

Welcome / About Me

noreply@blogger.com (SC_Prophet) — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:47:00 +0000

Hello, now you may be wondering what this site is all about, with a interesting name such as "Kin", relax it is just another word I use instead of "clan." Yes you guessed it, I'm here to talk about video gaming clans.

From Websters Dictionary A kin is "a group of persons of common ancestry"

I prefer it because it goes much deeper than just "clan" which by all means is fine and dandy, but to me a clan is more of a kin, because being in a clan is about joining other gamers to either compete online or just people to play with to build comradity as well as community, we all may be different but we all have that same 'common ancestry' to game online.

However I am not just here to talk about me, in fact this site is all about helping you the gamer with help and information all dedicated to gaming clans. That means anything from starting your own clan, to online competitive opportunities.

Now your probably wondering who I am and what business do I have helping gamers I hope to shed some light on that now.

My name is Ryan Dressler I am from Melbourne, Florida. I am current eighteen years old, and have been joining ,starting. building and rebuilding clans from PC to Xbox360 since I was fourteen only in that time has competitive clan gaming really taken off.

I have seen a lot of clans come and go so quickly, especially in this day and age the average clan doesn't last too long even if there full of talent, one reason is they never really develop relations or chemistry, which not all clans want to be close which is fine, but it won't last for the long haul.

This post and future ones to come are not the only way to succeed, they are merely from one man's experience and what I have learned over the years, I am here to help you and as many clan gamers and leaders develop there respective clans and push people in the right direction as I can.

Following this post I will begin where clan gaming all starts, building one. It will be a long and structured series of all the ins and outs.

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