Generally, it’s usually just smart to keep your clan on the current platform that you support. In other words, if your clan is an XBox clan, I wouldn’t suggest trying to expand to PC, and vice verse. There are several reasons why this doesn’t work for most clan leaders. The main reason is that these members will spend most of their time on your current platform, and it is hard to motivate them to participate in other avenues that they may not necessarily be interested in. I do have a few tips and tricks for you, that may help you get your members interested in gaming on a new platform, if even for a short while.
Offer Incentives
Maybe you can offer every member that moves to the new platform for a short while to help you expand a medal or ribbon if your clan offers those, or you could even offer money for the help. You’d be surprised how many people may rethink their position when a little bit of cash is involved.
Hold A Contest
Offer a recruiting contest on the new platform. Remember, the prize has to make it worth if for your members to participate, so give them a good sized cash prize, orperhaps a free game, or game card depending on what types of games you play.
22 Apr
Why Starcraft 2 Is A Great Expansion Option For Most Clans
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Clan Managment, Featured Articles | 0 Comments
As someone who extensively followed the clan world with Starcraft and Brood War, I saw how clans can prosper through the unique community that blizzard has set up. Starcraft clans always seemed to be the largest and most organized clans on the web. Some clans (DarkLegion, Overdosed, AH) even eclipsed the 400 member mark at points in their existance (although they are much smaller now, with their main game being a decade old.)
The community Blizzard has set up through it’s string of releases in Starcraft, Warcraft3, and World of Warcraft have created a buzzing, vibrant online community with potential for infinite growth for any gaming organization with the will and the time. Blizzard takes their fansites and clans very serious, and often will offer beta accounts to webmasters of prominent sites when their available.
With Warcraft3, their in-game support for clans was revolutionary, including ranking systems, memberlists, clan ladders and more. Keep in mind that Warcraft3 was released in 2003. Starcraft 2 will presumably be released in 2008 and will more than likely be leaps and bound beyond Warcraft 3 as far as in-game clan support. Hopefully it will feature customizable ranks and channel moderation abilities.
Beyond the technical aspect, Starcraft 2 is probably one of the most anticipated games of all time. Its launch should be huge, with many players eagerly awaiting to jump at the first clan opportunity presented to them. My recommendation would be to be completely prepared for the launch of Starcraft 2 ahead of time. Those clans who are ready for the launch will benefit the most from the surge at the launch.
21 Apr
Staying Organized As A Clan Leader
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Clan Managment, Website Managment | 0 Comments
Running a gaming clan can get overwhelming for just about anyone. If you pile your clan responsibilities on top of school or work, sometimes it can get down right impossible. The key to dealing with this problem is making the most of your time. If you only have one hour a day to work on clan duties, make sure you work for that hour instead of becoming sidetracked with other things. Personally, I have a hard time staying on track, so there are a few things I like to do to keep myself headed in the right direction:
To-Do Lists. Write everything down. Have a plan before you go in. If you take care of all the thinking ahead of time, you can cut out the awkward “Ok….what now?” waiting periods in between different tasks. Make your to-do lists semi detailed, but don’t go overboard with it. Give yourself a basic outline of what you want to accomplish for that day.
Establish Priorities. Make sure whatever your working on is the absolute best thing you could be working on at the time. If what your doing at the time isn’t going to benefit you the most, change it up. Save the less important jobs for when you have a bit of free time.
Keep A Notebook (And up to date) You’d be surprised how much keeping a notebook can help. Just to have all of your thoughts there in front of you sometimes saves you alot of mental stress when you’re trrying to get things done. Write anything of any importance in the notebook.
Of course staying organized is really more of a personality trait than anything else, but if you’re trying to make strides in the right direction then there are always things you can do to help yourself out.
Mass leavings will always be a headache in any gaming clan leaders life. Sometimes it’s your own fault, sometimes there is nothing you can do about it. Either way, the problem persists and you shouldn’t spend your time kicking yourself over mistakes made, you should spend your time trying to correct the situation. A mass leaving will almost always be triggered by one person, or one group of people becoming upset with the current situation, and leaving to create their own clan. Of course, the idea of a high rank or other percs will excite members, and cause them to leave.
Don’t panic. Remember that these things happen alot, and most of the time they don’t work out and you’ll have those same members back within a few weeks. Most clans fail within their first month. But don’t just sit back and let your members desert the entity you’ve put so much time into!
Negotiate. Find out what their problem is, and what they feel the necessary changes should be. If it’s within reason, honor it. If it’s not, don’t, and tell them why it can’t be done. Try to have your members see things from your perspective.
Announce something. Sounds ridiculous, but trust me it isn’t. Right as the mass leaving begins, or just before, announce something of importance. Maybe it’s a new co-leader. Maybe you set up a committee to help implement the clan’s will. Doesn’t matter. Just do something to let your members know you are not going to sit back and let the clan fall apart because of a disagreement. This will also let your remaining members who weren’t part of the mass leaving know that it didn’t discourage you too much.
Turn Recruiting Up a Notch. With members leaving, you need new incoming members. You want it to seem to your on-the-fence members like the clan didn’t miss a beat. If they are considering leaving, and the clans situation worsens, you can bet they’re going to leave.
The bottom line is not to be discouraged. To start a clan from the ground up is a much harder task then dealing with a migration of members, and you’ve already been there, done that, right? Stay level headed and never become angry with those who are leaving. In fact, I like to go out of my way to let them know they are always welcome back.
Sometimes it can be hard to get members from your server/website/channel into your forum to participate in clan discussion. In fact, many of them feel like there is no reason to visit the forum at all. Your job is to curb this feeling, and help members (especially new members) understand that at times the forum is the bread and butter of your organization. A few things I did to populate my clans forum were:
Advertise it on my website
I put a link. I made news posts. I bolded my link. Changed the links color. ANYTHING to get your members to take notice to the forum. It is much easier to spread ideas through a forum and keep them on record than it is to do so through ventrilo or a chat channel.
Invite New Members to Join
When you recruit a new member, always inform him of the forum. Let him know that the forum is where most official decisions are made and where most members interact on a daily basis with one another. Make them feel like joining the forum is required for joining the clan.
Bot Spamming
This mostly applies to BNET/RTS clans, but in your channel make sure that your bot spams your forum link and the importance of joining the forum. Make the bot give the same schpeel as you would to a new recruit.
Encourage Active Posting
No one will post if there is nothing to talk about. Make sure that topics are created daily for new discussion.
Offer Rank for posts
Offer your clan members an upgrade in rank for so many posts. I realize it’s not conventional, but it has helped me in the past.
14 Apr
As A Clan Leader: Keeping It Professional
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Clan Managment | 0 Comments
No one wants to join a clan run by a 13 year old. If you want to attract new mature members, you have to act that way yourself, so my advice to you is to keep it professional. I’m not saying to throw all personality traits aside and not be friendly with your members, just try to conduct yourself in a professional manner when the matter is serious.
Too many times I have seen nerdy 25 year olds running immature clans full of pre-teens, acting as if they were the same age as their members. Remember, the way you conduct yourself will more than likely determine the type of members you attract. When making a forum or news post on a serious subject, try to use correct grammar and spelling. Act leader-like. You have to let your members know that you are indeed the right man for the job.
When some official happens or changes, always make a forum and news post about it on your clan website. Keep your members informed on your clan’s ever-changing policies and decisions. When the topic at hand isn’t so serious it’s fine to joke around and show your members your personal side, a leader of any organization always needs to be level headed.
Try to explain to your members why you made the decision you did. Present them with the negative and positive of any decision and explain to them why you reached the conclusion you did. People like to have things spelled out for them, and this makes them more likely to see your perspective on any subject. Run your clan as if it were a small business. (Which it is, you should be able to generate enough money to pay for the clans essential costs such as webservers, gaming servers, and website maintanence.)
09 Apr
Keeping Order During Clan Meetings
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Clan Managment | 0 Comments
As a former clan leader, I know how hard and frustrating it can be to run a clan-wide clan meeting. Once the discussion gets rolling there are always people butting in with disagreements and counter arguments. Many times, at the end of the meeting I felt like we had accomplished nothing. It became very clear to me that the next time we were to hold a large meeting, there would have to be some sort of order. Through trial and error, I developed these useful tips for clan leaders having the same problems I had run into:
1) Use a chat client that features moderation
I would personally advise that you use IRC. It is the most easily accessible and widely used chat client that features moderation. You need to be able to control the conversation if things get sidetracked or out of hand. If you can, try to find a chat client that allows you to allow 1 speaker at a time. I would advise against using AIMchat. While it is probably the easiest and most accessible for your clan, it has no moderation features.
2) Develop A Speaking Order
Things will never work with people speaking out of turn. In the chat room or on your forum, post a speaking order. You bring up the subject at hand, then go down the list and allow everyone to comment on it. If you feel you need a second go-through for rebuttles, don’t hesitate to do so again. Give everyone a chance to express their opinion in an orderly fashion. Hopefully this way everyone feels their viewpoint was strongly represented.
3) DO NOT BE AFRAID TO BAN
If a member continues to speak out of turn, and constantly disrupt the flow of the meeting after several warnings, go ahead and ban him, and explain to him the situation on AIM. Perhaps this will help him to see what you are trying to accomplish and settle down if you decide to unban him and give him another shot.
4) Be prepared before the meeting starts
Don’t just wing it. That will almost certainly lead to a disorganized and unproductive meeting. Beforehand, post on the forum asking your members what they feel needs to be talked about. Brainstorm yourself as well. Then write it all down in a notebook in an order that seems to flow, and go down the list. This will help you be productive and get through all the subjects in a timely fashion.
5) Upload the chat log for all to see
Show off your results. Let your members know that you really do value their opinion, even if they couldn’t attend the meeting. Post it up on your forum for comments/critisism. Factor in these new opinions before making any drastic changes. This is also great for showing your members that you are capable of running an effective, organized community.
07 Apr
Keeping your gaming clan interesting
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Clan Managment | 0 Comments
If there’s one thing that can really sink a gaming clan it’s monotony. Members generally join gaming clans to break away from the monotony of gaming alone, and join in hopes of finding new partners to game with, and a new place to call home. But what happens when a member starts to feel those same feelings toward their new situation? They change soroundings. People (especially the young gamer crowd) are not always so easily entertained. Your first challenge is gathering the members. The second challenge is keeping them. Here are a few ideas for shaking things up:
Tournaments (Prized preferably)
Tournaments can really shake things up and make them exciting for your members. Whether you offer a small cash prize, a medal, or just recognition on your website, it gives something for your members to do that they don’t see every day. Try to switch up the types of tournaments you run as well. Maybe run a 1v1, or 2v2, or best of 3, or best of 5 setting.
Competitions
One thing that has worked for me on various occaisions is to offer a cash prize in a recruiting contest. The members are more obliged to recruit because there is light at the end of the tunnel, meanwhile your memberlist grows.
Hold Meetings (That involve all ranks)
Listen to your members. Whether most leaders like to admit it or not, the members usually see what happens day to day, and know the inner workings. Your members should be your most important resource when making decisions that effect the community as a whole.
