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Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 6:04 pm
by Mobius
I've been out of the loop for a very long time. I stopped caring about Doom in general and settled on playing Zdoomwars and life, but once upon a time I was like you. I was caught in the hustle of running a clan into brick walls, into the ground, and off cliffs but unlike you I am of a different story. The only real clan I have ever ran is the clan you see right here before you. I know you've heard of A3 (actual clan is called Cube) and even dislike it from all the shenanigans and grudges you've stumbled upon or even became a victim of. I am not here to talk about how much better I am than you. This thread's entire purpose is to finally shed light on the huge attributing factors of not just making a clan, but running it.

I gleaned on the trainwreck that was NXW's clan thread and the inevitable splits that resulted. What really irked and stood out was Swiftshot's complacency post in this topic here, but this post struck me. It's a vitriolic attempt to down-play the legitimacy of running an operation of individuals with their own wishes and dreams into a working body, especially from someone who had his own clan and failed at it. Now let's just completely forget Swiftshot and concentrate on the sentiment, because he did what he could with what he had available but who really have the resources to acquiesce a strong bond with their teammates?

The answer is "NO ONE" because these resources are not entitled or inherited to any sole person. These bounties are only obtained through hardships and bestowed onto worthy persons that can see it. Are you worthy? Everyone is worthy. Anyone can make a clan as the saying goes, but the reality is can you keep it? What makes a clan strong like R? What gives it the influence of Pro? How does it prove itself like A3? What inspires it to create like MXU (non-competitive clan)? They may have different aims but all of which possess dominant traits sought after by strong and loyal players alike. You don't need to find a strong or loyal player: the secret is that you make them.

The follow traits you need for a clan is simple

- Ambition - The most important aspect of ANY clan leader is ambition. Ambition SHAPES your clan. To put it psychotically, every member of your clan but you is a mass of will power not aiming at any particular vector. They are directionless but they do have ambitions of their own. You have to take the incentive of filling the blank. You have to throw an agenda in whether explicit or implicit. Vector, Punisher, and I had no outward agenda to fulfill but my internal ambition of running a strong clan guided my decision making practices. I denied ringers in the clan such as Dr Noob and Nautilus before we had Strangle because I felt we weren't strong enough to have them. We fought from the bottom to whatever level I felt satisfied with before we recruited spak in. Every member of your clan is a person at the same time as a mass of psychic power. They are not a complete blank slate, but if your ambition is high (and reasonable) they will harp on that in place especially if it aligns with their goal. Encourage ambition even if it isn't your own. Sometimes the ambition of someone is better than your own currently.

- Strength - MANY MANY MANY MNAY MNYA MANY PLAYERS misconstrue what this should be interpreted as. They see a fraggy player or a good player like Ammar and wish to emulate him to the point they lose their identity and become a fan or a follower. I've seen so many players in servers saying hello to guys they don't intimately know let alone their object of affection even knowing them (not saying not to be friendly). Strength and integrity work hand in hand and this is a serious concept you need to understand. To be a strong personality takes more than skill, cause most will recruit strong but dubious players that will leave a clan on a whim or even destroy it from within cause they feel like they can and if you can't duel or CTF you can forget about establishing yourself among dominants. YOU need to be a strong player not only in game but out of the game too.

Jenova takes no shit from Caboose (and vice versa) let alone from you so why should you? Strength of character is determined by your ability to say no and mean it. It is following not only the ambition of your clan, yourself, but also the practices of it. You must not allow yourself to look weak by letting strong players talk shit about you and I can't stress this enough. I've made enemies in this community because I refuse to play the game by the proper channels, but then look how "successful" my clan is from it? I have a laundry list of friends that, though ruthless, are willing to do projects, finish things, and fight not FOR ME but WITH me WHEN they feel it's nesscary and are competent at doing so. Strength proves loyalty. You must take before you give, but you should NEVER give. You prove.

- Practice - The secret ingredient that everyone will tell you but none will tell you how. You must play and play a lot, but practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. When Punisher, I, and Vector started A3 we literally had no fourth player and NO ONE wanted to join. This was a time when no one was playing, a few clans were around, everyone was shit, and 3 groups in skulltag annihilated everything without effort (Pro, R, Spak). 2 of the 3 clans would violate you if they feel so inclined. We not only played, but we played frequently. We fought SOS, I, MS, and random clans before we moved up to even challenging Pro. We made an official challenge on the forums that day which generated some replies and discussion because we were upcoming. Every single member joined stood and left before we found a reliable fourth in Razgriz aka Strangle and that took ambition, strength, and next practice. We had to beat Razgriz before we recruited him (A3 vs SWC).

You are not given strong players. You will not be given strong players unless they feel like it. Borrowed power is NOT power and certainly not yours. You must work with what you have and become strong even minutely. You do so by losing and losing a lot with practice. Play and play often. Cry, scream, rant, rave, do whatever but do it often. No one is going to give it to you. A3 didn't get Avernus cause we asked him. He came to us (thanks to Watermelon) when he saw us cream S or EL or whatever when we were reaching our prime. We proved our strength and ambition which earned his loyalty. You can do it to, but it takes effort. Some people are more competent than others and this accelerates their growth but don't let this deter you.

Late clan characteristic

- Camaraderie - Loyalty doesn't exist unless it's earned. You won't maximize your clannmate's potential without the feeling of camaraderie. This is built not just with time and activity (playing games outside of Doom helps), but through traumatic experiences. A3, R, Pro, UD, Spak at a time, shit you can name it any real clan only ever lasted through the harshest test through FRICTION. Conflict. Tension. Fight! Stories, epics, and legends we all share on teamspeak or telling new people the run-down of say 2012 isn't formed by mere coincidence. We experienced it. Bonds of your clan is strengthen by fighting and not through a scrim. A scrim is nothing. A real fight! Real drama and war is caused by two or more parties conflicting with the sole intention of complete destruction of their adversary.

2012 Spak vs A3 is literally the epitome of clique tension between dominant personalities. A3 had a huge split from it, but the members that stood are there now and we're literally as close as friends and the same can be said of our foes. People have a nasty disdain for the dramatics and I don't blame them. Good luck having a lasting clan though. When you scrim often and fight and then fight on escalated fronts and things become intense so does the true colors of your closet allies show and even flourish. You have to embrace war as the mother of invention such as necessity. I am not saying going around and picking fights, but don't report every single sleight to a moderator either trying to remove any little blemish of confrontation. In the old days people dueled on servers to settle their differences. You aren't any different. I took lumps from Xenaero and then gave them to Shadowfox and Godsdoomer. People think they are above the fights by being civil or whatever stupid rational they have to avoid getting their hands dirty. We all eventually get roped up in it. Again.. not saying to be a trouble maker.

- Loyalty - This is earned if all other conditions are met. Loyalty determines the future of your clan and its success hinges on the strength of your clan's internal integrity to itself. I would NEVER expect Cyber to turn on Metal as they wouldn't expect Argentum to turn on Strangle. It won't happen and that's because lines are drawn and sides are taken. Don't ever think there isn't cliques or groups in Doom because there are, but the loyalty of these groups are so important some people will trade anything for them. You don't just obtain it by being successful though, unless of course you are sociopathic and use your doom skills to afford throwaway masses of yes-men players looking to make a name out of themselves through your prestige. You must be the first in and the last out. You must give your loyalty first and this requires sacrifice. I have trolled Slyfox to oblivion and back with his youtube antics, but every time someone comes to personally attacks me he is at the defense ready to show me support and he should expect nothing less from me when the roles are reversed. You obtain this from being strong, ambition, determined, and willing and you must be vigilant enough to do it constantly (practice). Making dank memes with your clan is helpful if you are funny.

- Decentralized interest - The final and only way for self sufficiency is encouraging independence in your players, but most don't know how so their doom clan falls apart after months. I know R, Pro, UD, and my clan substitute doom for other things because we have decentralized interest aka NOT EVERYTHING IS DOOM STOP LIVING IN A DOOM WORLD! WORLD! When you and your players are tired and beaten up from constant practice and scrims take time to play Minecraft, League, Zdoomwars, Star Wars, Space Teraia, Super Minecraft, Hearts, Quake, Teamspeak, Rap Battles, Conspire, Scheme, Fighting Games, Dank Memes, Bus Throwing, picking on Bobby, and so on. Your clan's happiness is important. Our clan just finds something fun to do and then we all just do it and it doesn't always involve scrims so try to diversify your clan's taste in how they spend time with each others cause building relationships is tantamount to everything else I said. I mean this video here is from 2012 during our peak and listen to how not serious we were while having an intense scrim with pro

- Roll with it - I don't know who decided it was a good idea to let ringers dictate your clan but stop. Work with whatever limitations you have. I started with 2 hardly-names as a no-name myself and we fought. We got Razgriz and didn't stop using our main 3 (we did switch alternatively), but all it proves is that you need to build from the ground up. Do not wait for strong players to join you -- they will in time when there is an investment to be had or incentive to harvest. Don't even think about them. Fuck it. Play with who is willing and get them to be strong new players because Goddamn do we need it them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EliigRpRSG4

This is everyday for us. Get Teamspeak cause it helps. I got so many phone calls making this post I forgot some other point. Feel free to discuss and please don't take the name drops as personal digs.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 8:19 pm
by Samurai
For what it's worth I considered my (our) clan a success for the short while it was alive, providing were talking about -CE-. It all depends on what you consider a successful clan mind... The longevity of the clan was small if compared to a clan like A3, but I felt we made up for it with the amount of scrims and activity we showed during that time. Our recruitment policy back then was to purely find active (skilled) competitive players who wanted to play. The sort of guy we recruited weren't really known for their loyalty that they show to clans, so I don't think either myself or Nevan expected it to be a long lasting clan to be honest.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 8:30 pm
by Mobius
Samurai wrote: For what it's worth I considered my (our) clan a success for the short while it was alive, providing were talking about -CE-. It all depends on what you consider a successful clan mind... The longevity of the clan was small if compared to a clan like A3, but I felt we made up for it with the amount of scrims and activity we showed during that time. Our recruitment policy back then was to purely find active (skilled) competitive players who wanted to play. The sort of guy we recruited weren't really known for their loyalty that they show to clans, so I don't think either myself or Nevan expected it to be a long lasting clan to be honest.
It's why I said you had to work with what you had available, but really your clan didn't last more than a few months of 2011. The problem is that a clan needs longevity otherwise you have people like Nosturi being clanless for years which hurts the entire scene for competition (let's be honest, CI isn't a real clan anymore). I agree you did well, but you could have done a whole lot better.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 9:43 pm
by Tux
ay, you missed one important thing-getting along with your clanmates x) seriously, it's a pity when you see shit exploding everywhere because some members don't like each other thus creating some serious clan-splitting drama by seemingly trivial things. communication with others is seriously important!
also welcome back :)[/size]

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 9:45 pm
by Slyfox
Tux wrote: ay, you missed one important thing-getting along with your clanmates x) seriously, it's a pity when you see shit exploding everywhere because some members don't like each other thus creating some serious clan-splitting drama by seemingly trivial things. communication with others is seriously important!
also welcome back :)[/size]
Mobius wrote: Late clan characteristic

- Camaraderie - Loyalty doesn't exist unless it's earned. You won't maximize your clannmate's potential without the feeling of camaraderie. This is built not just with time and activity (playing games outside of Doom helps), but through traumatic experiences. A3, R, Pro, UD, Spak at a time, shit you can name it any real clan only ever lasted through the harshest test through FRICTION. Conflict. Tension. Fight! Stories, epics, and legends we all share on teamspeak or telling new people the run-down of say 2012 isn't formed by mere coincidence. We experienced it. Bonds of your clan is strengthen by fighting and not through a scrim. A scrim is nothing. A real fight! Real drama and war is caused by two or more parties conflicting with the sole intention of complete destruction of their adversary.

2012 Spak vs A3 is literally the epitome of clique tension between dominant personalities. A3 had a huge split from it, but the members that stood are there now and we're literally as close as friends and the same can be said of our foes. People have a nasty disdain for the dramatics and I don't blame them. Good luck having a lasting clan though. When you scrim often and fight and then fight on escalated fronts and things become intense so does the true colors of your closet allies show and even flourish. You have to embrace war as the mother of invention such as necessity. I am not saying going around and picking fights, but don't report every single sleight to a moderator either trying to remove any little blemish of confrontation. In the old days people dueled on servers to settle their differences. You aren't any different. I took lumps from Xenaero and then gave them to Shadowfox and Godsdoomer. People think they are above the fights by being civil or whatever stupid rational they have to avoid getting their hands dirty. We all eventually get roped up in it. Again.. not saying to be a trouble maker.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 9:57 pm
by Tux
Slyfox wrote:
Tux wrote: ay, you missed one important thing-getting along with your clanmates x) seriously, it's a pity when you see shit exploding everywhere because some members don't like each other thus creating some serious clan-splitting drama by seemingly trivial things. communication with others is seriously important!
also welcome back :)[/size]
Mobius wrote: Late clan characteristic

- Camaraderie - Loyalty doesn't exist unless it's earned. You won't maximize your clannmate's potential without the feeling of camaraderie. This is built not just with time and activity (playing games outside of Doom helps), but through traumatic experiences. A3, R, Pro, UD, Spak at a time, shit you can name it any real clan only ever lasted through the harshest test through FRICTION. Conflict. Tension. Fight! Stories, epics, and legends we all share on teamspeak or telling new people the run-down of say 2012 isn't formed by mere coincidence. We experienced it. Bonds of your clan is strengthen by fighting and not through a scrim. A scrim is nothing. A real fight! Real drama and war is caused by two or more parties conflicting with the sole intention of complete destruction of their adversary.

2012 Spak vs A3 is literally the epitome of clique tension between dominant personalities. A3 had a huge split from it, but the members that stood are there now and we're literally as close as friends and the same can be said of our foes. People have a nasty disdain for the dramatics and I don't blame them. Good luck having a lasting clan though. When you scrim often and fight and then fight on escalated fronts and things become intense so does the true colors of your closet allies show and even flourish. You have to embrace war as the mother of invention such as necessity. I am not saying going around and picking fights, but don't report every single sleight to a moderator either trying to remove any little blemish of confrontation. In the old days people dueled on servers to settle their differences. You aren't any different. I took lumps from Xenaero and then gave them to Shadowfox and Godsdoomer. People think they are above the fights by being civil or whatever stupid rational they have to avoid getting their hands dirty. We all eventually get roped up in it. Again.. not saying to be a trouble maker.
i felt like it wasn't nearly enough stressed out, really-communication with others is seriously a thing that can make clans live a long, long life! don't hold pointless grudges against eachother :)

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2015 11:05 pm
by Torvald
Oh how I loved the days when we'd hop into your minecraft server after a nice long scrim then just chill; good memories all around. This is an interesting post, I'd almost go as far to say this thread should be stickied. I personally feel the key factor to a clans success ultimately lies within the group of players. If they don't have that common bond through which they can function outside of doom, then it is going to die inevitably.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 12:06 am
by Ru5tK1ng
Speaking of MineCraft, there were a few points in the past where we talked about making our server public for the community to play in like before. However, the host was not reliable and sometimes not stable and other times just complete shit. Eventually it just died since the host became super busy and it never came back. Oh well, I'm certain all those who played on Tosen's initial server and Jenova's server probably don't play MC anymore anyway.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:38 am
by Torvald
Was Tosen the one who hosted the server? I thought BlueWizard was the one hosting it originally; I don't recall because of how long ago it was. If there's talk about hosting massive MC server again, I'm down - especially if we could get something like Factions going.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:03 am
by Ru5tK1ng
I wasn't around, but I recall that everyone first played on Tosen's server around 2010-2011. Then it was Jenova running the server from 2011-2012. BlueWizard got a copy of the world from Jen and hosted that for a while. Before Blue graduated, we had Keo host the server with a newly generated world with people's structures(homes/shacks/dungeons) ported. Now in the present, there is no server. I'm sure some sort of revival would be possible, but I think everyone is more interested in clan play due to the surge in people returning. When activity dies down again, perhaps MC could be given a shot.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:14 am
by HeX9109
This was fun to read. Very informative and I hope the future Doomers read this and can get some nifty ideas about how to start a clan (or you know, instead invest their time on an already existing clan). Nice post Mobius.

I was going to give you a thumbs up but this forum does not have a thumbs up emoticon. I guess I'll just give you a 90's high five o/

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 8:13 am
by Ivan
In short, it's a good day to be in A3.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 8:32 pm
by Zakken
Very good guide, Mobius! Thanks!

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:55 pm
by Slyfox
Ivan wrote: In short, it's a good day to be in A3.
Right, I doubt anyone who's been in A3 for as long as they've been [couple years back] can deny how much ridiculous stuff we've done and how fun its been; chances of me leaving this clan is p. much 0 until it dies

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 10:14 pm
by Samurai
They might kick you though

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 11:28 pm
by Jwarrier
Very good post!

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2015 8:14 pm
by Mobius
Samurai wrote: They might kick you though
Sly would have to do something extraordinary for that to occur. There has barely been any record of an official kick from our clan since soulsucka, if anything I can count the actual kicks in one hand.

Demon
Soulsucka
Tornado
Crusher

Now banning them from coming back is a different story. Only Soulsucka was allowed admittance up to 6 times now.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2015 8:45 pm
by -_-
Lol after mobius wrote this post alot of clans are comin back. Good job.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2015 9:56 pm
by Ivan
-_- wrote: Lol after mobius wrote this post alot of clans are comin back. Good job.
You think they are coming back, but in reality they were never gone. They were just absorbed in the sub-universe of the cube. The malignant forces holding that universe tied closely are just deciding that it'd be fun to have some of these on loose. We'll see.

RE: Clan Leaderships from experience

Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2015 1:07 am
by Erma
This is indeed something clan founders/leaders should pay attention to. Some are already aware of most of these points, some aren't. "Camaraderie" lasts beyond clans though. For me, that's the most important part.

Neat post.