Clans in gaming, what's the point?

[Vagrant0]

I think you have to differentiate between good clans, and bad ones.

 

Clans at their root started as a way to sort people who can play, from those who have their head up their ass 4/3 of the time and who will likely just ninjaloot or wipe your party. A person who was in a clan with some esteem could 'usually' be a better party choice than someone who wasn't in a clan, or whom was in a no-name clan. For FPS games, this meant squads or teams which had some level of coordination rather than just running around as single individuals making disconnected pushes. Coordination and a base level of skill for any of those games usually meant greater degrees of success.

 

Good clans embody this. They usually start out with someone who plays with their friends and decides to make a clan together, and start off recruiting people whom they have either partied with and seen as capable, or who have some minimum level or rank which they see as a mark of accomplishment. Some clans, particularly in FPS games or on PvP servers usually have a sort of try-out or probational process after applying to the clan. What people tend to get from these clans is usually help with quests or raids so that they can get gear or accomplishments that would be out of their reach solo, or would be more likely to complete than if they tried working from the random player base. Doing anything end-game with randoms... needless to say, can be sheer hell and an exercise in futility depending on how clan-centric the game is. The cost of this however is that you also, from time to time, have to be willing to help out other members though those annoying parts of the game. The best clan leaders usually tend to be organized to the point of knowing how to handle challenges, but usually take a hands-off approach to how people actually play, only offering help for those who are significantly lacking. Usually, they tend to be lower drama and filled with mostly mature players, but occasionally you can have drama-ful clans who just work well because of their own inner strife and trying to outdo eachother or just share in the entertainment of enraging other clans.

 

Bad clans on the otherhand usually start out with just someone who had excess money and decided to make a clan for sake of personal fame or because they were recently kicked out of some other clan. These rarely have much of an application process, or if they do, the people running it usually suck bad themselves and either argue endlessly to anyone who does things differently or downplays the fact that you're better than their whole clan combined. Bad clan leaders spam chat, take anyone they can get just to build their clans to where they don't look totally dead before kicking the dead weight, and try to tell you how to play your role. Most bad clans are full of negative drama, people who believe in telling others how to play and kick out anyone who argues, or just only have 2-3 active members, a dozen alts, and mostly everyone else who only logs in once a month or hasn't been seen since they were recruited.

[DiGiTALZOMBiE]

I play Halo and love team play so clans make total sense. Its a good way to meet people who are awesome at the game and play regular. I've made loads of new friends through clans, my brother even gets paid to play pro with his Xleague Tv Gears Of War Clan. First time I saw him play I was so proud, lol.

[MrTastix]

I voted a bit hastily on the poll for some reason but I believe clans will always be around but they won't necessarily be involved in every game.

 

You'll always find some form of clan or "guild" system in MMOs. In fact, guilds are rather integral parts of the game itself, even if your participation in one isn't entirely necessary.

 

In an MMO however, most guilds seem to originate from a few friends then expand into something bigger. That's exactly how my old World of Warcraft guild started (and is, amazingly, still alive today). In FPS games it's a tad different since, generally, you're in a guild to benefit from the aid of your cohorts and they aren't necessary to progress through the game.

 

At it's core, there only needs to really be a few guilds designated to each form of gameplay the game has (whether that be PvE, PvP, RP, etc) but you'll find hundreds of similar guilds simply because of personality. A guild is like a person: There are lots of people who do the same things as I do, may even look similar to me, but they probably don't share my personality.

[Nadimos]

clans are like teams in football... you better play in a team, if you are a teamplayer. :P Edited November 25, 2011 by Nadimos

[ploppytheman]

Sounds like an ego post. Being in a clan doesnt stop you from being a bad or retarded it just opens the possibility that you can be good.

 

Clans/Teams make you better at games because there are strategies you can do with a team that you cant do alone.

 

As a team you can:

 

-optimize your gear strats and tactics

-have voice communication

-learn your allies weaknesses and strengths and cover for it

-discuss flaws in your game

-practice together so you can get see how you work as a team

 

For instance in BF3 I have a good K/D ratio and I can go about and rape the average person. However I often die because I am reloading, I get flanked/spawned on, or some other random occurence where I couldn't really do anything about it. If I have a medic with me he can kill that person and res me. Then we continue on our push. However if I die I have to wait to spawn and start from the spawn which takes a lot of time.

 

Heres a simple strat. If you run down a hallway you are vulnerable to someone popping out and shooting you. You can scope and walk down the hall but that would take forever. If you have a teammate behind you scoped in while you start running, even if you die, they will be able to kill that person and revive you. Even as a solo player on BF3 I use this tactic of letting my allies run forward (or if they are all pussy campers I run forward) and this way you cover more ground faster with less risk.

 

Teams are esp important in SC2 where practicing in a pro house for hours and ironing out problems in your games and talknig about it makes you the best.

Edited December 2, 2011 by ploppytheman

[TKHawke]

Uh, maybe if its an MMORPG or something, but I never found a use for clans in FPS games. And Clans are useless in MMORPGs if people don't assist each other. From my experience, most clans are leader and buddies with a bunch of random recruits. They spam to recruit people, and then offer them no benefit for joining. To them you aren't even really a person, you are a number, a stat in their clan ranks. That is WoW for you, lol.

I'm not a number. I'm Stan.

 

Sorry your post made me think of that commercial. But back to seriousness a lot of clans in MMORPG's are sadly like that. There are a few good ones here and there but there aren't as much of them as they used to be. :confused:

[hoofhearted4]

clans idk. never been apart of one, but teamwork is great. which is why i like BFBC2 over CoD because teamwork is more prominant. you can go all lone wolf if you want, and you just might do pretty good, but when i play with my friends, we never lose to just one person. and very rarely do we lose to a team where one person got all the kills.

 

i hate lone wolf games in multiplayer. i like coop. even coop competitive (like bfbc2)

[drmfreezone]

clans are like a big gameing Family just look at the sucksess of to days p.c. games like wow / halo / bf3 / cod / all there rout,s come from some sort of clan, Edited December 7, 2011 by drmfreezone