WARNING

Let me be VERY clear. Starting your own clan is HARD WORK.

 

If you have never started your own clan before you may be surprised to know that this is a difficult and all-absorbing task. It is very time consuming, and will test your patience often. You will have added stress trying to make your team work and succeed as well as devote your own money into the project. It is NOT a simple thing.

There are a few things you MUST have before you ever begin, they are…

• - A devotion to the project. You must be willing to stick it out, thick and thin.
• – An understanding of people. It is important to realize that you will not be alone, and thus must compromise.
• – A willingness to work hard and a fair minded perspective. Success is the goal.

I have never meet someone who wanted to start a clan to watch it fail after the first month or two. No matter how big you want to be, no matter what your specific goals may be, you want to survive and succeed. The truth of the matter is that 90% of clans do fail, and typically before they ever get to be a year old! Here are the top reasons why:

• - Bad Leadership is NUMBER one
• – Inactivity
• – No Recruiting or Retention
• – Civil Unrest within the team

Bad Leadership is everything from a person who is not interested in letting others help to the jerk who thinks the clan is more important than the people in it.
If your REASON for wanting to start a clan is to Boss people around and be in CHARGE, then get the Hell off my site.

 

Clans are not property, they are not a clan leaders toy, and they are certainly not gatherings of minions for you to boss around as you see fit. Clans are PEOPLE. If I put nothing else in your mind, let it be that.

The First Steps.

So you are willing to do the work, you know that your team will be a cooperative of mutual minded gamers having fun, and you know that you will not succeed unless you respect others and work together?

 

Good, you are already doing better than 50% of the clans ever started.

The very first task you must undertake once you have made the choice to start a clan is to develop an identity. You need to know “who” your clan is. This is everything from the clans name to its “theme”, the game you want to play, the manner in which you want to grow, how and who you want to recruit and so on.

Put some thought into this, it will motivate you and inspire new ideas that could shape your new team; but also keep the mind-set that you do not have to make final choices here, just open your thoughts. Research your clan name, are there other teams using the same name or tag? Originality is worth 100 times as much as just ripping off someone else’s idea.

You should have a basic idea of the kind of team you want to create, and you are prepared to lead it.

Laying the Foundation.

Now that you have created at least a basic idea of your identity, lets look at the next important items to have done.

 

I call this the foundation because this is the core concepts of your identity. These few items will be GREATLY determined by how you manage and run your new clan. That is not to say that they cannot change, just that they are vastly important in the beginning.

• - Ranking system and Recruiting standards. (You need to know how your team will be set up in terms of who is in charge of what and how leadership roles are determined. You also need to know what requirements you will have for recruiting new members.  )
• – Clan Rules.  (You need to have a basic set of rules that determine what is allowed for your new team and what is not. It does not necessarily have to be a complete list, but enough information to get you started.  )
• – Basic Communication.  (You do not have to have a voice server before you start, but you will need a method of personal communication; e-mail, XFire, or some planned out way to communicate with each other. You are Off and Running.  )

At this point you are fully prepared to begin. You have a good idea of who your clan is, you have your requirements for new members, and you are contactable. This is the core foundation of a clan. This preparation will leave you with “availability”, you are able to talk to prospective members and can freely focus on relationships and fun without having to worry about to many details.

 

This is important because everything else is only enhancements of this core foundation.

Early Enhancements.

The first goals you will likely have is to create a website, start looking for a server of your own, and getting the word out about your new team. There are some misconceptions in here so lets look at each:

• - Website.

Your site is VERY important, but perfection is not a requirement. Some people get that wrong, they believe that they must have a perfect website in order to recruit new members. Sure a great looking site helps, but it is nothing compared to how you run the team or how much fun you have playing.

 

Don’t be afraid to run a free site to start out with, there are several sites out there just for clans that will provide you with a very nice site for free. It is an easy way to start and lets you focus more on building content for the site instead of wasting early time with coding and graphics.

• - Server.

Your own personal server is most likely the most important tool a clan can have. This is where you should put most of your earl focus, and if you have funds to devote to something, make it your server. You can post recruiting offers on dozens of community sites and I promise you will see more new recruits from a server in a day than those posts generate in a month.

• - Open Recruiting.

Posting on community sites for new members is important, but as a new team your chances of getting a strong following from several random posts is slim. As stated above, the best way to promote your team is to play your game.

 

Important Point: Do Not try to Recruit from other teams servers. It is not only rude, but damages your clans reputation.

You should now have a solid foundation and are expanding into a strong presence and clan.

Building Steam.

So you are off and running, you have a website, have or working on getting a server, and have made some basic outreach attempts. It is time to discuss added more value to your team and some final warnings that you should be aware of. First, the pleasantries..

 

Building custom graphics, creating an early training program, and looking at additional material to add to your site should start to develop after the first month or so. It is natural, even if you are busy you may find yourself devoting extra energy to making these additions. There is help out there if you need it, go looking for it!

Also do not forget to involve your members, ensure any new members you have take a role in improving the team. It will help you and provide some pride in your new members. Young teams are actually pretty good at passing around duties and helping each other out, try to hold on to that sense of “everybody’s new team”.

A Few Final Warnings.

• - Don’t rush things. Take your time building yourself up and make sure it is right to begin with.
• – Don’t be afraid to change, evolution is a natural aspect of clans.
• – Expand at your own leisure. Getting to some magic number of members is unrealistic and pointless.
• – Good communication and a fair and respectful attitude will help to solve disagreements before they ever begin.
• – Never sacrifice FUN for long, regardless of what needs to get done.

There is no way I could put EVERYTHING you need to know in this post, so look around at the other topics. There are plenty of ideas and suggestions in every article!

 

Always remember that you are a group of gamers having fun, filled with real people before you are anything else.

- Hedge