This will be a long one, so bear with me. Most of this is pretty generic, but some will cater mostly for the PC crowd, where to be frank, serious competitive FPS gaming is at. It is more or less a summation of my clan experience. It is not a recipe for success, but it may help beginners to avoid a good few pitfalls. 1: So you want to start a clan do you? My simple advice is, don't, unless you know what you are doing and have a clear idea of what you want that clan to be and not least have the resources to get it off the ground. That require reknown in the relevant games' community, dedication, patience, people skills, natural authority and money to burn or resources available to run a dedicated war-server, comms server (VT or TS) and a clan web presence (web site with forum) and get at least L bot on a QuakeNet IRC channel (in Europe at least, America might be a different IRC network) for matchmaking and other match (PCW or Official) related issues that crop up. If any of that do not apply to you, you do not have what it takes to start a clan. 2: How to grow a clan, succeed and gain a good reputation. Getting the frivolous out of the way first, a bunch of friends playing together under the same tag do not a clan make. It make a great backbone of a clan in the upstart period, but not much more. A clan is a team that compete against other clans in official tournaments. Be that ladders, leagues or cups. Online and/or LAN. So number one on the agenda for the upstart clan is setting the level of ambition. If a relative newcomer to the scene, set your goals low and build on experience you gain as you get to know eachother better, and get to know the individual teammembers strenghts and weaknesses. In short, build the team and let it settle into a form of routine before going for gold. Instant success will not happen, it must ferment and evolve, like good wine and beer. This require carefull recruitment. You are not only looking for people who can perform as an individual, but also people who can take orders and function in a team. An organized team with strong leadership and above average individual players, will beat a disorganized team with weak leadership and very good individual players. Socalled l33t players, are not only very good individually, but also very good at reading the strategic situation, adapting to it and following orders. Even if that means suiciding to respawn at a more critical location (BF conquest tip really, not relevant in CoD SnD). But most important, you must be able to function socially. There are no room for intrigues, drama and conflict. A potential recruit can be as good as he or she wants, performing miracles ingame, but if he or she do not fit with the existing group due to whatever reason, that do not matter. Success in the long term is measured in cohesion, not skilled primadonnas. Clanlife is a hobby, not a profession. Emphasis must therefore be made to have a grouping of people that work great together, have the same ambition and preferably complement eachother in skills. And in my experience vital, a great sense of humour. The ability to tease, and take teasing. Even under great pressure. Which segways me to another vital part: Leadership. This is best measured under pressure, and not all can do it, at least not well. But some can, thrive on it even, and no matter their other skills, these are worth their weight in gold. In a match, the matchleader is dictator. There are to be no disobedience, no quarreling, no discussion and no hesitation. All predictable eventualities you discuss and take care of in the pre-match preperations and strategising. If it goes to hell, discuss it briefly in the half time pause and more thouroghly in the post-match analysis. You never ever start diddling in a match because you think a bad desicion was made, and you absolutely never start griping about it during a match. That just creates a bad mood, and that saps morale and cohesion which is vital to gain the upper hand if lost. Better to request a minute pause in the match, resolve the issue, or if not, put the griper on penalty for insubordination, and get a fresh substitute from standby in to replace. Also, ingame text-chat with the opposition is only to be performed by the match leader. Especially if some situation occour, and believe me, they will. The match leader may decide in the latter parts of a virtual walkover match to open the floodgates of teasing as a psych weapon to make the opposition admit defeat and shorten the pain, but until then, ingame text chat is the domain of the match leader, and the match leader only. Usually for requesting small pauses due to disconnects and such. Ofcourse, bantering before matchstart, in the pause and after match, is quite ok for all to partake in. Just keep it civil. Speaking of communications, the voicecom (VT or TS channel) is for relevant information only. And if the team leader demands a clear channel, then shut up. It can get very hectic on voicecom during a match, so the least one need is a bunch of people bitching about how they got killed last, and the unfairness of it, whilst waiting to respawn. Simple rule as a soldier is, report where you know or think there is opposition forces if you need help dealing with it. Or were killed by them. For everything else, unless something the matchleader should know about, like enemy or friendly heli or jet is down or going to restock on ammo and is unavailable for 30-50 seconds, or a predetermined trigger for an elaborate plan is met, then simply shut up. And just for clarity, clanleader and matchleader need not be the one and the same. As for substitutes; Whatever you are playing, don't base your clan on the minimum players required. Don't even base a match on the minimum required. A stable clan, have around twice the number of active playing members, as the requirement for a match. This means ofcourse, that not all who want to play a given match, get to play a given match, but it also mean that you have the headroom to fill up vacancies in a match roster if fewer than usual are available, or something happens during a match. Like said penalty time for unruly hotheads, but more often ISP problems or something entirely unexpected. Like one time, where to our great laugh and later teasing, since he had the mic on during the exchange, one of our very skilled infantry had to disconnect from an official BFV match due to an ultimatum from his mum, where he had to clean his room or else... And he was 18 at the time. Anyhow, where was I. Yes, an active roster to pick from. This is what seperates the "pros" from the more "casual". A pro-clan, one reaching for the top, will always be tighter than a casual, with fewer margins of personell. Usually not a problem since all are very dedicated to achieving that top spot. More casual clans however, need a big margin of personell. Clans going for the top, will look at who signs up for a match, and the match or clan leader will select the best skilled for the maps played in the match, with one or two on standby. Also, new clans having high ambitions, must seek a partnership with a competing but more experienced clan, one that is better. A once a week PCW (Practice Clan War) deal at least. For it to be interesting, don't try for a partnership with a clan out of your league, they will play you one time and find you not worthy to spar against ever again. You've wasted their time, and yours. Be realistic. Look at the available stats from official games, and approach a clan you think is somewhat above you, but not so much that you will not give them a good fight. More casual clans might want to emphasize playtime for all that sign up for a given match. Where even a substancial portion of the team, if not the entire, get replaced by those in standby at halftime. This is a prioritizing that the entire clan need to know getting into it. Bringing it up later, will only cause discontent between those that want to push, and those that are in it just for casual fun. As an example, in my BFV days, we played for the top. And we did reach it, #1 on Clanbase BFV ladder. But that was an effort. First, we had an active roster of around 20, and we played 10v10 matches. Second, those with 24 hours or more recorded playtime a week was prioritized in the available signup for a given match. And third, we played to our strengths and minimized our weaknesses. We had no ace in the hole, but we did have a great leader and superior teamwork. So we put a lot of planning into each map, and by that discovered and employed a lot of very underhanded strategies. Brains over brute force. In BF2 it was a bit different for me. I was done with the push, and just wanted to relax a bit. So I joined our most bitter Norwegian enemy in BFV (well, not bitter so much as loving rivals ), to compete casually in 12v12 BF2. There our goal was to be the best of the second best. And we were. No playtime requirements, match leader went to who wanted to be, not necassarily who should be, and we rotated the roster, of 30+ active players, so that all signed up to a match could play in that match. Not that, we were all good and very experienced from years of BF42 and BFV, so we did win a lot, but compared to the best, we struggled to get a respectable defeat and the occasional win against those annoying achievers We were just not focused on being best, but since that was not the goal to begin with, that was never an issue or problem. We did though end up being second best of the Norwegian 12v12 clans, but that was through experience and accident, not planning and effort. But we still had a lot of fun. Mostly just chatting and teasing whilst playing public with and against eachother. And not least, in the after action reports from matches, where no mistake was overlooked or not made fun of (we even have a few highlight reels of greatest mistakes in matches, published on youtube ), and no heroic deed went unheralded or unpraised. Most important thing to remember in making or preserving a successfull clan is having a good mix of people that get along great. The success criteria can be anything, from having a consistent good time, to competing at high levels. There will be at all times people leaving for new challenges or just not being able to keep up with the pace, depending on the level of ambition. Also you have these people who suddenly discover the real world and just plainly quit. There will also, if you do things right, be new people joining by active recruiting or, if you are a reknowned clan, flood your forum seeking membership because of your clans high reputation and stature in the community. In which case you get the pick of the litter so to speak. Though, in such a situation, new members are usually poached, umm, I mean, transferred, from other clans. Such situations must be handled very delicatly, as it can lead to bad blood between clans. Or you can just say fuckit, you don't like it, your problem. Though the latter is in my experience not a smart starting point, but a great ending point should the new member ex-clan start to gripe over poach, er, transfer process. But getting to such a priveliged position, takes months if not years and a really good crew that represent their clan in a wholly positive manner not only in matches, but also public sessions, community forums and so on. One bad seed, one arrogant prick going out of line, and a lot of reputation is lost in a heartbeat. And if you discover a cheater amongst your ranks, you need to out him publicly and immidiatly, and ban him from the clan before anyone else get a whim of it. Only way to deal with cheaters. May they burn in eternal respawn limbo. I've seen good clans crumble just because of one cheater. The rep is blown, no-one want to schedule matches with them, and they are banned from tournaments. In the clan community, there are zero tolerance for cheats. Do not matter if they cheat "just" on a public server and not in matches. The trust is gone. For the entire crew if they do not nip it in the bud, before rumours start spreading and the grapewine have branded the entire clan as condoning cheaters. It do not only affect the clan in question, but when that clan go bust, also the honest members of it seeking new clans are by default suspect. 3: So you want to join a clan Better I tell you than anyone else: pwning asses on open public servers mean shit. Once you get into the level and method of playing found in clans, you will get to know why. It is not about racking up kills, it is about playing for the team, to ensure the win. And that is it. You will also get to know the private servers where the really skilled play, and you will if a relative newb find your ass pwned on a regular basis. But that is how you get better. Not by pwning noobs, fun as it is, but getting your ass handed to you by pros. Everyone can spray and pray, or even worse, camp with a sniper-rifle. Not all can can hold their fire to spring an effective coordinated trap or sacrifice themselves so that the team can gain a better position to do more damage. Much less cover someone doing some important task, like repairing a Tank in BF2 or planting a bomb in CoD. Most public players are plain and simple morons. Teamplay is what clans are all about. It even happen spontaniously on closed "public" servers. We fall into our given roles on a map, and usually get the support we need. The most fun you can have online, is playing in a clan. You will never regret trying, if you get into it and have your heart into it, I can not recommend it high enough. The learning curve is steep, but as you master it, you will enjoy the feeling of accomplishment. But before applying for membership in a clan, you need to do some soulsearching. Try to be as objective as you can, and identify what you want out of the experience. First thing to identify is how much time you are willing to spend on this hobby. A few hours now and again, will not do. Better then to register at a community and partake in various community events. Just for fun stuff, where public heroes on the community servers, and the clans active in that community have larger matches pushing a game to its slot limits with a teeny bit of organizing and strat-planning. All except sign-up is ad-hoc, and all just for the fun of it. Bring beer BTW Usually a weekend thing, since that is when the many ex-clan guys (and it is 99% guys) find the time to avoid family obligations and nerd in front of the PC reminiscing of glories past, erm Going up a notch, there is the "I'm social mostly on weekends" level. Meaning Sunday through Thursday are available for online fun at your discretion. In clanland, Sundays and Mondays are the big official match days. The other days are usually filled with optional public whoring for the casual clans, and PCWs for the more serious clans. Ofcourse, in more serious clans, it is expected to play some public every day more or less, and you often have 1, 2 or 3 PCWs in a night Tuesday through Thursday in addition to official matches (and PCWs to warm up before) on Sundays and Mondays. Such a regime is not uncommon if training for an important official match in a serious "play to win" clan. Which lead me to the second thing one need to identify. At what level do you want to compete? First thing to realize, is that a top clan do not really recruit, they poach on already established players that they want. Don't even bother asking to join unless you got something really impressive to bring to the table, and even then you need to jump through hoops. Basically, it is an invitation only deal, though exceptions are known to happen, but not often, and only in exceptional cases. As a beginner in the clan scene, look around in the various communities, and find clans that are recruiting. And before willy-nilly joining the first and best, shop around. Ask questions. Pertinent questions, like how many matches, PCWs and official they play a week, how many active players they have, and how many on the complete roster (two very different numbers), what their ambition level is, average age in the clan, what kind of player-role they have the most need of, how long do the trial period last, and what do it consist of, the social aspect, real life as online and so on. Remember, outside of the top-tier, it is buyers market. And you as a prospective clan member is the buyer. Once in the clan community, it is time to build ones reputation. Being active on clan and community forums is a given. Same with playing on community public servers. And just being generally good in all aspects. Once in the community, you are building a career. You may take an hiatus now and again, but you will always be welcomed back. And if your goal is to get into a top clan, doing well in a second-tier clan will get you noticed. If you lay down the groundwork, only your skill determines the rest. GL&HF