Clan Spotlight: -BTU-

veganzombiez: sWhOeLeFp: (Wolf Among Sheep) Clan commander.  Oversees administration and some calling.KILLAJAMEZILLA: Executive Officer. Former CO. Additional guidance and calling.Zoogoong: Original CO.  Helps out where he can.Violent_Pacifist: Executive Officer of Strongholds. Gets boxes.SgtAnubyss: Executive Officer.  Battle caller.LORDZOGAR: CO of Auxiliary clan.  Gets members what they need. Our next Clan Spotlight falls on -BTU-, a clan that has no qualms punching above their weight class.  They pride themselves on teaching old dogs new tricks, having a great clan culture, and receiving the respect of their peers and opponents alike.  It’s time to learn more about the inner workings of -BTU- and their feisty, but respectful, members.  What’s the story of -BTU-?Zoogoong: Problems with authority. KILLAJAMEZILLA: C’mon, you got a better answer than that, Zoo. Zoogoong: Me, Kill, Zogar, and Wolf came from our old clan, which was like a dictatorship.  The CO ran everything, and if anyone did something he disagreed with, there was hell to pay.  We didn’t like that, and a lot of our top players were bailing out, so a group of us got together and tried to make something of ourselves, make it big, make it competitive. We also didn’t want to just have one person running the clan, but a group.  That’s kinda what we’ve developed so far. sWhOeLeFp: We tried to get the other clan to become more competitive, and all we wanted were some requirements to join the clan.  They wouldn’t add any, so we split off to become more competitive and see where we could go with it.  That was the big thing for me: The entire Clan Wars team of that clan asked for requirements, and they refused. Are there any immediate goals for the clan?KILLAJAMEZILLA: World domination. Zoogoong: Boxes. sWhOeLeFp: Ever since the Global Map 2.0 Beta, we’ve been trying our luck on the Tier VI Front because we really like, and do well in, Tier VI skirmishes.  We’ve been having a lot of fun playing on the new map, but it’s also easier to field teams on Tier VI, especially during the summer.  There’s nights where you’re not as active as you’d like to be because people are out enjoying the weather and such.  Lately we’ve been dropping on the Clan Ratings, so our immediate goal is to bring those numbers back up and work our way back up the ranking list after the new map launches. KILLAJAMEZILLA: Our previous goal was to become Top 100, and we met that within eight months.  Then our goal was Top 50, and we made that.  I’m guessing our next goal is Top 25 once we get back to more active times. LORDZOGAR: BTU-A has about the same goal. Right now we’re hovering around 300, and since I moved over with these guys at the very beginning, I try to follow the model as much as I can.  We’re quickly moving up. We’ve managed to pull in some higher skill players lately, and we’re able to field two teams regularly, sometimes three, so we’re hoping that very shortly we can hit the Global Map as one unit. In the last couple months in BTU-A, we’ve been really pushing and achieving that active core group. Violent_Pacifist: We’re currently one of a handful of clans that have a high tier Stronghold as well. sWhOeLeFp: That’s the immediate goal. We’re leveling it while taking a break from the map to raise the buildings up and get bonuses going for our members.  How do you keep your members motivated?KILLAJAMEZILLA: In the past, we’ve given away small amounts of gold for different achievements, whether it be attendance, having the most improved overall, or recent, WN8, or getting Marks of Excellence.  We’ve also had tournaments in the past with gold prizes.  You can’t always give away gold because that doesn’t motivate everybody, but we try to do what we can. sWhOeLeFp: For skirmishes, we make sure to use the credit income bonus Reserve.  We also tell everyone if we’re using one of those, we have to run skirmishes the entire time it’s going to make back the cost.  There’s no breaks: just ready up and go, ready up and go, ready up and go so we can keep those boxes coming in. KILLAJAMEZILLA: Another is the camaraderie and brotherhood from playing this game together. SgtAnubyss: I think that’s probably one of the key components. It’s a brotherhood, and most everyone enjoys playing and hanging out with each other and talking a lot of smack.  And it’s a lot of fun. Fun, I think, is the key word. You ask how to keep it going, you keep it fun and you keep it fresh.  What’s the culture like in -BTU-?Zoogoong: Loose. sWhOeLeFp: A fraternity.  It’s like a men's’ locker room. Violent_Pacifist: Well, we are the Belligerent Tankers. Zoogoong: Yep, we are the Belligerent Tankers Union. KILLAJAMEZILLA: When it comes time to get down to business during a serious Clan Wars battle or Raid, everyone knows how to put on their game face. Zoogoong: We practice battle comms with only callers speaking during our fights.  A lot of times the enemy team will salute us, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but we maintain a strict procedure: we don’t salute until the end of a battle.  Then you can run your mouth.  Another thing is that If you can’t take a joke, this probably isn’t the clan for you. sWhOeLeFp: We pride ourselves on our battle discipline.  Additionally, “BTU” obviously stands for Belligerent Tanker’s Union, but there’s other meanings.  We also call our detachments the Breaking Turtles Unit because we face a lot of turtles. Stop turtling in Strongholds.  Finally, not really our motto, but our creed, is Brotherhood, Teamwork, and Unity.  How does someone join -BTU-?Zoogoong: We kinda just invite people over here for platooning. KILLAJAMEZILLA: It used to be a long, hard grind of sending out messages to people in game who you thought was good.  Since we’ve gotten a little better, our name’s a little more recognizable, so it’s not as hard as it used to be.  We’ll reach out to somebody in game and try to platoon with them. If we like the way they play, we ask them to stick around for a couple days and hang out.  If they seem to click and get along well with most everybody, then we give them a shot, and from there it’s up to them if they want to stick around.  Basically, just follow the very loose rules that we have for not offending anybody past a point.  sWhOeLeFp: One of the things I stress is that we have requirements, but we’re not focused on any one of those numbers as we are on the whole package. If somebody’s recent or overall isn’t what we want, but the other is really close… KILLAJAMEZILLA: We’ll platoon with them and make them better and make them come up to our average. Most of us started out as yellow or orange and decided we wanted to be better, so we worked and worked and practiced and practiced and ran drills and ran drills and skirmishes and Clan Wars and did everything it took to get better.  So we can realize the struggle, especially for newer players. sWhOeLeFp: And that’s the teamwork and the unity that we promote. It starts in platooning together and always having a teammate beside you that you can count on. The more you run with your teammates in pubs, and the more you get used to their playstyle, the more that’s gonna carry over into team battles that we do as a group. SgtAnubyss: We also have certain people in our clan that are very, very helpful and really knowledgeable about certain tanks.  Sometimes you’ll see people go “so-and-so, come help me learn this tank so I can learn how to do this”.  You’ll see a lot of practices for people to understand how to use their tank. Violent_Pacifist: What they said. LORDZOGAR:  The best new tool for recruiting is the dynamic platoon from the last update because you can look for somebody who’s not in a clan who has stats in the range you’re looking for and invite them to platoon. If they’re at least interested in platooning, that’s a step in the right direction, and then you go out and work together in that battle.  As you run another battle or two, it’s like “Game chat’s hard to work with, so come over to TeamSpeak”, and once they’re in the there hanging out and listening to everyone, they want in. sWhOeLeFp: Dynamic platoons definitely help eliminate that cold calling feel when you’re a recruiter and trying to send messages out. LORDZOGAR: Prior to that, it was “Hey, that was a great battle.  Are you interested in a clan?” and throw out 20 a day and hope at least one person wants some information. sWhOeLeFp: Telemarketing. With an older playerbase, does -BTU- have an age limit?KILLAJAMEZILLA: We started out shooting for 16+.  However, there are a lot of 16 year olds that are mature and can handle some adult conversations, sometimes.  Mind you, most of us adults pick and choose our words when some of those younger guys are around, but most of the guys who are still here now are older, so we can be funny and poke fun at each other and still keep it clean when there’s younger people around that shouldn’t necessarily be having that kind of conversation. It’s normally no problem at all. Zoogoong: Just don’t bring in drama. sWhOeLeFp: That goes back to what I was saying about the requirements: It’s the total package. If we encounter a tanker that plays well and he comes on TeamSpeak and presents himself in a mature manner, hangs out, and seems to fit in, we’re not gonna run him off the server because of his age. LORDZOGAR: We have a 14 year old and he’s got really good stats and he calls battles when he’s on.  Lately his family went on vacation, but we’re  hoping to develop him into a phenomenal caller over the next couple years. What’s the dynamic between -BTU- and BTU-A?LORDZOGAR: A lot of people in BTU-A enjoy the access to a whole other clan of knowledgeable tankers. There’s a lot of platooning between the two clans, which is always highly encouraged.  BTU-A initially started as the social clan for the people who didn’t want the daily grind of Clan Wars.  As the clan got fuller and everybody enjoyed the company of everybody else, the need for a second clan came about.  There’s always that small group that wants to be competitive, and it’s been a challenge to expand that group. SgtAnubyss: Before the last tournament, we scrimmaged BTU-A to set both sides up for success. sWhOeLeFp: The first time we did a training room, we did BTU vs BTU-A.  But in the end, it’s not about gameplay, it’s more about being able to exchange information.  We found that it was much easier to mix the teams up, with half BTU and the other half BTU-A, so that you can share information between the clans a lot easier.  Communication’s easier, you can help people learn about their tank better that way, and it’s a lot more balanced in the training room. How did you handle the requests to be more competitive?LORDZOGAR: We didn’t have that much turnover because of the camaraderie and TeamSpeak atmosphere.  People like to get on to talk, and that’s one of the biggest reason why the clan’s so successful.  The open-mindedness and the willingness to share info is awesome. sWhOeLeFp: As your clan grows, your playerbase improves, your number improves, so naturally your requirements will too. As you achieve goals, you’ll set new ones.  But you don’t necessarily want to dismiss some of your players that have been there since the beginning.  With the way the game’s rating system is set up, the more games you play, the less impact every game has on your rating. It’s inevitable. You can’t help it because you’re weakening the pool by playing more and more games.  The old saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” isn’t true. We have plenty of members who were at 15,000 games before someone got ahold of them and taught them angling or how to hide their lower glacis plate.  From there, people start to learn the game, but by then their service record’s too far gone. LORDZOGAR: I’m a prime example of that. sWhOeLeFp: Our whole clan’s packed with people like that.  That’s part of what we’re able to maintain. We don’t just dismiss those people, we recognize their ability and want to learn. Zoogoong: We’ve had turnover. It seems like everytime before a campaign, we have a few players who decide to go to a different clan because they don’t think prizes will happen. So we pull up new people, recruit new players, bring them into our brotherhood, and end up rewarding our core players with the tank. Every clan deals with the turnover. We just accept it and work with it and we find we’re better off. Violent_Pacifist: We don’t want people to be here if they don’t want to be here. SgtAnubyss: That’s also why we have two clans.  BTU-A started off for the people who wanted more fun than serious, but then a larger portion of the clan wanted to be more serious.  Anybody who wants to take it really seriously and do Clan Wars will move to BTU, and anyone who just wants to have fun and chat has BTU-A sitting there.  That’s how we kept a lot of people. Those who wanted to take a break have a place to go and they can still stay with us What’s the craziest thing that’s happened in your TeamSpeak?[raucous laughter] sWhOeLeFp: I can’t remember the name, but we had a player who came on to play Clan Wars— KILLAJAMEZILLA: I’m only here so I don’t get fined. sWhOeLeFp: And he was drunk.  He was very… you could almost smell the alcohol through the headset.  KILLAJAMEZILLA: Did anybody catch the reference there? [everyone affirms] sWhOeLeFp: And we went into a battle. Things did not go well. He was driving like he was intoxicated and it went south quickly.  He proceeded to blame the entire clan and tirade us with profanity where we had to physically boot him from the server and the clan. KILLAJAMEZILLA: Physically?  Don’t you mean virtually? Zoogoong: Well, there was a lot of clicking involved. sWhOeLeFp: “Get out of here!”  That’s one of the craziest things. KILLAJAMEZILLA: There’s been different crazy fun things.  It depends on what your definition of “crazy” is.  Like this is crazy because we’ve achieved every one of our goals, and being on the Clan Spotlight is the latest one. Zoogoong: It really depends on what day you show up.  There’s some pretty crazy people in this clan. So you hop in and something different happens every day? Zoogoong: It’s a hoot. KILLAJAMEZILLA: It keeps you on your toes. LORDZOGAR: Pretty much. Violent_Pacifist: Especially in my channel. SgtAnubyss: Everybody knows that certain channels are available for certain conversations.  General and Clan Wars channels are reserved for being serious and respectful, but there’s also private channels that people have and can have at it: talk about whatever you want and have fun.  Lots of channels for lots of different conversations, so we’ve probably missed some of the good ones. sWhOeLeFp: There’s no doubt about it.  A lot of craziness is missed by most of us. Zoogoong: We actually have a member who doesn’t speak, and she types like crazy. KILLAJAMEZILLA:  Quicker than you can talk. sWhOeLeFp: Our only female member. Zoogoong: There’s usually two conversations going on. SgtAnubyss: No, there’s two girls. Tiger in BTU-A. sWhOeLeFp: We have one in each clan. Do you have any interesting traditions?Zoogoong: No. SgtAnubyss: The only tradition is we tend to ready up two minutes before a battle to make sure everybody’s here.  But we’ve had a few times where somebody’s AFK or didn’t get back in time, and there’s a tank sitting there.  Other than that, we don’t have many traditions. Zoogoong: Being a commander’s a curse.  We also don’t talk before or during a battle with an enemy, but we do give them a “GG” at the end of the battle.  We also go into every fight expecting to fight the top 10 clans. LORDZOGAR: One thing we’ve noticed, as a lot of us run XVM, is we’d have a 5% chance to win on many games. We take those as a personal challenge, and we win those more often than not because you’ve pushed us into a corner, and we come out swinging. So when we’re on the other side, and we see that 85% chance to win, I remind our guys how often we win those low chance battles.  I expect that from other clans, and it’s fun when we get it. What’s been your most memorable battle?Zoogoong: When we fight OTTER, personally. KILLAJAMEZILLA: We beat OTTER once in a Raid, and that was very memorable.  They even did a write up on how we reacted and everything. sWhOeLeFp: We only beat them in one battle out of the four.  Not the whole thing, as they were attacking us. KILLAJAMEZILLA: We had a really good battle against SIMP during Twilight of the Gods where we beat them.  The next night they came back and beat us.  We tried new strategies to try and catch them off guard.  We had another one in the same campaign where we beat BULLS and the same thing: they showed great respect that we came at them and took the fight to them instead of camping somewhere. SgtAnubyss: We seem to get that a lot when we face one of the Top 10 or 15 clans. We’re not one to turtle; we take the fight to them, and a lot of times it’s close.  We always get kudos for not camping or turtling, but taking it to them head on, face to face.  Even if you don’t always come up on top, you get a lot of respect for giving a good effort. LORDZOGAR: We’ve been getting a lot of that in BTU-A as well.  A lot of bigger clans come at us in Strongholds every two weeks, and they respect that we give them a good fight.  That’s why they come. SgtAnubyss: -G- and OTTER regularly attack our Stronghold, and we give them a good fight. And they always keep coming back. Zoogoong: We must be doing something right. sWhOeLeFp: I encourage the guys not to be disheartened when they see someone from the Top 10 list attacking our Stronghold.  That’s a sign of respect because they know we’re gonna bring a good fight to them, and it’s gonna be a good, hard fought battle.  And they know there’s going to be a good sportsmanship about it.  At the same time, we use it as training. When we fight these clans, we pay attention and see what they did to beat us and learn from it, see how we should be focus firing, see how we should be using each other’s HP to cover each other, what did they do to counter our strategy so we can counter they next time they come, so on.  That’s the most important aspect to it, and the best part of it, and that’s why I’m never upset when we get attacked by someone in Strongholds. SgtAnubyss: I just want to mention that a lot of people don’t think about it, but when you’re doing regular battles, purple and blue players usually get focused a lot.  If you come up and you take a shot for them when they’re tracked, and then you push forward together and win the battle together, you gain a lot of respect because you should you know how to play as a team. KILLAJAMEZILLA: Other than good leadership and lots of committed, loyal people and friends, I would say that the biggest reason that we became as good as we are, and why we’re still gonna improve, is that when we do lose, we take time to reflect on what happened, why it happened, how we can fix it, and what the other team did and how it was advantageous for them. With your experience playing against Top 10 clans, have you exchanged information with them as well?Violent_Pacifist: Any of them that will give us pointers, we’ll take. Zoogoong: A bunch of our friends are members of those clans, so they’re always coming over to platoon.  We’ve also filled a lot of tournament teams with some of the members from those clans.  They’ll help us out by looking at how we play a battle and say, “You should’ve had your heavies do this instead of that”. KILLAJAMEZILLA: For the longest time, wolf’s been our diplomat. He regularly goes to clans that are ranked higher or that we consider to be better, and get any feedback they’d offer: What we did right or wrong, or talk it over with the person we fought.  We have no problems sharing information; we’ve given out lots of strats to other clans just to help them out. What approach would you suggest for clans that wish to ask for advice from another clan?sWhOeLeFp: Be respectful.  Whether you view them as better than you or not, if you approach anybody in a respectful manner, and you validate the fact that you want to share info with them, generally people will work with you on that thing. Violent_Pacifist: Honest and direct is the way I approach everything. KILLAJAMEZILLA: Violent’s definitely one of the most direct people you’ll ever talk to. Violent_Pacifist: I’m too old to beat around the bush. What prior clan leadership do you regret the most?Violent_Pacifist: Having to kick people, which recently happened.  I mean, we’re the Belligerent Tankers Union!  It’s really hard to get kicked from the clan, so that bugs me.  It’s never a good feeling. KILLAJAMEZILLA: When people decide to leave, even if it’s on good terms, there’s always that separation where some players just don’t feel right with him around anymore.  There’s been a few times where we’ve had to ask people not to come back on the TeamSpeak because it became an issue with the clan. Even though they left peacefully, it’s not the same after they leave. sWhOeLeFp: From my perspective, there are no regrets.  I believe everything that we do and every decision that we make is part of who we are now, and who we’re going to be in the future. And I wouldn’t deny us the opportunity to have experienced any of it. KILLAJAMEZILLA: I like his answer better. Violent_Pacifist: Where you’ve been makes you who you are and where you’re going, but it’s still not a good feeling to have to step on people to get there. Zoogoong: There’s a lot of people who still play in other clans who were previously in -BTU- and helped us become who we are. Even though they left, we have no animosity towards them and we still respect them.  It’s just something that happens and you can’t let that stop the growth of your clan. LORDZOGAR: After a while, the clan takes on a life of its own, and in BTU-A, I give people who want the tools the tools, and try to guide the process.  It’s good stuff. What are the four Tier X tanks you recommend a player obtain first?sWhOeLeFp: E100, IS-7, Russian medium, T110E3. Zoogoong: Or Batchat. KILLAJAMEZILLA: Of the Russian mediums, I’d say the Object 140 for a beginner. SgtAnubyss: T-62A right behind. Violent_Pacifist: Object 430 best. It has almost the same gun handling as the 140 and more armor than the other tw sWhOeLeFp: I knew that was coming. KILLAJAMEZILLA: That’s something you have to recognize: You may want a certain tank in your composition, but you also have to think abou the player and how well they play different tanks.  You may want a 140, but you have Violent who plays the 430 amazingly well, so you’d want to consider letting him play the 430 because he’s better with it. Zoogoong: It also depends on the map.  What feature would you like to add to Clan Wars?sWhOeLeFp: Can we have an in-game message board? KILLAJAMEZILLA: I don’t think he’s asking what you want like Santa Claus. SgtAnubyss: Yeah vegan, fix that for us, will ya? sWhOeLeFp: It’d be one of the handiest things because you can choose a battle time early in the day, announce it in a message, and all your players can log on and see it right there in their face without having to use a 3rd party tool.  Heck, you can post practice times or anything you want. SgtAnubyss: It’s a little too early to tell.  There’s the Tier VI, VIII, and X Fronts going on, and it’ll be interesting to see how everything’s rolled out. It’s definitely a plus as far as Clan Wars go, and I think we’ll have some fun here in the near future. What Front will be your focus on the New Global Map?sWhOeLeFp: I’m kinda waiting to see what the new map looks like when it opens up to gauge how much room’s available.  I’m hoping to be able to drop onto Tier VI and VIII to test the water in both of those so we get a good feel for the culture before we make a final decision.  Eventually, we want to be on the Tier X Front. Who gets your shout outs?KILLAJAMEZILLA: Stronk_scout. sWhOeLeFp: On my end, I was the head diplomat for a good portion of our first year. There’s so many people that were helpful. Gerlach2 from Kevlar back in the day; they were the first substantially big clan to give us a shot. Zoogoong: That was way back, dude.  OTTER for keeping Strongholds in check. LORDZOGAR: MEN that I worked with on the Tier VI map.  Also shout out to balgondo, my top XO. He does an incredible amount of work for the clan and is a phenomenal caller. SgtAnubyss: There’s a lot of people.  Detroittigersfan, he’s the one who recruited me and taught me a lot about playing tanks. I’m an older guy and didn’t even think about clans until about a year ago or know what WN8 was; I just played for fun.  One day I was just messing around, and he was like “Hey, wanna join a clan?”  Since then, my WN8’s gone up a little over 2000 because I’m playing differently and learning strats, and he was a big part of it. Do you have any last words?KILLAJAMEZILLA: We appreciate the opportunity to be on the Clan Spotlight, and we look forward to growing bigger in the future and getting better. sWhOeLeFp: You asked us about traditions earlier.  I’d like to start a tradition of winning in -BTU-, including in our World of Warships community, and newly formed group in Blitz. Violent_Pacifist: Stop camping in Strongholds.