Clan Spotlight: [SG] 5/19/2014

Hypnotik: Tankers! This week we are taking a close look at SG, one of the longest-lived Clans in Clan Wars.  SG has succeeded in striking a balance between remaining competitive while still retaining a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere. As part of a gaming syndicate, SG provides its members with access to a variety of services and a tight-knit, family style environment in which its members can grow and advance.   We interviewed the following players to learn more about SG: Trireme – Commander, focuses on general direction of SG, Clan Wars positioning, and diplomacy. Dukebarry – Executive Officer, focuses on internal organization and logistics. SilentDemise – Deputy Commander, works on map strategies, diplomacy, and calling battles. Maddog090 – Veteran Soldier and a core tanker in SG.   SG has a unique Clan setup. Could you describe what you do and the structure of your Clan in more detail? Trireme - I'm the current commander (the third commander that SG has had). One of the advantages that SG has is that it is a very stable, long-lived, organization. People rotate in and out of leadership as they get tired and burnt out. SG is part of a gaming syndicate and is more than just World of Tanks. We have a whole support structure at the syndicate level that takes care of the forums, website, and everything else. Guys running the individual game "portals" don't have to worry about any of that.   As such, we have a nice, stable community and as soon as one leader is burned out, he just passes it off to the next guy.  That makes for a very stable Clan.  We've been in it since World of Tanks came out of Beta. We've recently had a bit of an expansion.  Originally, we were just SG and now we're up to three in-game Clans: [SG], [SGHQ], and [SG3].   The original SG is our main Clan wars unit. Our most active, most experienced players with a bunch of Tier X tanks and everything. SGHQ is a more relaxed Clan Wars group.  All those guys have Tier X's and are already doing Clan Wars, but they're less experienced, and still kind of learning how to do things. Now, they've started taking land on the map and I've been working a lot with the officers to help them build things up. Then we have SG3, which is a casual and social group for guys who do not have the tanks for Clan Wars, or do not feel like doing Clan Wars, they might have different time zones, or something like that. We have three different Clans that encompass a range of interest levels and commitments to the game.   How did the Clan form in the beginning? When and how did it start? Trireme - SG is an organization formed back in 2000, with a group of guys playing World War II Online. They wanted to make an outfit that would stick around as different games came in and out of style.  When they got bored with a game, they would move onto another one but keep the same group together with Teamspeak and everything else.  Now we have "portals" for a whole bunch of different games, including World of Tanks. Each one has its own command staff to keep it organized. The basic idea is they want to be organized and competitive in whatever game that they get into.  So, whenever there is a new game on the horizon that is about to go into Beta, they'll get a group of officers together who are going to organize and run things for it. That way we can hit the ground running and just be ready to go with whatever game comes along.   How do you guys choose games to play? How did you get into World of Tanks specifically? Trireme - We have a trial process for games. When there is something on the horizon that looks like it could be fun, leadership at the syndicate level will try to first gauge how much interest there might be in that game. Then they start shopping around for leadership at the "portal" level. If they have a group of leaders and a group of players who want to play the game, and it looks like the game will work and survive as an entity, then it becomes a trial "portal". Once they manage to sustain a certain level of participation for a few months, it becomes a fully qualified "portal".   Dukebarry - None of us started in SG.   Maddog090 - Actually, we all started in the [7THAD] together.   Dukebarry - Yup. In the very beginning of Clan Wars, we belonged to the [7THAD]. It sort of broke up and we migrated in different directions and eventually ended up together at SG. It's a good Clan with a lot of older players who have been playing the game since Beta. We don't get as wound up as some of the other Clans do about things.   Would you say that SG is relaxed in its environment overall? Dukebarry - Absolutely.   Maddog090 - Totally, yes.   Dukebarry - We're very intent on our fighting in Clan battles, but we still do fun. We just did a Clan battle against [ARRG] on Siegfried Line and all we did was bring "Waffletraktors" and T57s and run up the "0" line. We said, "Let's just have a good time!"  We did well too, but we're pretty casual.   Do you guys have any interesting traditions that set you apart from other Clans? Trireme - Well, Silent likes to organize a race night a couple times a month. Everyone grabs a light tank, he'll pick a map and lay out a course on it, and then we have a big demolition derby. I think he usually sets the limit at Tier VI. The only rule is that you're not allowed to shoot, but pushing people into the water and everything else is all fair-game.  It's sort of a giant demolition derby and usually the ones who survive manage to win it in the end.   Dukebarry - It's sort of NASCAR meets World of Tanks.   SilentDemise - I put a Youtube video up of our last race.   Maddog090 - We've also done some target practice where we get four or five guys trying to get real fast little tanks running around in an open field.   SilentDemise - During one of the winter breaks, I've held the World of Tanks Games where I had different mini-games where we do things like "precision-racing", "duck hunt", or stuff like that. It's pretty fun.   Trireme - We even had a long jump. I think it was on…off of one of the rocks…   SilentDemise - It was on El Halluf, just below the "E-2" hill.   Dukebarry - I think as officers, we want everyone to check in at muster time to see what's going on and it's our responsibility to make sure that everyone is having a good time.  We don't want people to get too wrapped up in or serious about the game. We find a lot of fun things for our members to do.   Speaking of everyone logging in at muster time, our records show that SG took first place in the number of M60s earned (in the First Campaign). What is your secret to keeping attendance high and getting everyone to show up at the right time? Trireme - Well the main thing is to try to communicate as much as you can with all Clan members. You want to make sure that they know when there is something fun and interesting going on. Additionally, we have to be enthusiastic. If the officers are not fired up about something, how are they going to get the membership motivated? Lastly, we have a bunch of guys who just love this game and they are the ones who stick with it. Something that we look for with our recruits is people who are really team-oriented, want to be part of the Clan, and are not in it just for themselves.   Dukebarry - Teamwork is a big thing. I'm the newest member of the Clan. After I left [7THAD], I started my own Clan that just never got competitive. Then I went to a highly competitive Clan and the stress level got to be kind of high during the campaigns. The campaigns actually create stress, especially the second one where it has fame points, where it's like "I need to get in, I need to get in". I think the nice thing about SG is that if we go into a battle where we lose or don't do well, there just isn't any name calling.  Nobody calls out anybody else. It's just like, "well, we can do better next time" and we move on.  We have a very mature attitude about our fights.  Some Clans want to spend an hour diagnosing what they did wrong or what they did right. I think Silent has always set the standard for that where he's "calling" a battle and we lose where he'll just say, "well, that didn't work! I'll do something different next time" and then we move on. I think that has a lot to do with the attendance being high. Everybody is happy to be here all the time.   What role does SGHQ play on the map? How do you guys support each other? Trireme - It was about a year ago when we started having SGHQ get into Clan Wars. At first, they were just doing landings and getting practice in. In the last few months, they have been able to take and hold land on their own.  Whenever possible, we try to get the two Clans in the same area so that they can support each other.  There are a lot of "time zone" and "who we're fighting" considerations that go into it, but SGHQ has been making a lot of progress. We're very pleased to see that and we're trying to keep the momentum going to keep on building up their battle calling and trying to get more active players in there.   We've seen a lot of subclans split off and go their own way in Clan Wars history. How do you guys keep that relationship between your Clans productive for each other? Trireme - Well a lot of it is just having a lot of communication between the officers.  Duke is really good about this, about sitting down with the guys in the subclans and really finding out what it is that they want.  This way it's not always SG dictating to the other two Clans what they're going to be doing. We really try to figure out what they want, what their goals are, and see how we can help them reach them.   Dukebarry - What's interesting is that there is also movement back and forth. We have guys that go from SG to SGHQ because maybe they can't make our "four night a week" requirement. Maybe they still want to do Clan Wars, but they want to do it on a more casual level.  Then you'll have guys from SGHQ who maybe want to do Clan Wars more intensely for six months.  Right now, we've got some guys from SGHQ that want to participate in the campaign so they're moving to SG Main.  We also have some guys from SG Main that don't want to do the campaign, so they're moving to SGHQ and because we're a syndicate, and we're a group, it's easy to do that.  Outside of Clan Wars, we've also had a couple of guys that really got wrapped up into tournaments and decided it's hard to do tournaments two nights a week, then have practices, and do Clan Wars too.  They didn't want to leave the SG community, so they went to SG3 where there is no Clan Wars requirement.   Definitely sounds like you guys have a system that works. Along that line, do you have any goals for your Clan or any changes that you want to see in the future? Trireme - We've made some changes recently. With our three in-game Clans now, we have a group of people who want to be more competitive and guys who want to be more relaxed. We have a team system for Clan Wars where our Clan Wars teams each have a commanding officer, an XO, and some NCOs to help out. The basic idea is to expand our number of leaders.  We always want to continue training new battle callers and platoon leaders.  Training new talent is important so if any of us retire there will be people to take over.  We also want to get guys used to working together, know how to anticipate each other's calls, really practice their strategies, and gain some consistency so they can improve themselves over time.   Dukebarry - What's cool about our system with the three Clans, we can have a lot of guys playing in tournaments. Obviously, Silent and Tri play with "The Cunninghams". I play on "Southern Discomfort", which is an Open League team hoping to go to the Bronze League. I think we have two or three other WGLNA tournament teams within the Clans. We have a couple of guys who decided they want to do tournaments, but they don't want to do Clan Wars, so they've shifted to SGHQ or SG3. In this way, they're still part of the family. The nice thing with this system is that there is room for everybody. At a very high level, we'd like to elevate the level of SG Main to be up there with some of the bigger Clans. SGHQ has guys, who have 1 or 2 Tier X tanks, that are pretty solid players and they're developing as a Clan Wars team. Most of the SG Main guys have 5-15 Tier X's and usually SGHQ guys have 1, 2, or 3. They can hold land and do stuff, but it can prove difficult to sustain. SG3 is sort of a social Clan, but I'm also envisioning that SG3 can become a Clan where some guy that only has something like a Tier VIII, but he really wants to get involved in our activities, can join it and do company battles, team battles, and be part of the SG family.   Maddog090 - We do a lot of platooning with all three Clans.   Do you feel that your success in tournaments affects your Clan in Clan Wars? Dukebarry - Absolutely. Our most successful Clan battle team is "Honey Badgers" and the core of that group is "Southern Discomfort", which is a tournament team.  When you get seven guys that are used to playing together all the time, whether it's WGLNA or Clan Wars, they're still used to playing together.  "Wombats" have a bunch of guys from _MadMike_'s team…   Trireme - "Light Brigade"!   Maddog090 - "Light Brigade". Yeah, I'm on that team.   Dukebarry - They're used to playing together in a tournament, they're used to playing together in Clan Wars, and the two really do go hand-in-hand.   I would imagine that level of interaction helps move guys forward as far as replacements for people that retire. How would you describe your recruitment process? Maddog090 - I don't think there is much that is different. I think we're basically the same as a lot of people who recruit on the forums.   Trireme - The only real difference is that all recruits have to go through our website. We direct everyone who is interested there. It's not too terribly complicated. Basically, they go on the website, they submit an app, we bring them on Teamspeak, have an interview, and just decide if they're a good fit from there. Fairly basic stuff.   Dukebarry - We do have the added level that they have to join the syndicate.  They have to join Sturmgrenadiers as an organization which includes a number of games.  It adds a little bit of a layer, but it really isn't a lot.  From the point of view of the applicant, it's pretty seamless.  There is one interesting thing to note though. After 30 days, the applicant has a $12.00 fee that covers Teamspeak, the forums, and all of that.  We find that pretty much only serious people really want to be in SG. As a result, I find that SG's stability is much stronger than almost any other Clan that I've ever seen, or been in.  Once people get here, they tend to stay here and it's pretty rare that they leave.  They might step down to another Clan or they might do a leave of absence, but they stay within the family pretty well. I think the other thing too, is that we actually have room for any competent player.  Anybody who is a good player, we have a place for them. Maybe they don't have Tier Xs, then they can join SG3 and run tank companies. Or maybe they only have one Tier X, and a lot of other Clans won't take them because of that, then we'll take them in SGHQ and help them grind to get more tanks.   SG has been around for a very long time, do you have any advice for other Clans who are struggling to find their place in Clan Wars? Dukebarry - That's a tough one because I think the biggest problem revolves around having enough officers.  A lot of Clans try to run with two officers.  Two people trying to run one-hundred guys is too much work. You burn out your officers too quickly and then arguments start, blame games start, and all that kind of stuff.  A lot of new Clans come along and they may want an 80-90% winrate right off the bat and they lose battle after battle. You can have the best players in the world, the best "strats" in the world, and you're still going to lose some games.  I think what SG has is stability and the maturity to recognize that and just let things go and move on. We're in it for the long-haul, not for the instant glory.  I think that's really what a Clan needs to understand to survive.   To juxtapose that, what was your first Clan Wars battle like? Maddog090 - (Laughter) Confusion!   Trireme - Well in my very first Clan battle, I was driving an E-75 on Lakeville, I believe.  It was a bit of a traffic jam, but we had a lot of fun.  You know, it was an exciting new experience at the time. I think it was back in 2011…that makes me feel old.   Maddog090 - Mine was in an IS-4, in Africa, on Sand River.   Dukebarry - IS-7 on Sand River for me. I was a bit frustrated because I couldn't get the gun depression that I needed. I think I fired one shot and got obliterated.  At the time the [7THAD] owned most of Africa and we were just leaving it to move into Portugal.  Silent, remember Portugal was Abbey?   SilentDemise - Mmhmm.   Dukebarry - And it was a landing zone.  We must have played Abbey in every way that you could possibly play that map.   SilentDemise - Yeah, a LOT of crazy Abbey "strats".   Dukebarry - And there were no Tier X mediums. "Arty" was Tier VIII.  It was so different then. It was all IS-7s, T30s and "Mice" [Maus]. That was pretty much it, wasn't it?   SilentDemise - Yeah. My first Clan Wars battle, I was either in the Pershing or the Patton. I didn't have the Tier X heavy at the time, so I was just in my Patton. I think it was on Erlenberg, playing on an LZ somewhere up there in North. That was back with the [116TH], when I was with them for a few months, when I very first started.   Dukebarry - I remember the T-50-2 because when I started playing, Silent was calling "strats" and it used to be "hide the T-50-2 in a bush somewhere".  The other thing is, Silent and I…wasn't that the first tournament there ever was, that we were in?   SilentDemise - That was all Tier V Lights…something like that?   Dukebarry - It was you, and me, and a bunch of guys and we came in third place.  It was on Fisherman's Bay.  It was a brand new map.  There were seven ties and we came in third place. I think that was the first tournament there ever was.   So throughout your Clan Wars history, who would you say was your closest ally and who was your greatest rival? Trireme - [ACES] is one of our closest allies right now.  As for rivals, we get into lots of wars where some of the Clans, the Clans that we fought against the most, no longer exist. We fight a lot of battles, and we're still pretty respectful of each other and everything. We had some real good fights with [VILIN], and its sister Clan [THUGZ] awhile back. A lot of great fights there!   Dukebarry - You know what's different about us? We were in a situation where we were up against [BULLS] recently, and they are a really good Clan.  Instead of just going to war and calling each other names, we used to go over there and visit. We would talk to each other and even though we were at war with each other, technically, we really became very friendly. I think that's one of the strengths of SG in Clan Wars. We just don't forget that it's a game and we don't have any particular enemies or friends. We sort of just get along with everybody.  I mean, we might fight over a piece of land, just like everyone does. It isn't our way to start arguments, fight on forums, etc.  We just don't do that.   Maddog090 - That may be our strictest rule.  We do NOT badmouth, or rub it in, or say anything nasty.  If you want to do that, you just don't play in SG.   What would you consider to be SG's greatest achievement? Dukebarry - Longevity.   Maddog090 - Yes.   Dukebarry - Stability and longevity, absolutely.   Trireme - SG started Clan Wars the very first night Clan Wars existed and we're still going. That's got to count for something.   Dukebarry - How many members, Tri, are in SG that have been here since Beta?   Trireme - We've probably got 15 or 20 that have been around since Beta.   Dukebarry - We're talking about some good players or "unicums" they're happy here.   What's the secret to having that longevity? What has allowed you to keep the Clan going this strong and for this long? Maddog090 - Hmm…egos.  We just don't have a lot of big egos here.  We don't slam anybody on our team. We play together.  We laugh together.   SilentDemise - Probably, the biggest part of it is that syndicate, or higher level that we have that we can fall back on.  We don't have to do it all ourselves. We have support from higher up.   Dukebarry - That's huge and I think the other aspect of it is…and I'm coming from the outside a little bit…most of our better players, if you look at Hammer and Silent, who are some of the most respected tankers in their group.  They are very modest, which is kind of rare for "purple people".   Well let's look at the other end of the spectrum, what's one thing that you regret that you did while running SG? Maddog090 - Hmm…I don't know!   Dukebarry - I don't know, Tri?   Trireme - I mean, there was a while there where we were trying to run the Clan with basically just three officers.  That was a period of six months or something. I mean, we held it together, but that was pretty rough.  I think the biggest regret that I have was to not expand our officer's corps sooner during that period. There were questions back then whether our World of Tanks "portal" would survive or not.  We've managed to bring in some new blood and kind of re-invigorate it.  Like guys like Duke and some other officers in the Clan who have really stepped up and just kind of brought the energy back.   How do you decide where you position yourselves on the map? Trireme - First of all, we try to see if there are any friends that we can go and help out. We always like to maintain those alliances with friends and repay people for times when they've helped us in the past.  Once we're on the map, and hopefully near a friend or two, then we just look for good opportunities for fights.  We try to be realistic about it.  There are some Clans we know that we're not going to be able to take on, and others that we feel a lot more confident about.  It's about carefully picking your battles and opponents.  At the same time, we're not afraid to go and get ourselves wiped out and knocked off of the map. It's happened before, and it'll happen again, and it's all part of the game.  We try not to worry too much about the land and focus more on getting the good fights in.   Dukebarry - I think one of the big things is that we are absolutely not "farmers". You look at a lot of Clans that are our age and size, and maybe they sit on land.  Maybe that's what they want to do. They sit on land and rake it in and we're just not into that.  There were times when we've been sitting on a piece of land and everybody around us was friendly.  We just had this recently and it was like, "let's get some fights in." So we did some fights with friends and finally and we finally just pulled off of the map and went somewhere else to fight a bunch of different Clans just for the fun of it.  Most of the people in SG are professional. We have a lot of surgeons and business owners.  We have young people too, but we're not in this for the gold that we collect off of land.  That's not to say that we don't like the gold that we collect off of land, but that's not our motivating force.  Our motivating force is simply "let's have a good time." Let's be a team, play with each other, and have a good time.  Maybe we'll go fight [BULLS], maybe we'll go fight...   Maddog090 - Enjoy.   Dukebarry - …fight Enjoy. We just went around fighting [ARRG] for a while.  That's what the game is about.  It's about doing the battles.  I think one of the coolest things that we've done recently, we have two Clan wars teams typically and we had three fights, all within 9 minutes of each other.  One of our Clan Wars teams had a defense, but instead of defending, we did a "balls-out" attack and capped out the battle in five minutes and jumped into the second battle.  I mean, that's what we like to do.  Something a little bit different!   So if you guys had to start a Clan from scratch, not knowing anyone from the community, where would you start? (using knowledge that you have gained from running SG)? Trireme - I think if I had to start completely from scratch, I would start with tournament teams. I would get a regular group of guys doing tournaments together.  I'd have them form the core, a group of guys who are motivated because you have to be pretty motivated and dedicated to do well in those tournaments.  There is scheduling and practice and all sorts of stuff to think about.  Once you have a group of guys who knew how to work and fight together, then start your recruitment from there with that core of leadership to build on everything else because one or two people are not going to be able to do it by themselves.  You need about a tournament-team's size worth of leadership to really build a Clan.   Dukebarry - I agree completely.  I'll add, and this will give you some insight into the difference between me and Tri, I'd write a mission statement and a business plan.  Then I would find people that went along with that.   Would you like to give any shout-outs, or have any last words? Maddog090 - Thank you for the opportunity to do this! I think this will definitely help us in recruiting.   Dukebarry - Yes, I do appreciate it and we're trying to grow three Clans and this is going to help us, I think. I just want to say this. There are a lot of guys out there who are old players who have been playing since Beta, and if they're looking for a fun Clan that is not going to be full of stress, this is a great place to be.   Maddog090 - Hey Tri, you're our Princeton graduate. Speak up buddy!   Trireme - Just one final shout-out to all of our SG tankers because they're the reason that we're doing the work here, and having the fun that we're having.  It's just a great group of guys that we have!