e-Sport teams - who is in one?

Ace Modder

Ace Modder

Ace Modder

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Hi guys.

Years ago, I was in a causal clan on CS 1.6

However how do people find clans now for games?
 
Played "competitively" years ago. Nothing major but won some gear from SteelSeries.

To be honest I was more interested in the social aspect, catching up with mates, laughs on a Friday night than anything else.

These days as we're getting old with kids it's just an escape for an hour or two with like minded friends.
 
I doubt much has changed in finding clans... you play the game, stick to the servers you know (for games that have server browsers) and you get to know the people you play with... otherwise you build up a good friends list. As time goes on you join teamspeak/vent/whatever servers and then get invited to a team/clan.

I was in a social clan for 1.6 too... also played a bit of UT with them and then we played Planetside and BF2... good times.. no idea where those people are now. The majority were out in Scandinavia somewhere
 
Bantu said:
I doubt much has changed in finding clans... you play the game, stick to the servers you know (for games that have server browsers) and you get to know the people you play with... otherwise you build up a good friends list. As time goes on you join teamspeak/vent/whatever servers and then get invited to a team/clan.

I was in a social clan for 1.6 too... also played a bit of UT with them and then we played Planetside and BF2... good times.. no idea where those people are now. The majority were out in Scandinavia somewhere
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It's kind of sad when you play with people but eventually you lose contact.
 
We dont have a clan as such but in any competitive game we play we always post our TS details in team chat. Some log on once. Others have ended up becoming part of the "group" and have been with us years.
 
Since clanbase died only organised kind of gaming I've done is via pickup games on IRC. Doesn't look like anything has replaced clanbase for the people who just want to play for fun and meet new people. If you find anything please let me know as I don't have the skills for ESL level of playing.
 
PooKer said:
Since clanbase died only organised kind of gaming I've done is via pickup games on IRC. Doesn't look like anything has replaced clanbase for the people who just want to play for fun and meet new people. If you find anything please let me know as I don't have the skills for ESL level of playing.
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Been my thoughts for a while. Agree fully.
 
PooKer said:
Since clanbase died only organised kind of gaming I've done is via pickup games on IRC. Doesn't look like anything has replaced clanbase for the people who just want to play for fun and meet new people. If you find anything please let me know as I don't have the skills for ESL level of playing.
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Clanbase, enemydown, Eurodomination, and so many more have all bitten the bullet and gone. :(
 
In CS 1.6 and CSS you had to join a IRC channel to find a game, and there were Teamspeak servers you could join to find people to play with etc etc. So you could build a team out of a group of people you enjoyed playing with.

#5on5.css #5on5.mixes and then as you and your group got known amongst the mixing community you'd get invites to more exclusive mix servers where people would generally be playing at a much higher standard of teamwork.

Rasta-gaming used to be a large UK CSS Clan but since CSGO combined with people getting older the need for a base of operations has shrunk. Discord has added another spanner in the works as you no longer need someone to fork out for a Teamspeak server. So litterally 5 people can make a team find games in the client itself and have comms for free.

COD killed its own community. RIP COD4 Pro MOD

League of legends is all in client you can queue as 1, to 5 you usually find people you played well with will add you and invite you to games, usually teamspeak or discord is involved when you queue and you get to know people.

Overwatch is in client same as HOTS you can queue as 1 to 6 Much the same as League except as it's so very new a lot of people met in CSS/CSGO/LOL and now play Overwatch together aswell.

CSGO and DOTA 2 are in Client again you can queue as 1 to 5 but overall it's the same again people add you and invite you and you grow a team up from people you play together with a lot.



so without this external need for finding a "5rd" all the time you don't need the communities that provided them.

I've joined a few communities in recent years but there level of involvement is much lower than it was 10 years ago.



There are however still some bigger communities about but on the whole there has been a steady decline in the need for a "clan" as such.
 
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I tried that stuff out some time back, but mainly through World of Tanks. Was not the best player but did OK sometimes.

Thing is it took work, consistently reviewing your gameplay, watching replays and taking constructive criticism, repeated practice of tactics and such, dependant on clan of course, and those changed a bit during my time. The biggest clan structure I was in, and have fond memories of, was AOD, US and Europe based clan sharing the same Ventrilo server and competing in many games at the time, I progressed from grunt to clan leader of Valkeries before all sorts of shenanigans ruined it all. Watched the same abhorent behavour hit a few clans in the same way.

From there went to a few other nice clans mainly to do Stronghold/CW and a few ESL matches where work usually got in the way and I ended up not being able to participate.

It became a second job, I wasted way too much time gaming, I would get in from work, sometimes getting straight into CW and putting dinner aside, home life and game performance suffered.

It requires a specific mentality and attitude that didnt suit me as a man with three kids in a full time job. I hit my peak, fell out with some good players and clan leaders due to stress etc (at home, work and game), my skils plummeted, my relationship and home life suffered the most, my attitude was appaling when I was playing at times!

Thing is, I had seen the same thing happen to a number of players, it's a great experience, but it can easily take over your time if your not carefull.

I miss a lot of it, a couple of favorite clans were more competetive than I had any right to be in, but I loved the days where their leadership was more casual and we played company battles for hours on end.
 
TwsT said:
In CS 1.6 and CSS you had to join a IRC channel to find a game, and there were Teamspeak servers you could join to find people to play with etc etc. So you could build a team out of a group of people you enjoyed playing with.
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I've been out of the loop for awhile now so not sure how things are now but yeah back in the day a lot was done through IRC - most of the leagues had a main channel on enterthegame or quakenet, etc. and you'd pretty quickly pickup on the main clan channels from the tournies, etc. I was active in the quake 2, 3 and CS competitive scene through 1999 to 2005 or so and a little bit of COD.

Slightly amusingly I played awhile for one of the top NA Quake 3 CTF clans - we decided to try our hand at UT2K4 and got stomped by a not particularly highly ranked team on our first outing lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntU1EU2rlzw

Made some good friends through those connections but in the last few years drifted apart.
 
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I have played semi-competetively over the years in some leagues and lans etc. More recently in house leagues in Tribes.

Pretty much all teams I joined were formed from people I was playing with at the time. Although getting into a voice comms program helps, particularly if there is a community driven base like there was in Tribes. The main Mumble server had all the team channels as well as the PUG channels and public lounges etc. Was pretty easy to find games and chat with people and you take it from there.

Back in the Quake days IRC was the tool everyone used, but these days teams have their own websites and use chat programs like Ventrillo, mumble or Team Speak. They also use social media.

I also joined an online gaming group, primarily for ARMA III called iOGC. Great bunch of guys who set up gaming nights on all kinds of games. Had much fun attempting to play Planetside 2 with those guys! Not really competetive teams or anything but fun all the same.

I suppose it depends on how pro you want to go, but I am confident that if a person wanted to be in a team and play competatively they could do so, even now (if they are good enough obviously!). There does seem to have been a shift, though, and the more common lobby gaming systems become, the more dilute any community gets, or at least the less demand there seems to be for clans.

Personally, I am old school Quakle 3 - Gifford, Barrysworld and Wireplay + IRC some beer and a deck of smokes till 5 in the morning (quit smoking now though!). Job done :D

Having said that, Tribes Ascend filled a void for a good while, and still does to a degree. I just never get time to play it anymore :( C'est la vie
 
^^ A lot of games these days seem to make it increasingly harder to a competitive scene to emerge - with Quake 3 for instance you had mods like OSP and competitive focused maps made by players, tools + dedicated servers, etc. a lot of that seems to be increasingly ignored by developers these days :(
 
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