Clans

Clans are teams of players who practice , teach each other tactics, formalise strategies for maps and play against other clans. Clan matches are the penultimate challenge for a TF player. Players in clans are usually more professional in all areas of TF tactics and are usually very well organised.

There are plenty of TF leagues around where you can register and organise matches against other clans.

Looking for a Clan

When you wish to join a Clan it is often good to jump on public servers and watch how well the clan players play together using the observer mode. Some things to help you successfully select the right clan for you are :

• watch their general behaviour
• find their home website which should give you info on whether they are a bunch of try-hards or actually an established team.
• team up on a public server with a member of the clan you wish to join and work together with that person to help obtain whatever goal they are trying to do (ie defend a position).
• use communications to co-ordinate with the clan player
• generate a reputation with that clan. The more of the clan that know you the better your chances will be to get into that clan
• Alternatively if you are really good join the opposite team on a server and do your best to kick their butt.
• Ask if you can join in a practice session with them.

Starting a Clan

This is definitely not for the faint hearted. I ran one of Australias oldest TF teams (possibly the oldest) over a couple of years and it takes a lot of time and effort to run a Clan. Some things to consider are:

• Get together a couple of like minded players who wish to start a Clan to assist in building the Clan.
• Share administrative tasks.
• Create a web site that looks good.
• Create a name tag to go before your name, something easily identifiable.. we used [DraGoN] for our clan. My name tag was "[DraGoN]Bard".
• Organise a regular practice schedule
• Start playing together on public servers as a team and try to make an impression on the other players and allow you to hone the skills you have practiced.
• Play clan games against other clans. The better the other clan the better for you as you will pick up lots of tactics from an experienced clan. Losing against an excellent clan does nothing to hurt your reputation, whereas losing to a terrible team will ruin your rep.
• Draw up strategies for maps and practice them
• After practicing and matches have a debriefing session to discuss how things went, possible actions that need to be changed and also ask the other Clan for impressions and advice.
• Once established join a league.

Clans to avoid

Avoid the clans who have a reputation for cheating and are generally obnoxious. These are usually clans where the nature of the players will end up breaking the clan up in short order.