10 Traits That Make Running a Clan Easier

Starting a clan isn't a small decision and shouldn't be taken lightly if you want long term success. To have a smooth running, fun, social clan here are 10 traits to make these aspects a reality.

 

1. If you want to start your own clan, you need patience.

 When SighFye and I started our clan we literally just had each other, we jumped into our empty Call of Duty Black Ops server and waited for people to come to recruit them and to populate the server. You also need to have patience with people. We all have different personalities and we clash at times, during these times patience is your friend. You will have times when you will have to remind people of your clan's rules and resolve conflicts.

2. To keep the success of your clan going you need persistence. 

 SighFye and I ran a successful clan for 2 years, we kept things running smoothly by being persistent in our efforts almost every day. In the beginning we really had to stick to it, even if it meant sitting in an empty server for over an hour waiting for people to come. 2 years later, although much quicker, we were still populating servers and bringing everyone together to play. 

3. It takes confidence to run a clan.

You've got to have the confidence in yourself and your clan to be successful. Lacking confidence shows, even behind a computer screen, in the way you present yourself and your clan. Not only do you have to exude confidence but you have to be able to approach people to invite them to join your clan.

4. Assertiveness is needed to keep your clan running the way you want it to and for conflict resolution.

When you start a clan, I recommend setting rules or guidelines for people to follow, you will need to be assertive to gain respect of you, your clan and the rules which will better your chances of people following the rules.

5. As a clan owner you are responsible. 

You are responsible for making everything run smoothly. You may need to resolve conflict between people, make sure game servers are up and running, assign people admin roles to take a load off of you and make sure people are following the rules.

6. You need adaptability. 

Things change and people change. You'll have people come and go, you'll have games rise and fall and you'll need to be able to adapt to this. You may find members of your clan demand something new or different, or the members simply move on and you may need to move on with them to a new style of play or even a new game. It's best to stay 2 steps ahead and change things up a little to keep things fresh and interesting.

7. You need to be thick skinned. 

Don't take what people do or say to heart. Everyone's different and people do and say things that others don't understand and at times, this causes conflict. The more people you have, the more likely it is that you'll have some sort of conflict. You may, yourself have a fight with someone or you may just have to step in when others are conflicting. Either way, you need thick skin because people will try and hurt you when they are hurt. Remember, what people do and say is only a reflection on themselves, not on you.

8. To run a clan, you need people and to be a people person means to have compassion. 

If you run your clan based on having a great social environment for people to be a part of and genuinely have the best interests for all involved, you will have a successful clan.

9. Trustworthiness and integrity. 

If you want your clan to be successful in the long run, you need to be trustworthy and have integrity.

If you try to lie and cheat your way to success, you'll fail. It's that simple.

10. Be Passionate

Lastly is the most important trait you need to run a successful clan and that is passion. If you're passionate about running your own clan, you'll make it. SighFye and I didn't know a whole lot about running a gaming clan, we'd dabbled in helping to run Guild's in World of Warcraft and clan's in Second Life but this was a whole new cattle of fish. We simply dove in and went for it, these ten traits we already had and passion was our biggest. It motivated us to get the clan up and running, then kept us going even when times got tough and rewarded us with many fun nights filled with laughter on TeamSpeak as we gamed with our crew and some memorable wins during our time of competitions.

Running our clan was awesome and we'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. These 10 traits we figured out ourselves as we went along and I hope this list can give you an insight into what it takes to run a clan. 

Have Fun!

Bellistik

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Minecraft Brain Training

Recently I've been pondering on all the pro's of gaming. Last Monday I posted about how Minecraft is educational. Check it out here. This lead me to realise that Minecraft is also great for adults as well to exercise our brain. Using our brain to conquer puzzles, test our memory, solve problems and be creative keeps our minds strong in these areas.

You could go ahead and do brain training exercises... *yawn* Personally I find this a chore... Or you could simply play Minecraft. Here's how Minecraft keeps our brain strong!

1. Minecraft tests our memory 

There are so many recipes to remember to build tools and supplies in Minecraft, while you can go ahead and look them all up, that gets overly tedious, so it's much easier to just remember the ones you need to make often such as your tools which break over time and food.

 

2. Minecraft helps you with your directional sense

Personally, I need help with this, direction is not my fortè. Minecraft requires you to go exploring, having a strong sense of direction is a huge plus because not only do you need to find your way back out of a cave or back home but you may also need to do it in the dark. This also once again, tests our memory.

 

3. Minecraft requires you to solve problems and gives you multiple ways to do this

For example you have a hunger bar and need to make sure that it doesn't drop all the way down or your character will die. You can kill wild animals for food but you must also cook the meat, you can grow wheat to make bread and even bake a cake. Just like crafting tools and items, some food requires a few items to create.

You also must survive the monsters which appear at night, your best bet is to create shelter and perhaps build a bed to sleep through the night. You also need to equip yourself with weapons such as swords and/or a bow and arrows.

The monsters become harder as you gain experience and level up. To better your chances of staying alive you can create armor and better both your weapons and armor with stronger materials and enchants.

 




While you can simply survive and build your dream home and even a whole city, you can also take on the adventure of slaying the Ender Dragon; the end game boss. This brings up a whole new list of problems to solve which I'll leave for you to discover.

4. Minecraft is a creative game

You start in the vast wilderness, with different types of landscapes; such as desert, jungle, forest and snow plains. It's entirely up to you what you will do. You could build your dream home, build a city or pretty landscapes, build gardens, build a giant statue of your favourite character, build a roller coaster, build a train system, have an animal farm, explore the world or strive to slay the Ender Dragon; the lists of what you can do are endless. 

Being creative while having to also think logically connects and strengthens both sides of your brain. It's just as important to exercise the creative and subjective side of your brain as it is to exercise your logical and objective side. While our society tends to favour logic and rational thinking, our culture is beginning to realise our right side allows us to be imaginative, create and problem solve through thinking outside the box and transcending ideas altogether.

5. Minecraft is a puzzle game

 Minecraft requires problem solving skills such as logic and remembering patterns. You may remember SighFye's post about him making a binary clock in Minecraft, take a look here. You can also find and solve puzzles that people have created, such as The Puzzles of Hydro Map.

And if you're up for more of a challenge, you could create your own puzzle. 

6. Minecraft helps develop your math skills

Along with remembering patterns to create items, you also need to use math when you want to create multiple items at once in recipes or when you're building. You'll be using math from addition and subtraction to algebra.

7. You can test your current skills in programming or learn how to code

You can build customized features into Minecraft by coding modifications into the game. Minecraft provides a fun platform to learn how to program, even 8 year old's are learning how to code with Minecraft.

The survival aspect along with the freedom to be creative and do what you want makes Minecraft the perfect brain training game!

Have fun strengthening your head muscle but don't forget to exercise your other muscles too ;)

Bellistik

The Bellistik in me...

I gave up gaming about 2 years ago to get back to nature, kids and housework. I needed a little more real life and less Nuketown. I sold my PC to a lady who I hope is looking after it well, even if she is only playing The Sims.

I'd not long put in a new graphics card in my matte black, silent tower so I was able to play Black Ops 2 and BF3 on a little higher settings, she had been built 3-4 years prior, although she was beginning to show her age when it came to the latest titles, she still kicked harder and pulled better ping than many other PC's.

After selling it, we got into real life a little more and we enjoyed it. However, I never really seemed to pick up another hobby. I continued with all my usual hobbies, some I picked up a little more than before and we also had a new baby. Two months ago we moved to a tiny country town to live closer to nature.

We'd been talking about going what I call Full Hippie, we were going to buy a block of land in the middle of nowhere, build our own house by hand with earth bags and wood, grow a Permaculture garden and live off the grid with little to no power. Since moving here, still with electricity and community, I realised that I'd thought I wanted the Hippie life because I felt so stressed in the city but now I feel amazing, I don't feel I need to be in the middle of nowhere, meditating on a rock daily, eating nothing but home grown goodness, singing Kumbaya to be happy. We are still starting a veggie garden, we are still talking about buying a block of land but perhaps with a house on it already or maybe even just the house we're in now... and most probably with internet and power.

One of the biggest lessons (and there were many) I received out of this situation is to just be myself and part of being myself is that I'm a gamer. Gaming is one of my favourite hobbies. I don't like watching TV or relaxing not doing much all the time, I enjoy getting immersed into a game, striving to win while chatting and having fun with like minded folk. The last 2 years of not gaming has also taught me that I don't want to game a lot like I used to.  My fiance and I ran a successful social gaming clan for 2 years which was amazing but also full on!

For Christmas my lovely Fiance, Tom (aka SighFye) helped me build a gaming rig, I'll be posting about it in my next post!

I'll also be posting about the games I play, my Graphic Design and all things geeky.

Many GG's to come, keep posted until next time ;)

Catch ya!

Bellistik