Original date of blog: July 26th, 2015
I’ve been hopelessly behind on my blog. Sorry about that. Things have been pretty hectic for me IRL, so I’ve not had nearly as much time as I had hoped to work on clan-stuff, and this blog. I’ll make up for that today, by giving you two entries instead of one 😉
July 10th, we had our second Inter-Clan Event. We were with fewer than the first time, but, considering it was the time of summer holidays, I’m still happy with the turn-up. And, what I liked even more, -more- clans were participating. It made me a very happy Penguin.
We started as we did before, in separate rooms, in platoons. We did countdowns every 8 minutes, which worked a heck lot better than the 10 minutes we had the first event. The matches were still pretty random – and we totally didn’t do as we thought of before – letting the top tier be team captain, but it was still a lot of fun =)
Funnily enough, when we joined up for the second part of the event in the lobby, it didn’t work nearly as well as the first time. Where it worked the first time with -more- people, this time it got too crowded and too noisy. I’m guessing we’ll have to see what works with each event, and try to make people more aware of the fact they echo or have a lot of background noises, because people don’t seem to be aware how annoying that can be to the other players in the same chatroom.
As usual, I lost a crapload of credits during the event, but I had saved up for that, and a crap load of winrate. I’ve gotten both back by now, lol. I did have a lot of fun again, but I did notice that due to the fact that I was very tired when we began already, I couldn’t give it my usual all, and I think that also reflected on the event. Hopefully, before August 15th (which is when ICE3 will happen), I’ll have recovered more properly and can hopefully give it my usual 110% again. It deserves nothing less =)
As part of all the interactions between clans, I’m now on the forum of most clans. And it’s pretty funny to see how they all deal with it differently. Most clans have made a dedicated section for just inter-clan relations and events and the likes – and that’s all the ambassador gets to see. But it isn’t like that on some of them. On some, I’ve been able to see a lot more.
Through that, I know that one clan has no less than 5 topics just about bad-mouthing LOCA. Now, I don’t expect people to always think the best of us or anything and I’m pretty sure other clans have topics like that too, but what I fail to understand is that if you invite people from a Clan to be an ambassador on your clan’s forum, that you don’t move those topics somewhere they won’t be able to see it. Because, to me, in comes across as very disrespectful, towards both me and my Clan.
I’ve not responded to the topics, of course, but I’m very much aware of them, and I don’t think it helps the relations between the clans. I did make a reference to one of them, because we had something very similar happen in the event (on purpose, mind you), so I felt that I could troll them about it, just a little bit.
I have always believed that everyone has the best intentions. Even if someone is mean to someone else, they still believe that that is the best thing to do at the moment, that it is needed. Everyone always believes in their own right. So, with the way these guys have been talking about us, I have no doubt that they have really thought like that. What I’m more curious about is whether or not that has changed by now. I’m hoping it has, but I’m very much aware of how futile such a hope can be. A first impression can only be made once, and thanks to Ratel, a lot of people got a very bad first impression of LOCA.
Relations between LOCA and Valiant have definitely improved a heck lot though. Ever since they got their new management, contact with them has been a lot more relaxed, a lot more fun. And I really like that. I’ve gotten to know several of their members a lot better, and it’s been an absolute delight. Though I’m still very careful in what I say or do there, I no longer have the feeling I need to walk on eggshells with them, and I think ICE has helped a lot with that too.
Of course, it’s still not all fun and games when it comes to the clan-stuff. Not too long ago, a ‘group’ was made for super-unicorns. They advertise it as not being a clan, and just a group of friends, and that they have no leaders, no site, no forum, but might get or have a ts. But, for ‘just a group of friends’, they have been trying to recruit members from us quite a bit already. Not to mention the fact that the clan the non-leaders were a part of before has all but collapsed three times while it was under their ‘rule’. Now, I don’t know all the details about that, but I do know that’s not healthy.
One of the guys that recently left us has joined them, and another has been actively recruited by the group’s leader, Raven. And I know that they have been asking other members of ours as well. I wouldn’t mind it if they just asked our clansfolk to join them, but the way they do it irks me because it’s so disrespectful. When one of our members told them no, Raven said that LOCA is full of little children. It’s like Ratel and Badger all over again.
Yes, we have youngsters. But most of them act more maturely than anything I’ve ever seen of Raven. And with those actions of his, I’ve pretty much lost all the respect I used to have for him. His ratings might be uber-unicorn, but his attitude as I have seen it so far, is incredibly poor. Back when he led Polish Force, I already had problems with him, because he would just not respond to my messages at all, despite our clans being in an alliance at the time. And yet, I’ve had people tell me he’s such a nice guy. I try to keep an open mind, I really do, but with all the things I’ve been witnessing, it’s hard. Maybe he looks down at me for being a woman. Or because I’m not a unicorn myself when it comes to this game. I don’t know.
I find that, though it always bothers me to know someone thinks ill of me, I can let that go. I have a much harder time letting go of the way he talks about my Clan. I’m very protective when it comes to them, because despite the faults they may have, I know them all to be truly amazing people, and I admire them all in their own way. As their leader, I’m responsible for them, and like a good mother-hen, I feel the need to peck at whoever insults them. They have come to accept that, and in a way, expect it too, from me.
I’m hoping that Clan-relations will continue to approve, and not just between me and the other clans, but between all clans, and between all members between all clans. Personal feuds aside, of course. I’ve faith that, by now, with everything that’s been set in motion, things between the clans will work out as best they can. Aside from a bit of trolling here and there, I don’t think any clan is particularly hostile with any other clan right now. At least, not between the ICE-clans. I’m truly grateful for that, and even if I manage to do absolutely nothing else, I’m proud of having helped that develop.
At the end of ICE2, we actually had a pretty serious conversation about it all. Both the way we can improve the events, and clan relations. They had also noticed that the battles are still very random, and that we lack true teamwork. One of the things we can do about it, is assigning people to just move people about, in shifts of about half an hour or so. So that when you enter a battle, someone says who’s with them, and that team all gets moved into the same room together. It’s something we can definitely work with and on, to try it out.
People using teamspeak on a different device than the one they game on, can move themselves, but the rest would have to be moved by server admins. It will take some trial and error to get it right, but I think it’s worth a shot. We need to learn how to function as a team in Blitz. We’re so used to only be with two in a team, that we’ve forgotten how to depend on the rest. And though that’s definitely not something to do while playing outside of the events, during the events, it is -the- way to prepare for Clan Wars.
We can try to implement that idea for ICE3, if I have enough time to set it all up properly. When we implement it, I want to be sure it happens right. But, we’ve around 3 weeks left. So who knows? =)
Battles Fought: 8,017
Winrate: 64.71%
Average damage: 1,597
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