Creating a squad

Why Create A Squad?

-nt

Advice on Creating A Squad

Publicity

You don't want it, really you don't. It may seem the easiest way to gain members for a potential squad is to post in the forums or to go from server to server shouting it to the world... this is the worst way to gain new members to your squad. Most of the players that will see or be told of your squad this way will be people who have been playing awhile, they know how hard it is to get a squad together and will be not too impressed to see yet another (soon to be) failure in thier minds.

Recruiting

The best way to create a core of committed people to your squad is to use the personal touch, approach individuals who are what you think would be a good fit for what you've (initially) defined your squad to represent. At the begining, you should only contact those players who are familiar with you and like you, and you need to consider that for each person that agrees to be part of the squad that they also have to get along reasonably well with the others you've recruited.

There're several things that people will want to know when you are discussing the new squad;

• Who is the Squad Leader, and the officers, are there any open slots?
• Which people have agreed to join the squad, what are their callsigns?
• Which of those have completed @cadet or @acs, will I believe they can fly?
• How many people have _committed_ to join the squad, how many are possibilities?
• How is the squad unique, how will it be distinct from all the other squads that are formed?
• Will the squad be competitive, do you have a mix of skill levels where you might have a chance at winning a squad game, will there be any decent commanders that have a chance to win games?

When recruiting don't get desperate, find people who will fit into the squad and want to be there. Covet the officer slots, these can be used as a bargaining tool in negotiating with a potential player... keep in mind that officer positions are very public and they are the face of your squad, don't give them away lightly. Don't rush, take your time, gaining 1-2 members this way in a week would be considered reasonable.

You'll want to try and work on quantity a bit, then move to quality. Having said that, you do need to have a core group of members that are somewhat skilled and known. People will join a squad based on how good they compete and how well they like the members. You may only need 15 players, though you really need close to double that. Keep in mind that adding 10 newbies on day one makes it look like you're getting larger, however in reality it's going to be that much harder bringing in veteran players if all they see are cute newbies to cuddle but no wingmen to help them.

Rules On Squad Creation

1. The squad must have at least 15 members who are not also a member of another squad.
2. The squad must have at least 15 members who have lost their 'newbie' status.
3. The squad must have played at least 3 games against a recognized squad, in which at least 10 players on each side participated.

Players that wish to start a new squad should heed the following advice:

1. If you are new, stop thinking about forming a new squad for a while. Focus on learning to play and getting to know people. Gathering people is more important than thinking up a name, making websites, and designing squad banners, logo's, etc... Wasting your energy on those things, while you have yet to find people to form your squad with, merely demonstrates impatience.
2. Don't recruit until you already have some players. If this seems like a chicken and egg-problem to you, you are going about starting up your squad the wrong way. You see, it's not 'your' squad. It belongs to the people you play with. You start it up together, as a team. Think about it: which sounds better: 'hi, i want to start a new squad, who wants to join me?' or: 'hi, Bob, Peter, Mary and I have decided to start a new squad together. Who wants to join us?'.
3. You and your friends might decide to become visible in-game to the community, to help your recruiting. If you do not meet the criteria for an official @TAG, you can create an alternative callsign on the ASGS pages to go with your chosen squad name. There are plenty of separators on your keyboard, e.g: "callsign_TAG", "callsign-TAG", etc. After all, this is how clan tags work in most other online games.
4. Start thinking about official recognition only after it looks like you will meet the criteria for said recognition. Until then, just play together and concentrate on having fun as a group.

A squad that wishes to be officially recognized as such, must meet the 3 criteria above.

Testimonials

Guardians of Doom

In spring of 2007 jgbaxter who had recently left GB was approached by a few people about starting a new squad, within a week there were seven people of like mind and they decided to give it a try. It wasn't long before jgbaxter was approached by Gestahlt to join a squad he was creating, it turned out that he'd already had 6 people that were interested. Such it was the jgbaxter and Gestahlt formed the beginnings of what would later be known as the Guardians of Doom (aka @GoD / @DooM). They spent the next week ironing out a definitive niche that they wanted to portray to the community, a distinctiveness that was there own. After another couple weeks the Guardians had 24 people together and had played two skirmishes with @SF, then things changed.

For a variety of reasons @SRM made a public notice that their squad would be disbanding, many within @SRM were hoping they could keep their squad together as it was a very public face of many players. While many within the squad left, either to become mercenaries or to join other squads, a large number of the @SRM member were fighting for their squads life. The question that came up with the members of @GoD was; "Do we really want to start a new squad when one of the current squads is in danger of disbanding?". The question was put to its' members, and the consensus of most of the @GoD pilots was to instead join with and fly under the banner of @SRM.

There are several main points that should be made, first is that when creating a squad, do it quietly and with the community in mind. The Guardians of Doom had never made any public appeal whatsoever and had only gained its members by private discussion and referrals. By keeping the community in mind and working for the whole rather then a part, decide whether or not the community needs another squad, or if it would be beneficial to instead join a current squad. Realize that a squad needs to be competitive, and that this can take months or years to do, a squad will need to practice together often, to be able to have enough pilots (20-40) to be able to field at least 10-15 for a squad game. Lastly, creating a squad is a lot of work, and that work needs to be worthwhile, your potential new squad needs to be filled with many pilots of various skill levels, it should be distinct from other squads to be able to obtain members and create an identity.

Links

-nt