Post by stonecoldload on Feb 4, 2015 15:53:44 GMT
This morning (Wednesday 2-04), my twitter feed caught buzzing as my name was brought up in a topic. YoYo responding to some of the points I made in this article. As he wisely mentioned towards the end, it's almost impossible to have any meaningful discussion on that medium. So I am going to respond back here to YoYo's counterpoints.. Below are some of his tweet responses. I am listing them in order:
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- “Let me tell you why I don’t agree with #10: It’s easier to pick 20 people you can absolutely rely on than say 100’
- “I hold the opinion that it’s harder to organize 100 players. I am entitled to it”
- “A clan to me is no 3-20 players. And and no one is going to change my view that running 100 > running 20”
- “Coordinating 100 members to switch nodes at key times is the difficulty”
- “I am still of the opinion that it’s easier to obtain higher percentage of players in the lower bracket”
- “I think there is a fine line where I think a clan is a clan”
- “25 is a close knit group of companions”
- “a clan to me is a large group of people. I always like to think all clans should continue trying to expand”
- “I wish they kept the bonuses where they were last year.”
- “If you are grinding to #1, what are you really trying to do? You’re growing your brand”
- “Yes, it should be about winning. Bonus points increase the incentive to grow into bigger brackets”
- “We need a forum to discuss this, because twitter is not the place to field this. I can’t keep doing this in subtweets”
On the last point, I wholeheartedly agree with YoYo. So here are my responses, on a non-twitter format.
Point 1. - Everyone is entitled to their opinions. And for the record, I don't have a horse in this race. Big clans, small clans, doesn't matter. Our clan has competed in the 71-100 bucket and smaller buckets. I just want fairness. I have played CoD for eight years and love that Clan Competition finally got a big more respect from the Developers and Activision. Unfortunately, sometimes this growth process can be a bumpy road.
Point 2 - Everyone is going to have an opinion of what a 'clan' means....but this is a dead end. Why? There isn't an official definition. Merriam-Webster leaves it quite ambiguous (ie, "group of people who are similar or who are interested in the same thing") So this creates a situation where it becomes an argument not far removed from like arguing whether Spiderman can beat up Captain America. Reality is, there is only one opinion that matters on what a clan is, and that resides with BeachHead studios. They are the one's who set the rules for how 'Clan' Wars are to be played and what defines a clan. The problem? BeachHead has (so far) left things just as ambiguous as the official definition. They punted on it. They left it open-ended to include anything from three bros who just got together to play a weekend contest, all the way up to a huge winning-machine clans like Lethal Gaming. That's a pretty big net to cast. It's problematic and one of the problems of Clan Wars.
Point 3 - Do I have an 'opinion' on what a Clan is? I'm going to punt on that one too. I do have this opinion. A huge multi-level, marketing, recruiting, twitter burning , winning machine like Lethal Gaming is no more a clan than say twenty five guys who have been playing CoD together for the past six years. Both can be 'clans' under the definition by Merriam-Webster. I also feel quite comfortable in saying that YoYoClanNews has no business in telling the latter, they aren't a clan. Yes, it's his opinion. But I think it's a bad opinion. One that is causing problems and dividing the clan community.
Point 4 - I respect that YoYo has an opinion that he feels every clan should strive to grow to be 'big' and 'grow their brand' (his quotes are above) And I also HIGHLY respect Lethal Gaming, Lethal Energy, WiKD and mega-clans like them. All are great clans. In fact, many people have accused me of nutriding them to hard. Point there is I am not bashing big clans, nor nutriding them. Trying to stay neutral. But YoYo's opinions on growing clans? They suck.
This is supposed to be CoD Clan Wars. Guys/Girls who love CoD and want to play together in a friendly competitive environment, within the console, that is an alternative to the already existing more professional 4v4 MLG thing. Here's the thing. There is nothing in that gaming contest environment that states that a Clan Leader should feel pressured to 'grow' their brand. Ramp up their multi-leveling efforts, to create departments for selling t-shirts, logos, gathering sponsorships, sponsoring MLG teams and other modern day media advertising techniques to make sure you are getting 50 new recruits a week, 15 'confirms', with 5 being 'sold'. There's a lot I don't know in life...but what I do know is the above is bullshit. I respect those clans who can pull that off. But ....that should NOT be what Clan Wars is about. At least in terms of forcing that as a requirement to competing. And that's the direction YoYo is pushing.
Here's another reason YoYo's opinion is wrong. You can't ask Clan Leaders to do the above, while the entity running the competition (BeachHead), continually puts up heavy roadblocks making it difficult to 'grow' your clan. We used to have limit on friends with X360. Still do on the 360. We now have split consoles. We have BeachHead (as recently as two months ago) still forcing us to cut friends from clans.. We have a gaming process with CW's, that requires friends to sometimes ask friends to play all three evenings over a weekend, as well as FIVE day 24/7 Platinum wars that decide winners solely on 'grinding', forcing people to play all weekend, or be cut. Last but not least, we are in an gaming environment (CoD series) that is seeing ever decreasing population numbers. Yes, all of that....
....and YoYo, acting as one of the voices of the community with his platform, is pushing that one of the primary focuses of Clan Wars should be growing our brand and pushing to be big. Come on. This isn't Wall Street. 'Big' isn't always better. Professional sport leagues (NFL, NHL, NBA) long ago realized that there were limits on expansion of their leagues. Growth with limits. A lesson that apparently is being completely lost here by people who haven't a clue.
Point 5 - Last point, in response to these comments yoyo tweeted.
- “Let me tell you why I don’t agree with #10: It’s easier to pick 20 people you can absolutely rely on than say 100’
- “I hold the opinion that it’s harder to organize 100 players. I am entitled to it”
- “A clan to me is no 3-20 players. And and no one is going to change my view that running 100 > running 20”
This is misdirection. It's debating one point of the topic, and leaving it out the big picture issues. Look. No one out there is saying that it's easier to move 12 people around the board, than say 100 people. Of course 100 is harder. Leave that be, there is no debate to be had there.The REAL debate is whether the bonus point BeachHead hands out for doing so, is justified under the present CoD gaming environment. One that looks at the entire big picture. The entire gaming structure, taking into account ALL types of difficult. Not just '100 vs 20'. Take a look at this big picture.
One. Part of the difficulty of being a big clan is organizing more people. Well, most smaller clans who compete in those buckets, are still organizing large numbers of people every week. They just drop in size for the contest. But week after week, they are still talking to, emailing, contacting, maintaining info, playing with CoD many more people. A 12-person competing clan, might be doing administrative duties for up to 80 people. Does that not take work and effort? I have a contact list of now 120 people on my role call, that I keep in contact with, update, each week. Is that not work too? The present bonus point structure ignores this reality.
Two. BeachHead (and YoYo) seem to want to only focus on where a clan is, at the time of competition. A 80 person clan of thirty-something adults, who need to compete at 15 (because many of them do things are weekends)...are now penalized and deemed to be inferior. Ok. Got it Beachhead/YoYo. Let's take that at face value. In terms of actual CW competing, those four hours, yes, it is harder to control 80 people than say 15. But here's what is missing. The bonus points awarded, don't take into account CoD gaming trends like last year. Trends where we watched the 71-100 class disappear in a few months. Almost all the clans disappearing. A mega-clan like Lethal Energy spent months and months having [GHOST] clans as opponents. Let me ask you YoYo, why were they given bonus points for added difficulty, when they in fact had LESS difficult brackets, with fewer (if any) opponents. What's so hard about organizing anything, when your opponents are six [GHOST] clans who don't play? Well YoYo?
Come on. A five year old with no internet connection could organize 500 people to a Clan War victory....if no opponents show up.
Here's the deal. I'm all for bonus points for added difficulty, but for Christ's sake, PLEASE make sure there is actual TANGIBLE added difficulty going on before giving them. Don't just arbitrarily hand out an extra 120 to 200 extra Diamond leaderboard points to some clans residing in an empty bucket, just because you think they have it harder, because on faulty assumptions that don't even adjust for clan population data. Data that I have right on this very site, that BeachHead should be aware of (but seem to ignore, as they are doing the same mistake again this year)
Bonus point.
YoYo, you said this.
[–]yoyo__Unbiased News 1 point 1 day ago - "I think the strategies that play out in these lethal and pwn clan wars are more elaborate than you or I know. I don't think it's just about winning games in these bigger matchups when these clans can win games in teh same amount of time."
"The biggest, baddest clans battle up around 50. They have the stats, the strategies, and the rosters to prove it.""
YoYo. There is nothing 'unbiased' about anything up there. Your completely thrown your opinions into a heavily biased status quo territory. But worse yet, with these recent quotes above, you are really pushing the boundaries. There is no way you can prove the few big clans have the 'strategies' that no one else know. You really want to say clans like N1PL, FUF, SOW,...are to dumb to figure out stuff? Please. Please stop your 'unbiased' propaganda. And trying to push your agenda that clans that might compete lower, don't have the ability to understand what LG or PWN might be doing. What you said to me is just ignorant ( *I take nothing personal from it, but I am going to respond) and to every smaller bucket competing clan out there. Btw, last June, 90% of the clan community were competing under the size of 20. That's 90% of the 20,000 plus clans who had earned points. Your comment, is insulting to ALL of them. I know, because I have had 26 people reach out to me on Twitter (so far), saying as much. If I could reach to all those clans, more would say the same. On that I am sure.
You want to push your agenda, go at it. But please remember BeachHead views you as a 'voice' of the community. Use that power in a responsible manner. Your clan site is one of THE best features to come to Clan Wars, a news site to bring the clan community together....
......and you are turning into a propaganda machine for your own self interests of wanting amusement, seeing every clan 'grow big', grow their 'brand' and worse of all, maintaining the status quo of some rules that have long since outlived their usefulness.
Peace