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Perhaps, it's a bit early to raise this question, but I'll try to outline some of my thoughts on the matter.
I'll start with the Clans. After spending a few months on the forum, I discovered an interesting gap (I'm only talking about online play; I don't know about offline). On the one hand, a fairly large group of people have a clear sense of belonging to a specific Clan, which is commendable. On the other hand, there is no clearly defined competitive Clan policy; I read all the topics in the inter-Clan forum, and the topics sometimes contradict each other. Many useful and important ideas have been proposed, but in total, it turned out to be a stream of contradictions. This is where I found a place to apply my efforts.
First of all, with the help of the Clan leaders, the first team tournament was organized and held to realistically assess the strength of each Clan individually and their strength collectively. I've already written about this; there are 5 teams that, if they want, can field fairly stable lineups. Overall, this is not bad. Three more teams, and these are the Clans that are part of the Council of Nine, desperately lacked people for a team. Let's say that some Clans rightly decided that they were satisfied with other segments of the Heroes theme, for example, in Might and Magic V, and frankly didn't get involved in an event where they wouldn't get anything in return. Those who didn't ignore the tournament, and I respect them for that, literally created teams out of nothing, even if they had big problems with the lineup. As a result, today we have 8 teams, whose leaders have openly declared their support for the Clan movement on the forum. I consider this to be the main achievement of the championship.
Yes, there were shortcomings. These include incomplete teams, postponement of game dates, and uncertainty – if a team wins the tournament, then what? There are no prizes, only honor in a certain, narrow circle of forum visitors who are interested in the Clan movement and online play. If we organize another tournament like this now, it will be treading water, even worse: the novelty is gone, and there is a sense of obligation. Plus, there is competition with other tournaments, seasonal, pair tournaments, and many people also play on other forums. The idea of team tournaments will quickly become stale and fade away. I think there should be a different approach here.
First of all, it should be noted that, despite the acute shortage of players in the tournament, some of the forum players remained outside of this tournament. Players like Decontaminator, Scorp, and Rox found themselves in mercenary roles, and they were almost the best in their teams and greatly strengthened the Clan war. But at the same time, such wonderful players, who spend a lot of time on the forum playing online, such as Invisible, Loy, and Dubrovin Paul, were left out. And not only them. Now, after some time, many more players have been added, at least 5-7 of whom are capable of strengthening the team tournaments.
Definitely, our forum can put together a great team tournament. Yes, these people, for various reasons, refuse to join Clans, and that is their right. But would they refuse to play in a powerful team tournament, with the participation of the strongest players on the forum? Not necessarily.
Therefore, on the one hand, we have a number of Clans looking for ways to strengthen their Clans in order to compete with the leading Clans in the top three, as evidenced by the lively discussions in the inter-Clan forum. On the other hand, there are a number of strong players who are not involved in team tournaments in any way. Under the current system, they have no chance to participate. Therefore, it makes sense to take the next step – to hold a team tournament, but not a Clan tournament, but a team tournament! That is, the players themselves (!!!) form teams. Perhaps some of the teams will be formed on a Clan basis; most likely, this will be the case for 3-5 teams. Some may be formed on a territorial basis; for example, strong teams from St. Petersburg and Moscow, and Ukraine, may appear now. Perhaps, a team will be created that is not related to the territorial principle at all; for example, three people do not participate in Clan life, do not have a partner to play with hundreds of kilometers away – they communicated via the Internet and performed as a single team.
Will this infringe on the interests of Clans and players who have been on the forum for a long time but don't play very well? Not at all! Playing against each other, weak players will never grow into strong players. On the contrary, playing with strong opponents, studying the saves of opponents, the tactics of building squads before a battle, when breaking into crypts, conservatories, and utopias, studying the hero's skill tree, building a castle, comparing the strategies of different players, a person can become a strong player in a couple of months if they want to. Naturally, this will be a joy not only to themselves but also to their Clan, which will receive a strong, homegrown fighter.
In addition, Clans get an idea of the strongest players on the forum; by subtracting the players who have already joined Clans, they get a pretty good list of potential new recruits.
Ideally, all team tournaments should be Clan wars, perhaps with the participation of some mercenaries. But these tournaments should be much stronger than the previous Clan war. But during the transition period, we need to hold a team tournament, not a Clan tournament. This is the second stage, and it is quite feasible. It is also important that we do not have dominant players on our forum; there are approximately 10-15 people who are approximately equal in strength, and each can win against each, and approximately as many who can win against the first group. This means that it is impossible to create a super team of three of the best players on the forum, with predictable matches: there will be several equal teams, and the team that takes the competition more seriously will win in the end.
The third stage is possible only in the future; how feasible it is depends only on us. This is the holding of a Clan war with fully staffed teams and a prize fund. I have already explained everything about the development of teams, and we need to work on the prize fund. You see, there are many organizations in the broad sense of the word that are somehow connected to the Internet. These are companies that sell products, gaming magazines, etc. Moreover, there are probably even people among us who work in such organizations. It is clear that they can, in theory, offer us, say, $500-1000, which would be a quite decent offer. Not a lot, but it's good for the prestige of the tournament.
What can we offer? A well-established tournament scheme, the presence of several dozen good players, and a Clan ideology. After all, our resource is the most popular among Heroes fans in the Russian-speaking Internet, and that is worth something. Let's say that sponsoring such a tournament may be a small but quite attractive bait.
But this is a question for the future; just as you can dream of flying to Mars or winning against Stinger. But holding a general team tournament is a quite feasible task; we just need to decide on the timing and enlist the support of the Clan leaders and proactive people who can create a team. I am ready to discuss this issue and will gratefully accept any help. Please do not consider the above to be rambling, as after holding the first team competition, I feel that we have opportunities for growth.
Good luck!
Aldegir
