Can you just make it unofficial , you can bypass the buying process.

Unoffcicail website may have a website like to do stuff like recruitment and etc.

Disscus

Idk whats the poing of spending REAL money on some clan... maybe to make clans createable in a certain level would be great

idk if this is true but

are they some kind of greedy guys that even put money for the clans.. ._.

idk but it will be better if it will be free

wild hypothesis: maybe people buy clans so they can feel important?

ehh who knows, maybe an employee at McDonalds decided that he wanted to be more than a burger flipper in life so he saved up bought a clan. Then came up with an elaborate and intricate "government hierarchy" just so he would feel better about himself and get that sense of authority, power, and importance that he never received in real life. Just throwing the possibility out there guys :D

as for unofficial clans how would they even function?

Edited 8/25/2015 12:03:43

External website? That would work. Seriously why can't you make a clan for free? Only like 115 people bother to spend £15 so the purchase is basically worthless compared to other WL micro transactions such as membership or mega stratergy

WL provides the following things if you buy a clan:

- fancy Clan Icon that lets you track members
- automatically tracks all members of the clan for you (Clan Page)
- lets you set up a useless message for the world (Clan Page)
- lets you search your friends list by clan (type in "HAWKS" when creating a game, for example, where it asks for a player name) and makes clan game creation slightly easier
- provides a simple communications platform
- provides a simple (and dysfunctional) management platform
- most importantly, makes you "official"- take one look at the CLOTs (many of which are much better than their official ladder counterparts) and you'll see that it's not quality that matters but whether or not you're easy to find on-site

So if you want to make a replacement for the Clan system, you'll have to tackle the last one.

Here's how I would envision it:

- An official "Warlight Community Project" browser extension that adds off-site links seamlessly to the WL site when you browse it and has the option of adding unofficial Clan Icons next to players
- An off-site WCP site (with its own server, so it might end up costing a bit of money) which hosts its own clan system (including a clan forum, a better management system, etc.). This would have to manage invites, etc.
- This WCP extension could also add CLOTs alongside ladders on your Ladder page, etc.

Basically, have an off-site setup with an extension that makes it look as on-site/"official" as possible.

The only feature I can't think of how to replicate here would by the search/Friends List function- which might end up bringing clan tags back (hopefully not- they're pretty inefficient). But the good part is that you can actually set this up to be better than the official system in a few ways:

- Obvious one: eliminate or reduce the $15 price tag (also might get Fizzer a bit mad at you for attacking a source of revenue). This might work wonders- thanks to the price tag, not everyone who's wanted to create a clan has been able to do so. On other sites, where clan-creation is free, you see a sort of competitive/selective process where clans keep constantly improving because their ideas are always tested so we end up with clans that are much closer to optimal than what we have today.

- An "official" clan war system- maybe a modified version of Clan Challenge League

- A better clan management system that works for clans other than Apex (e.g., ones that accept developing players- imho, ones that we need to be a lot more concerned about because these are the ones that contribute more to player retention on this site)

- A better clan communication system

I think this would also be miles better than having each clan set up its own off-site platform.

That said, it might not be worth all the effort even if it allows the community to focus on things that Fizzer himself doesn't seem to have the time for.

Edited 8/25/2015 12:10:47

How would fizzer be mad on you if you attack on such a small WL purchase and eliminate it? There's more things he has to be mad for like eg. Free membership.

Since there is only so little clans around ATM , maybe fizzer should make clans free. And the revenue is actually slow due to the fact not many clans are created now and then .


Idk how official a clan can get. But better communication system is great if it was implemented by fizzer in further updates :).

Seriously the Clan page GUI needs a rework , the titles are decent enough , just the layout. Also if its a complex clan (unlikely but possible) there needs more room for a description because there is a limit on your clan description.

Many people , like me like free features.

"Maybe people buy clans

because they want to feel important" : Quote by BanaNa

Many people feel that way

Edited 8/25/2015 12:36:56

He knows the clan tools suck and we have no ladder. But, he also said clan features are low priority because they effect a much smaller percentage of people than other possible features

How would fizzer be mad on you if you attack on such a small WL purchase and eliminate it? There's more things he has to be mad for like eg. Free membership.

Free membership would be a bit trickier to set up.

Since there is only so little clans around ATM , maybe fizzer should make clans free. And the revenue is actually slow due to the fact not many clans are created now and then.

Perhaps. But Fizzer seems to be struggling a bit with monetizing WL so he'll probably be hesitant to eliminate any sources of revenue.

Idk how official a clan can get. But better communication system is great if it was implemented by fizzer in further updates :).

The issue is that clans are only used by ~2-3% of active players on WL so updating/fixing that system doesn't look like it's going to be one of his top priorities. Until Fizzer eliminates the $15 cost and makes clans a lot more common, they're probably going to remain niche and undeveloped- and not worth developing for.

Seriously the Clan page GUI needs a rework , the titles are decent enough , just the layout. Also if its a complex clan (unlikely but possible) there needs more room for a description because there is a limit on your clan description.

If you care enough about that, you can do it with a browser extension.

I mean, from my perspective, clans being a bigger part of WL will probably help Fizzer a lot. For one, clans could serve as an excellent tools for player retention- giving players an (active) community is going to help them stick around.

@Chris:

I'm 99% sure Fizzer's not going to implement a clan ladder anytime soon.

Edited 8/25/2015 13:06:11

It is not alot of money for a one time purchase.

I would rather give the 15 dollars(?) than bother with all the unofficial problems if you created a clan that way.

^ $15 is probably worth <2h of work for most people on this site. The only real advantage I'd see to an off-site system is allowing the users to fix things Fizzer won't get around to.

That's why I think an optimal solution would be Fizzer either lowering or eliminating the cost of creating clans and monetizing in some other way.

Edited 8/25/2015 13:45:15

Clans will become nice and undeveloped

That's a sad end of clans. There were created in WL 2.0 :(

I get the idea that %95 of players are not in clans, so why prioritize it?

On the other hand, people did PAY for that clan. So things that are purchased should be put ahead of things that are simply free, IMO. Otherwise you simply discourage investment.

I mean look at the two things you can purchase here (besides coins). Clans and memberships. Both are pretty devalued really (one by having no features or ladders, the other by having nothing you can't get by leveling up). I applaud Fizzer for making such a great site, but on the other hand if you want people to help you keep it afloat, don't tell your donars that you won't do anything to make their experience better because the people donating are a smaller percentage.

Warlights playerbase is unstable. Clans aren't probably our saving grace but definitely help for it.

I define the unstableness of Wls player base as a half life and each half life is about 4-6 months :( the playerbase decays quite quickly

I get the idea that %95 of players are not in clans, so why prioritize it?

Suppose you're a venture capital firm trying to decide between funding Airbnb ($25.5 billion valuation, 1.5M listings) and funding TreatSpace (valuation < $1M last time I checked).

Surely Airbnb would be a much better investment, right? Since it's doing much better right now. Of course not. You'll probably get a much bigger return for the same amount of $ off TreatSpace if it does well, so you might end up picking TreatSpace over Airbnb if you think that it's going to successfully make a lot of money off the health sector.

The issue is that you can't just look at what the status is right now. Yes, the clan system's penetration right now sucks. But how much of that has to do with a lack of development (and the price tag)? I'm going to bet most of it. Fund- er, develop- it and you might start to see some changes.

I think MMB also brought up an important point- clans likely have an impact on player retention. Of course, we can't really measure that without tracking players (and ofc, even then, there are cause-and-effect issues) but I think there's a good set of reasons to believe that players who find a sort of community end up being more active than they would have been otherwise.

Edited 8/25/2015 19:19:33

If Fizzer wants to keep his precious game afloat maybe he should stop the decay of the playerbase (people leaving the game for another)

The forum doesn't really count into this retention thing. But the game features do. Clans only enforce this.

I think warlights is ti.e consuming for me. Maybe if Fizzer and Mercer do something about this and make WL more fun rather than a chore.

Clans and gameplay are interlocking so if the clans were to suck the gameplay would suck too. There's a need for balance.

Some clans are for socail hangouts rather than a competitive. Eocail hangout clans are the most valued.

After many updates , and at the end of the day Fizzer needs us for new update suggestions

Edited 8/25/2015 19:29:17

After many updates , and at the end of the day Fizzer needs us for new update suggestions

Not really. FizzMerc seem to have an overarching strategy and a to-do list that stretches months into the future. They're focusing on bringing in new players right now (yep- Warlight's not a closed system!) rather than building nice-to-haves for existing ones, however, so if we care enough about this it's our job to convince FizzMerc that this contributes to their goal.

And when will FizzMerc complete this to-do list?

Probably never

They will never be done tinkering. Why should they be? If you are not growing you are dying.

I also agree they don't need our suggestions. They help but are not required.

In the end it is as Fizzer says, about priorities. That can be many things though.

1) most desired (votes on uservoice, forum questions)

2) most impactful

3) financial

I don't think the site will ever die, so long as they are continuing to update it. But, if you discourage investment by devaluing those purchase (membership, clans), you will see a financial impact because people will not buy them. I'd be curious to see how many people have bought memberships since levels was introduced vs before. I bet there is a big drop off there.

Edited 8/25/2015 20:20:11