I've floated the idea of a sort of cheerleading group where you don't have people on and you try to get people on. The problem is that whose making the announcement and the clout they have really matters. So you get one guy as an officer who is not some amazing cheerleader who draws people in and every time you see an announcement you think "Who posted it?" The high activity concept is supposed to just be pure numbers. Another problem is when you don't deliver. You post an announcement for an event and it doesn't happen because you don't get enough players. When you don't deliver, people start ignoring your announcements. All the announcement is is a quick pop up on your computer screen. The power of the group is in numbers and clout.
Like I said this has gotten a lot harder now unfortunately due to steam's absurd new restrictions on inviting people to your group. If I was going to do something else and I had a regular work schedule I would make something like an "8PM EST WoR flash mob" group where every day an event popped up at 8pm to join the server for a round or two. Just an idea.
The best thing people can do is just network and make friends and congregate at servers around the same time on regular basis with other people who can play at that regular time.
I'm seeing a trend that I really don't like with clans (companies) right now in that they are tending to drill and then scatter. I saw this happen in my last fledgling community a lot. The servers would be utterly dead and you'd see a locked one with 25/32 guys in it and when it was finally unlocked and closed the guys scattered... 1-4 guys would stay for a while and usually none of them were even trusted with admin abilities. So the clans actually did as much to hurt the community as anything. They drilled or did exclusive events among themselves and did little-to-nothing to support the community except pop in on servers to recruit. People who were regulars or newcomers would disappear and become an exclusively locked server guys. Public servers being empty is a horrible way to foster growth for a game. And you need to grow to survive as a community. The companies need to set aside the future and focus on the present. Drilling is great but you need to have your guys put mandatory time in the server. It's the best way to train.
I always wanted to have a good stat tracker on my server and force guys to log two hours in the server a week with exceptions taken for leave so many times when planned. The sad fact is that some people start coming around only for drills. I'm seeing 29 guys of one organization drilling in a server then 15 playing on a battle server. It's kind of disconcerting. The game is actually fun to play now at times and yet there aren't people on at set times. More organizations need to start showing up or they can't claim to really have been around during the Alpha if they haven't really been around. You've got to put in time and take pride in having your guys testing and putting in bug reports and seeing what works and what doesn't.
These are the heroes. These are the guys who are putting in the time to get something going. It has to start somewhere. If all you do is wait and wait then you're not being a leader or an example you're just taking from the work other guys have put in to get something going. I spent many an hour sitting alone on my server so that when players logged on they came to mine first. There's work to be done even in a video game sometimes
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