The Rebel Genius

[TheBored]

QUOTE (Andon @ Apr 16 2010, 01:38 AM) Having made a squad (The now-defunct Roman Legion), I can say that it is a real pain in the ass to do. You may think you have a good roster of pilots that turn out for your three beginner games, but once the thing's done, people have magical ways of vanishing every Sunday.

You're all assuming that their goal is to become another competitive squad within Allegiance. There are other purposes to a squad.

TB

[IB_]

I've decided to found a squad so I can get the @FU tag gui promised me.

[Psychosis]

QUOTE (TheBored @ Apr 16 2010, 01:04 AM) You're all assuming that their goal is to become another competitive squad within Allegiance. There are other purposes to a squad.

TB

like?

[Makida]

Don't start a squad, but simply form a group of people who like playing together. Maybe add a common identifier in all your names like an RG at the end, as someone suggested near the start of the thread (squad members get official "@" tags, but you don't need that to show people you're part of a group). If you're a group that works well together, and play the game a lot, you'll probably progress in your abilities faster than most people would. Squads are really there for competitive play, rather than just for being a group of friends who like playing together. You may reach that point someday, but even without it there's no reason you can't get your clan playing Allegiance.

In either case, hopefully you will stick around, at least. It is a great game.

As for concerns of it dying out, well, ~520 regular players or so isn't a lot, but it has been going up lately... and the game has survived for over a decade, and still gets updated with new code and content all the time. I don't think you have to worry about it dying out in the near future, at least.

[Raveen]

Hi Evil Tesla, I'm the chap who'd be walking you through forming a squad if/when you feel you're ready for that step.

What you will need as a minimum is 15 people and play 3 proper squad games with at least 10 people on each side. Achieve that and you'd be eligable to take part in the squad events that we run (there's a squad league going on at the moment, we play a doubles tournament in the summer where squads pair up to play bigger games and there's a knock out tournament in the autumn).

Still, what other people have said is valid, let's not run before we can walk. I'd suggest you all take AFS and then Cadet (the more advanced course). That should take a couple of months. If you're still playing at that time then you could form your new squad on graduation (Cadet is a great way to meet new players and suck them into your squad ) or you could join an existing squad for a bit and see how they're run. But to be honest you know how a clan is run and as long as you can remember that Squad Games are 3pm Eastern Time on Sundays then you're sorted.

There's a lot of advice out there on squads, like the How SysX Win SGs thread in gameplay right now. Have a good read round and you'll be overflowing with information

[Adept]

Learning Allegiance with your clanmates is an excellent idea. Starting by trying to form a squad isn't. You can all make callsigns with RG in them to show you are a bunch of friends and allies. RG_Tesla, and so forth.

/edit argh, so many people already said that. It's what I get for writing a quick reply in a hurry without reading the thread properly first. Mea culpa!

Allegiance is the best game on the whole damn net, but it's also very challenging. The learning curse starts steep and challenging, but it's well worth the climb. Just realise it takes time to get good at this game. In six months you guys will have a much better idea of what it takes to form a new squadron here. I'm sure nobody will object if you are serious and stick with the project. The SG standards are very high since Allegiance has been going for ten years, so don't expect any early victories

Welcome to the game Tesla, I'll see you on the servers. If you guys need a leg up on getting into the game, us @HELP can show you the basics on the newbie servers.

[Bard]

QUOTE (Adept @ Apr 16 2010, 03:50 AM) learning curse

Freudian slip! Freudian slip!

(For those of you that don't know, a freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother)

[IB_]

QUOTE (Raveen @ Apr 16 2010, 12:30 AM) and as long as you can remember that Squad Games are 3pm Eastern Time on Sundays then you're sorted.

Maybe you should talk to SF.

[FS1]

Welcome to Allegiance. I hope you all decide to play, my K/E ratio has been going down lately...



Just kidding, it's always good to have new players. I will go along with what the other people here have said and advise against forming an official squad until you get some more experience. You can still put a tag in front of your names and fly together in pick-up games, though. Definitely take AFS and Cadet to learn the basics, and don't play on the newbie servers except to learn the controls and tech tree. If you're still serious about playing squad games after a few months, you will need someone who knows how to comm (i.e. has gone through ACS) and no expectations to win for quite some time.

The most important thing is not to do anything to turn people against you either in-game or on the forums, or you will have no chance of recruiting anyone. We've had a few annoying people in the past do this and they turned into a big joke.

Not trying to scare you off, but this is a harder game than most to pick up and especially to master. Feel free to PM me in-game if you need help with something.

[Sgt.Pepper]

This thread and responses within reassure me of the helpfulness of the community towards sincere new players.