How To Create And Manage Your Own Gang
To form your own group of players in Vice City, you've gotta learn the first thing:
groups of players based in VC are "gangs" not "clans"
Forming a Gangnow that you know you're making a gang and not a clan, you start by finding other players who also want to form a gang with you in Vice City.
it is good to start with your friends from in-game and do not create firm leadership. leaders within the gang will naturally appear, and you cannot expect to have total control over your gang if you expect your gang to be a good one. you may be the first leader as the founder, but if you ever see a better one, do not hold back your gang.
The FoundationsA good gang will be based around friendship and friendly competition. You cannot expect your gang members to never fight or obey strange rules, this is a game based around having fun fighting eachother. Not only this, but by fighting each other you learn to fight from the best in your group. What will make your gang a special group rather than just a team of random players with tags on is that you have fought and trained eachother. It also helps establish friendship above what is not important. Many gangs overlook this, and fall apart because their members kill eachother in-game and have fights about it. If they learn that killing means nothing in front of their friends, you will have loyal members.
Finding The NameIf you believe you can do what I have just said, that is to find people in-game who will stand alongside you in combat, you can all get together and decide on your gang name, and tags. This is an important step, how unique and memorable your tag and gang name is makes a difference. Your gang "tag" is the way you and your gang members identify eachother, and more importantly identify yourselves to outsiders. This is why the tags must be unique, original, and memorable.
GrowthOnce you and your friends have created your gang name, and the tags, you must go and play the game. first you should practice together privately, and fight eachother so you all understand the same moves. if you see one of your gang mates losing to one of your moves or styles, you must tell him, and teach him how to survive and use it himself. the last thing you want is to be representing your gang in-game to possible recruits, as a team that can't share ideas, and doesn't know what the hell they are doing. practice together as much as you can, not only will you all get better, but this should teach you all to appreciate what your gang members can do on many levels. this also prevents you from showing up without a standard level for recruits. if they see you have newbies worse than them, and you can't even help teach them anything before giving them gang tags, why would they want to join your gang?
Getting to Know Your MembersAfter you and your founding members have practiced for several hours together, you should be getting bored fighting eachother with the same old weapons over and over. you should reach a point where everyone knows who is who on the team, and who can do what... and killing eachother means nothing. it just happened thousands of times during team-practice.
Building The HeadQuartersnot all gangs need a forum.
it depends on the size of your gang, and the spread of your members across different timezones... but your gang will probably not need it's own forums, and you can spend your time on more important things until it does.
instead of spending all your time creating and managing forums, then trying to fill it with application forms, empty rosters, the same old endless story topics and other such nonsense... have all members use MSN messenger and do any out of game communication there. you can leave offline messages, or send messages to all your members at once. you shouldn't waste time on forums until you need to, it is much better to invest the time in-game, establishing your gang's reputation and identity in Vice City.
in addition to using MSN, you should also make a forums topic for your gang, and have all members check there for important updates like new recruits, promotions, and any other news. using the larger public VCMP forums instead of your own forums helps potential recruits see your gang's activity. just the hassle of asking someone to register at your obscure "temporary" domain and click a registration email can mean all the difference for your gang. sad but true.
first, you must include an up-to-date list of your gang's members on your forums topic. as soon as you recruit someone, you must add them, and then send MSN messages to all your members telling them of the new recruit. you cannot do much worse, than to have someone join a group based upon loyalty, only to be forgotten and unknown. this is also important so that the VC community can see who your real members are as well as see your activity.
you should also be sure to write information about your gang like it's name and tags in your first topic post. you must have a story and identity behind the gang, and your gang's forum topic is a great place to show it. you need to let players know why you and your friends formed the gang, and why you'd want other players to join your team. if you have no identity, purpose, or goals as a gang, there is nothing really seperating you from any other players with 2-3 letters in front of their name, or from any random class-team in-game.
EstablishmentAt this point, you should go to a regular server, one with many players, and begin establishing your gang's unique identity among the VC community. after tons of practice with your gang mates, playing in-game with newbies and other gangs, you should always feel "nobody kills me more than my own gang members" ...you should also feel that you know them better than others, and if someone kills your mates it is the same as killing you, because your skills/ideas/experiences are all the same while the enemy is just an outsider. these 'feelings' are what will make other players want to join your gang and fight under your gang's name.
Even ThoughOver time, all loyal members should come to realize that the identity of their gang is defined by themselves, their actions, and their experiences... shared with their gang mates.
Credits:HeAD (Writing the Essay)
