Interview with Clan Battle Winners: owen0202!

1.How did you choose the members that make up your 100 strong clan? Was there special criteria?

The effort was lead by our Head Battle Overseer VideoGame5, along with our other colonels they were in charge of selecting whom was eligible for the clan. Unfortunately me and SilentSwords couldn't get too involved because we are very busy working on our next big shooter 'Hex'. One thing we have always been very serious about in WIJ is that we don't use mercenaries and everybody who took part was a real member of WIJ. If you were in WIJ, had the drive to be active and knew how to fight there was a pretty good chance you were going to be selected.



2. How did you go about organizing and directing how long clan members would need to play and how many playerpoints they needed to contribute?

I think our general approach was simply if we're constantly getting points we're making progress. Some of our competitors tried to set point quotas for their members but didn't really have that much success with that approach. If you pulled your weight you were noticed and rewarded (many of our members were awarded commendations and career points on our mainframe database). If you weren't really taking part you were replaced with a sub.

Most coordination for WIJ is done over xfire but we do have a teamspeak server run by one of our members. Fighters and commanders were communicating over the day which created a fun community atmosphere which was otherwise a very boring task.

3. If players turned out to be too inactive to keep your clan competitive and in for a chance of getting the top place in one of the arenas, did you find replacements?

We like to think we're a pretty laid back clan. However we have always had a reputation as being the most active and effective clan and that reputation is very dependent on how we conduct ourselves in battles and wars. 

Normally when players don't pull their weight there normally isn't any recourse (unless they are in a position of leadership), they just don't get rewarded. However we only had 100 places so we had to make sure they were being used well. If someone was too inactive we had a line of people ready to replace them.

4. What did you use as motivation to get clan members to get as many points as possible?

WIJ members love WIJ. We have a great community and always have since we started up many years ago. Whilst we did offer rewards like mainframe commendations and career points (and of course the hats) really people just fought hard because they wanted a victory for WIJ.

5. Did your clan have any particular strategies or techniques that they used in the arena to maximise playerpoint earnings? 

I suppose their are a couple of competing philosophies on how best to earn points in volume. Some people advocated bunching all your members into one server and killing each other (so your not giving anyone else points), others advocate scattering across servers. 

When it came to our approach to my knowledge our strategy was simply being the most active. We always had more people on-line and hence were always earning the most points. With that behind us it was pretty hard to lose! 

6. What was the general consensus among the clan members of the two weapons that were in the Space Showdown Arena? How did they compare to other ROBLOX gear?

The weapons were shambolic and at points sub-usable. Not that the content team was to blame for this. People like me and SilentSwords have been making weapons and games on roblox in some form or another for over four years so we have a pretty good idea on what mechanics work best so we're a bit picky!

There were a lot of complaints about the tools. However honestly at the end of the day we were all there to have fun as a community and that's what our members did.

7. What was your reaction to the news that your clan won the Space Showdown Arena? 

I felt very satisfied. Our members should be enormously proud of their work.

8. What do you think of the custom hat you and your clan members were given for coming first? 

None of us are really overjoyed. The hat is pretty poor and it's very clear that they rushed it after they realised they had given the hat to the wrong people. Would have been nice if someone had asked us what sort of hat we want, but I guess you can't have it all!

9. What are your final thoughts on the entire clan battle experience (arenas, gameplay, clan features, playerpoints, and prizes)? 

The arena itself was very well made. As far as I could tell it was by DieSoft who's a very strong builder. The gameplay however was very poor but the community spirit we had built up did its very best to overcome that. As far as the clan features and playerpoints go they aren't really features that are compatible with Roblox clans as they are but for the purposes of this event served their purpose pretty well.

The hat provided by Roblox wasn't great. But we rewarded our members with career points (making them eligible for promotions) and commendations (recognising their achievements).


10. If you could sum-up this ROBLOX event in one word, what would it be? 

Pass.

I would say poorly conceived but sometimes surprisingly fun.