I don't know if it's still in the game or if it has been scrapped, But I've heard of a feature in Brink called Fireteams, which you can recruit players into, and you can request to be recruited into, on the fly as you play, do you think SD will encourage them to develop into fully fledged clans?

I looked into the possibility of competitive TF2 and found there was wierd stuff about IRC channels (still can't figure out what they are), and having to download voice software, also, there's no easy way of finding clans and comparing them.

I've heard SD is quite into the competitive side, so maybe they'll include IRC and voice stuff in the game.

I'd like to see a system where clans can upload logs of scrims, pickups, and recruitment.

This data could then be used to make statistics about each clan.

There would be an interface where players would input what they want from a clan, and it'd suggest the best clans for them.

The player could then select one they like the look of, and be given contact details, the date and time of their next pickup game, and a button which will send them straight to the server said pickup game is on.

Fireteams only consist of 2 people.

Thats wrong, the limit on a fireteam is eight people. I don't know where you got the limit of two from..

Fireteams consist of 2-8 people. I forget where I saw that, but it was in a very recent Question-and-Answer to one of the developers.

Assuming Fireteams are like the ones in Quake Wars, they are a way to split up the team into smaller squads, with the Fireteam creator being the leader. The idea is to work closely in these small squads. I've read that Voice Chat is turned on automatically if you are in a Fireteam.

You join a Fireteam by joining your friend's game, inviting your friend to join your game, or to apply for one via the Scoreboard. You stay in one until you leave the server.

I'm pretty sure the two number was used in an early interview, and then it was later clarified that it could be more than two.

I would hate to have the four man fire team system BFBC2 used on the consoles. Really hurt casual team play.

Hopefully they will make it easy to play matches competitively, without making it too inaccessible for the casual gamer. It certainly won't be a 'twitch' shooter from the looks of it though and i like the emphasis on teamwork.

What will they do to actively make competitive play more accessible to the casual gamer?

The way I see it, one of Brink's goals is to get single players into multiplayer, surely actively helping them to get into a clan would be really beneficial to that cause.

I'm not even sure what a fireteam means.

Not competitive play accessible to the casual gamer, but the game in general. I've played other games competitively in a clan, but we also had a larger community of players who played multiplayer, but had no interest in playing competitively. The key is try and keep both types of gamer happy, which isn't always easy.

It's encouraging that the whole game seems to revolve around teamwork, with the personal rewards given in terms of customisations. A lot of the noise coming out of SD seems to revolve around trying to make the game fun for every player and limiting the amount of 'rage quit'.

If people do enjoy the multiplayer side, then hopefully that will have a knock-on affect on the competitive side.

The premise of competitive gaming is, that it is not easily accessible, imo.

Hence why "competitive gamers" go "public" to "warm up".

Hopefully, gamebattles won't need to be use for competitive players to compete against one another.

would be nice to have an official clan instead of my notes on my desktop.

I thought Fireteams would work much like in W:ET and Et:QW. Don't really know how it was since I didn't use it that often.

Competitive play will never be accessable to the general community until games come bundled with all of the things a competitive community creates externally. If a game had ladders/tournaments built into the game, along with a clan system, chat system, and scheduling system (or even a "play a ranked match" that the RTS games have). Sadly I don't remember any FPS games stealing that concept from RTS games.

The best example of this I can remember was the original Supreme Commander, which had official tournaments and clan support, as well as allowing you to upload replays into the game system and rate/vote on them.

To my knowledge brink doesn't have any of this (except the auto-match system, but it doesn't tie into a ladder or league system at all nor does it track your "clan's" progress against other clans.



FWIW, IRC = Internet Relay Chat. It's a very robust standardized chat server system that provides a lot of functionality to communities. A lot of the competitive PC communities still use them. I remember leaving mine on all the time in the background whenever I was at my computer, not unlike an IM client. Then during a match you could simply hop over to the opposing team's chat channel to communicate the details.

Little off-topic but whatever.

http://tf2lobby.com/
Excellent site if you want to have a peak into competitive tf2 without committing to anything.

http://etf2l.org/
Easy to find clans that are searching for members and other general info. European league, got no idea about the American ones.

This.

I'm not a competitive gamer myself, but I feel like many games do not come with any type of clan support. The developers usually rely on the community (in the pc market especially) to develop the tools, or use third party software, for clan support. The only clan support I can remember for console games, and please correct me if him wrong, was halo 2's clan system. Even within the realm of competitive gaming this was a fairly "casual" feature.

Therefore, I think competitive gaming will remain prohibitive to the general public until a mainstream game (cod, gears, halo) comes equipped with clan tools, and this is definitely true for the console audience. However, even if this happens there will always be a difference between the casual and the competitive...competitive scene. :biggrin:

Regarding the question on fireteams, for consoles it's more a way to party up so when you move to the next match you stick with the guys in your freteam as well as coordinate more closely.

When you invite a guy to your fireteam (or he/they invite you):
1. VoIP is enabled between all fireteam members.
2. (Not positive about this one but pretty sure) There's a different color indicator over your fireteamate's characters so you can pick them out from your other team members (like friends)
3. When you move to the next match you stay together.

In response to the competitive incentives built into the game I doubt there will be much more than being able to see your clan mates on line. You'd probably need to join something like TWL and get in on ladder matches/leagues that way.

For PC finding a clan is pretty easy because most clans will host public servers, this gives you a chance to play with he clan members to see if you are a good fir before you join. No idea how clans work on consoles, I would think its a little the same way, if you see a guy you enjoy playing with and he's in a clan maybe you ask him about it. If you want to find a competitive clan I guess you could check on the gaming league sites and check in with any who might fit, also Fragworld is trying to get a listing of clans so you could encourage people here to put in the clan info there. Seems like there's some kind of search compare feature as well, no idea what they are comparing though.

There is a reason why competitive play isn't accessible to a casual gamer. The term of competitive gaming is WAY overused and used in the wrong sense.

You are a competitive gamer if you play in a league in matches that are scored and recorded on a website. You are also a competitive gamer if you participate in tournaments for prizes.

You are NOT a competitive gamer if you just play a game publicly (ie. soley being a pubber). It does not matter if you take the game seriously. You are NOT a competitive gamer just because you are part of a clan.

There is already an IRC channel setup for would-be competitive Brink players. Additionally, voice chat has a very high possibility of being in the game but is usually not of great quality.

Brink has VoIP. The VoIP implementaion in SD's previous game, ETQW was very well done. It was clear and you had 3 separate channels to talk on, Global, Team, or Fireteam. You could set it up either PTT or Voice Activated. I'm speaking specifically of the PC impelmentation, SD didn't do the console ports and I have no idea how well VoIP was done in those.

If VoIP in Brink is as good as it was in ETQW then I'll be very happy.

When I say competitive gaming, I mean being in leagues and scrims, I also mean being in a group of gamers who intend to communicate and play as a team. (unlike pub players).

It does not however, necessarily take a great amount of skill, IF you can find a team of similar skill level and mindset.

However, that's a pretty big IF, there's no clear way of doing it yet.

If this is in regards to PC - Brink,

The competitive page has already started.

Idle #Brink @ Gamesurge and you will see how many people are already supporting.

As far as integration, I don't see it needed. Voice chats will always be better outside the game (Mumble ) and mIRC scrims will always be separate.

Competitive leagues will support Brink - but is it dependent on US. By that I mean what attitude we come in with, if we go into this game calling and hating on each other this will go no where. We need to move towards a positive attitude to build an amazing community for all of us.