Would you be interested in an Overwatch Division?

[LeviTheDegu]

It's been a little over 5 months since the game officially launched and a good number of eGO players are highly active in the game.

The question is simple - do you think an Overwatch Division would be beneficial to eGO?

What are the benefits of an Overwatch Division?

• A strong sense of community, making it easier to recruit new Overwatch members
• A responsibility to plan events to get community involvement
• A new home for those obsessed with Overwatch
• Another opportunity to try to make a division without non-dedicated servers succeed (if successful, we could grow elsewhere as well)

What are the arguments against?

• We can't control the Servers, so why have a division?
• Do we actually have enough active eGO members to make a division?
• How would we recruit new members? - What reason would someone have to join eGO from OW?
• Could this hinder the growth of other divisions?

Some discussion highlights:

With community servers going the way of the dodo does anyone have any ideas on how EGO can stay relevant in games like Overwatch that don't particularly fit our current niche? I agree a lot of our attempts at supporting non-community server games have been less than optimal but that's definitely not a reason to not support a game. We have to evolve as a community if we want to stay relevant in the gaming world...

This is a very salient point. At some point, we have to be able to grow this community outside of the dedicated server paradigm or the industry will keep advancing past our comfort zone.

To the original post's request, I think the game has more than established itself as more than a fad. With a growing competitive scene, robust streaming traffic, and a longer track record of both player satisfaction and developer support than other games that have been given a chance as a division in the past....

 

[whethers]

Its already got half of minecraft and half or TF2 alone.

 

[Honorstar]

Its already got half of minecraft and half or TF2 alone.

Along with this: This might hinder the growth of some of our current divisions where we can control the servers.

It also will be hard to recruit new players from OW itself. The chat is pretty quiet beyond the basics of the game. And many potential recruits might also question why they should join a community for OW when pretty much the only thing to offer is forums and a ts to join.

 

[Simon]

Along with this: This might hinder the growth of some of our current divisions where we can control the servers.

It also will be hard to recruit new players from OW itself. The chat is pretty quiet beyond the basics of the game. And many potential recruits might also question why they should join a community for OW when pretty much the only thing to offer is forums and a ts to join.

This is very true. I think our history of attempts to recruit non server based games have been pretty hit and miss (Outside of WoW, which did fairly okay). I can see these points being very valid here.

I think focusing on current divisions would be more effective for the community.

That being said, bringing cool fun people into teamspeak to hangout is always good

 

[Johnny]

With community servers going the way of the dodo does anyone have any ideas on how EGO can stay relevant in games like Overwatch that don't particularly fit our current niche? I agree a lot of our attempts at supporting non-community server games have been less than optimal but that's definitely not a reason to not support a game. We have to evolve as a community if we want to stay relevant in the gaming world.

We have over 2000 O ranked admins active right now. Plus our e members! We have a lot of brain power to process ideas.

 

[Rogue Nine]

With community servers going the way of the dodo does anyone have any ideas on how EGO can stay relevant in games like Overwatch that don't particularly fit our current niche? I agree a lot of our attempts at supporting non-community server games have been less than optimal but that's definitely not a reason to not support a game. We have to evolve as a community if we want to stay relevant in the gaming world.

This is a very salient point. At some point, we have to be able to grow this community outside of the dedicated server paradigm or the industry will keep advancing past our comfort zone.

To the original post's request, I think the game has more than established itself as more than a fad. With a growing competitive scene, robust streaming traffic, and a longer track record of both player satisfaction and developer support than other games that have been given a chance as a division in the past. Could it attract members currently in other divisions? Yes. However, if the enthusiasm for Overwatch exists in those members, they may very well find another community to express that enthusiasm with if we fail to offer it.

 

[Mister36]

So I think OW is kind of in a new area for eGO that we haven't gotten in to before.

We have our games that we can host our private servers: Source/BF/MC. Then we have the games that provide in-game ways to allow people to join us specifically: WoW/The Division/PlanetSide? These types come with varying levels of success, dependent on different factors. But despite us not owning/renting private servers, we still had ways to say, "Hey we are a cool gaming organization, come join us!"

With Overwatch, I feel it's the first game that a lot of eGO people are getting into, that doesn't fit into those very well, with maybe the exception of DOTA/LoL. Basically all we can do is get a group of 6, go out and play. Beyond that it's our comp team getting the eGO name out there and playing in leagues/tourneys, but that doesn't really bring people in to our group in any regular manner.

Right now we don't have a way to bring people to us in-game. Out of game, I've never seen it work well. Unless Blizzard decides to add something like private servers that are 12v12 with customizable options then can be always on, the best we can do is create custom matches and invite people.

I agree with Johnny and R9 that hopefully we can adapt to this, as much as it sucks that games seem to be moving away from private servers. I'm not necessarily voting either way with this, but just pointing some things out. A solid plan of action would have to in place that can show results.

And also, we would need a significant number of current eGO people to switch over, that's the only way new divisions come about. People don't come in from outside asking to make a division.

 

[LeviTheDegu]

This is very true. I think our history of attempts to recruit non server based games have been pretty hit and miss (Outside of WoW, which did fairly okay). I can see these points being very valid here.

I think focusing on current divisions would be more effective for the community.

That being said, bringing cool fun people into teamspeak to hangout is always good

What do you think the root cause of those divisions not succeeding are? I think if we look at those, it'll help us to understand why we typically do not succeed in these situations. I know early on I didn't really pop my head outside of DOD:S with the exception of some Eve play so I didn't have the opportunity to watch a lot of these divisions live. I know most people are pretty unanimous when it comes to the reasons we see The Division not being successful, and that was because of the game itself. Are there other reasons you have seen to make them not successful? We can create a strategy to address these points once we understand them.

 

[LeviTheDegu]

This is a very salient point. At some point, we have to be able to grow this community outside of the dedicated server paradigm or the industry will keep advancing past our comfort zone.

To the original post's request, I think the game has more than established itself as more than a fad. With a growing competitive scene, robust streaming traffic, and a longer track record of both player satisfaction and developer support than other games that have been given a chance as a division in the past. Could it attract members currently in other divisions? Yes. However, if the enthusiasm for Overwatch exists in those members, they may very well find another community to express that enthusiasm with if we fail to offer it.

How would be best to utilize those traits? There's a huge community around this game and it's really elapsed that "niche game" point. What ways could we leverage the popularity of the game to recruit new members?

 

[Simon]

What do you think the root cause of those divisions not succeeding are? I think if we look at those, it'll help us to understand why we typically do not succeed in these situations. I know early on I didn't really pop my head outside of DOD:S with the exception of some Eve play so I didn't have the opportunity to watch a lot of these divisions live. I know most people are pretty unanimous when it comes to the reasons we see The Division not being successful, and that was because of the game itself. Are there other reasons you have seen to make them not successful? We can create a strategy to address these points once we understand them.

I think at the end, recruitment is the biggest issue here. I think you make a really good point though, we eventually would have to figure this out and see how it goes. Perhaps Overwatch would be the testing grounds for such things. You make very valid points.

I may have to buy overwatch now too...

 

[Rogue Nine]

In my experience with games with a social system like Overwatch, you don't recruit new people by attracting them to a clan or an organization unless it's a competitive team.

You find new people in this style of game by actively making new friends in game and then introducing them to all the other crazy fun people you play with on a regular basis. It's a much more one to one transaction than the traditional "host it and they will come" approach of a clan server. Overwatch is very much a game that does not NEED a clan or guild to enjoy, so the relationships necessary to build a division would have to be personal relationships. The process of building several nuclei of people who love to game together inside a larger group, similar in the way that organizations such as churches encourage small group dynamics to increase cohesiveness with the larger organizational structure.

You'd be building a loose pool of people with which to run several activities at any given time. A trio of friends queueing up in Quick Match, a scheduled six man team working together in Ranked, and people goofing off in that week's brawl. All of those with the exception of Ranked being very fluid for people to join in or bow out at any time.

It's harder than traditional recruiting. It's personal. It's convincing one person at a time that eGO's Teamspeak is the best destination for them if they want play some punk-free Overwatch with some amazing people.

Also, in a game like Overwatch where the standard match size is 6v6, you really don't need to maintain the sheer numbers that our traditional divisions shoot for in order to have success. Without a server to fill, a mere couple dozen people with moderate consistency can make a vibrant core for maintaining events and member attention spans.

Bonus? No hosting overhead.

 

[Spathika]

with maybe the exception of DOTA/LoL.

Yeah I agree with everything you say and I don't want to rant but I think its good that people have a perspective on how well these kinds of games do in EGO...


I like to think I ran league of legends when it was part of OPX. I really want to see games like this achieve but it is really difficult to do so. Like what a lot of these guys are saying is how can we entice the Overwatch audience to join EGO.

What we did for LoL

1. We recruited by adding and continuing to chat with the more genuine people we played with.
   
2. We did custom game events for larger "get-togethers" to have fun and play with the members.
   
3. We tried starting a competitive team to attract those who were more competitive to the group.

Ultimately I was not very successful in trying to maintain LoL in EGO. It takes a lot of effort to try to keep a division without servers at a healthy activity(at least just with how few of us there were). If we ever take a shot at overwatch I would be more than glad to help out in anyway I can. Definitely need to start bringing some new ideas to the table.

 

[Maserati]

Warning long post ahead: TLDR: Good idea, lets have a tourney, lets reach out to places like reddit and the official OW forums. "if you build it, they will come" approach. We have the resources.

At first I was against the idea, I believe =DUH= best states my original concern:

Along with this: This might hinder the growth of some of our current divisions where we can control the servers.

It also will be hard to recruit new players from OW itself. The chat is pretty quiet beyond the basics of the game. And many potential recruits might also question why they should join a community for OW when pretty much the only thing to offer is forums and a ts to join.

There would also be the challenge of us not being able to differentiate ourselves from the general population, We can't add tags to our names nor is there like a clubs/clan/guild distinction to allow for this like in Battlefield, Division, WoW, and LoL. I think this would cause a bit of a challenge for us.

Should we tackle this now?

With community servers going the way of the dodo does anyone have any ideas on how EGO can stay relevant in games like Overwatch that don't particularly fit our current niche? I agree a lot of our attempts at supporting non-community server games have been less than optimal but that's definitely not a reason to not support a game. We have to evolve as a community if we want to stay relevant in the gaming world.

I agree with Johnny, if we don't branch out it might comeback to hunt us. I can only think of becoming more active on the reddit community and possibly (if allowed) post on Blizzard official forums, that we exist and to come visit us and hang out. Where else do gamers go to find places like us? We dont have the advantage of community servers here that allow for traditional recruiting activities. What about expanding into Discord a bit more? I personally like TS, but the forum like chat features and ease of seeing whos playing what in discord sort of like steam, is great.

I've played this game a few times with Jade, 36, Ang0ron, Hyperpenguin and we somehow managed to get this random player to come to TS. He wasnt toxic and we had fun. Im not around as much so not sure if that person returned again or not but it was cool how that all worked out. I see opportunities for us to engage at a more personalized level.

Lastly and I apologize in advance that I cant be active on this one (im never around weekends), We could try a tournament, invite different teams , pubs and members to play against each other. It worked for Team Fortress 2...but I remember it wasn't easy to organize and took a lot work from the people that ran it. It got us a lot more exposure, there was even a post on the official TF2 site about the tournament. OW does have a custom team vs team option so it could be done. The main advantage is that we wouldn't need to rent out servers.


Keeping people around is going to be difficult, but the idea here would be to get a group of other people that will contribute to our membership, that would benefit from playing with like minded individuals. Lets face it, its a lot better to play competitive games with a group of people you already know. This is something OW lacks at the moment due to quickplay. Whatever the outcome turns out to be, it should be an experience and it will help us in the long run...as more and more of these companies remove dedicated servers.

 

[Michael Bolton]

I've only skimmed most of the posts here, but it seems like recruiting is the main topic. I'd like to share a story.

Once upon a time, a few of us in GMod were playing Overwatch. We weren't taking it very seriously and we were goofing around and having fun. One the people in game jokingly said, "Hey! Wanna join eGO?" and immediately, one of the random teammates we had spoke up and asked about it. We all added him on Battle.net and got him into TeamSpeak. and just talked to him.

I'm not saying it's always that easy, but there have been a lot of fun people in Overwatch that we've met just playing and goofing around. I believe that EGO can make Overwatch work. There are a bunch of GMod people that play Overwatch, but we still care about our division and our servers.

I'm sure that if this happened, Johnny, along with others that step up to help, could come up with ways to make Overwatch successful. Johnny has had a lot of experience with divisions like this and I know he can do well with it.

 

[Drew]

I've only skimmed most of the posts here, but it seems like recruiting is the main topic. I'd like to share a story.

Once upon a time, a few of us in GMod were playing Overwatch. We weren't taking it very seriously and we were goofing around and having fun. One the people in game jokingly said, "Hey! Wanna join eGO?" and immediately, one of the random teammates we had spoke up and asked about it. We all added him on Battle.net and got him into TeamSpeak. and just talked to him.

I'm not saying it's always that easy, but there have been a lot of fun people in Overwatch that we've met just playing and goofing around. I believe that EGO can make Overwatch work. There are a bunch of GMod people that play Overwatch, but we still care about our division and our servers.

I'm sure that if this happened, Johnny, along with others that step up to help, could come up with ways to make Overwatch successful. Johnny has had a lot of experience with divisions like this and I know he can do well with it.

Honestly that sums up a lot of good things to be said about this. +1

 

[Michael Bolton]

Honestly that sums up a lot of good things to be said about this. +1

I love you

 

[Drew]

I love you

Thanks, man. I love you too.

 

[Mac'N'Cheats]

I think an OW division would be kind of cool. I don't think I would join it because of my EC in CS:GO but I think it would be fun to try to think up events or recruitment events. But as of right now it wouldn't bother me if it did or didn't become a division. And we can make recruitment happen if we actually try hard enough. IF we actually go looking for players and are nice and helpful we might be able to get some on TS and they might join up. Even if they go join another division we are still growing EGO. So I think it's a win win for that. I think you guys would be up for the challenge. It would take some work but hey why the hell not.

 

[Zeon]

If we keep asking can we do this we never will learn and grow. It cost us nothing to try in this case, other than time. Which we clearly are already doing if we play this game so much. I honestly can't see a reason not to if Jhonny is willing to lead the division. We don't need really need maul support as there is no admining, we don't need admin trainers for this division, all we really need is Ecs and rhs, and maybe not even those, just have 2 advisors for supporting Jhonny and we probably are good to go. I see no reason to try as it will cost us nothing monetary, all it will cost is time. And if it brings in more players to ego with out a dime being spent by us I say that is a win!

 

[Maserati]

You'd definitely would need and Events and Recruitment team, You'd need Leadership in charge of Comp teams and being a liaison with the community (kinda like a social media ambassador but more with representing eGO while speaking with external parties) the only thing I'd hate is to be restricted in being able to apply to those positions because I'd have to leave my division (im just saying this as an example).

OW is unique in away that its not like our traditional divisions. Maybe the High Council can convene and see about running OW differently and allow people from different divisions to do stuff in it and get involved in Events and Recruitment Hosting. Hopefully this and it becoming a division is taken into consideration.