How to Join a Clan (Part 3)

Once again it is time to continue my quest to find a kickass clan that will make me feel welcomed and special in the Starcraft community.

If you want to start reading my quest from the beginning, click here.

If you read part 1 but haven't seen part 2 yet, click here.

The Search Begins...

I logged onto B.Net at 10:35am and headed straight for the clan recruitment channel. A bot spamming the Channel Nightbreed caught my eye. This clan had a web page, rankings, and I had ICQ so this looked to be the perfect fit. However, I obviously wasn't the only one who thought so because upon entering, 5 other prospective members were already ahead of me. I messaged the only clan member in the channel named ~NB~StardawgX who seemed to be the one recruiting. I told him that I wanted to join. He told me to go to the page and sign up.

I visited http://www.homestead.com/nightbreed and found a clan sign-up page. The sign-up page asked me for my e-mail, ICQ number, loacation, b.net name, etc. etc. After filling in a bunch of bogus information I returned to the channel.

"I'm ready to be tested," I said.
"You'll have to wait," he replied, "I'm the only clan member online."

At that moment, another person in the channel messaged me.

"Do you want to join my clan?" Nexus_Man asked, "I am the leader."
"Sure," I replied, "What do I have to do?"
"Come to channel (MK)," he said.

I did that and checked his profile. He was an 8 year old player and leader of the Mighty Knights.

"I need to test you," he said.
"Okay," I replied, "Wanna do a 1vs1 on Lost Temple?"
"No," he said, "join nex/nex"

I entered the game and began downloading a strange V-Tec map. Suddenly, it dawned on me. This was paintball!! I should have known.

"I don't think you're what I'm looking for," I said and left the game.

The Search Continues...

"Do you still want to join the clan?" he asked (he must have received my form).
"Sure!" I replied.
"Okay," he said, "I will test you. Join nb/nb"

"Now we're talking," I thought.

I joined his game. I immediately began dowloading a map. It was called "StardawgX's $$Mucho Money$$"

As I downloaded, we got into an argument about which type of map took more skill, regular starcraft maps, or mucho money maps. His contention was that having to expand was unbalanced and since in mucho money maps you could have 1 base and still win, then the game was more balanced.

Finally I said, "Look, if you're gonna test me on this newbie map, then you're obviously not the clan I'm looking for." Then I left the game.

In the channel, I said, "I'll make a deal with you, I'll go create my new clan name if you'll play me 1vs1 on Lost Temple. Surprisingly he agreed to this so I logged off and created a new account.

I returned to the channel with the name ~NB~S`Jess. I then said, "join jess/jess."

He immediately chose terran so I chose protoss. I started the game and was just building my first pylon when I received the message "~NB~StardawgX has left the game". He had lost his nerve! Frustrated, I returned to the channel and did a /where on him. He had logged off B.Net.

The Search Goes On...

I got up to Brood War USA-8. I was scolling through the names in the channel when Soviet_JDPM said, "For a game, come to channel Soviet."

I quickly joined the channel and he was there waiting. I double clicked on his profile and saw that he was a lieutenant in the Soviet Clan and his record was 4-0-2. But the most interesting thing that I found was in his description:

Sure enough, when I returned to the channel, he wanted to know if I wanted to play a comp game? I ignored his question and asked him if his clan was recruiting members. He told me yes. I asked him if I could join. He told me that he would test me in a Comp Stomp game. I told him that I would rather do a 1vs1. He agreed to this, but said that we would have to play a comp stomp afterward. I agreed.

I created a melee game on The Lost Temple. He immediately chose Zerg so I chose Terran and then started the game.

Early/Mid Game:

Not too big, not too small. This just might work out.

As in my last test game, I went with an 8 depot, 10 barracks, 12 barracks build. I sent my SCV out to scout and found Soviet_JPDM in the last place I looked. As my SCV rolled into his base, he was attacked by sunkens and destroyed. I clicked over to his base and saw 3 sunkens with a fourth one morphing.

Sighing with relief, I built a refinery, a 3rd barack, an academy, and a factory. Then I constructed a Command Center on the cliff overlooking my natural expansion, an engineering bay, a 4th barrack, and a Comsat station. I was so busy building troops and buildings that I forgot to scan his base until my mana had built up to 100. I scanned his natural expansion first and saw a hatchery morphing there. Then I scanned his main and this is what I saw.

Wow, look at all those drones. If he maynards drones to his expansion he won't have any left at his main! I have 4 barracks and a factory. He has 1 hatchery to build troops out of and the only thing he can build is zerglings.

Well, I was feeling pretty confident at this point. I built a starport and then a science facility, a second engineering bay for double upgrades, a 5th and 6th barrack, and I expanded to my mineral only expansion.

When I had 3 Science vessels, I moved out a force of 24 marines, 12 medics, 6 tanks, and the Sci-vessels out to his base with another group of infantry and tanks back at home waiting to be called into action if needed (yeah right). Well, needless to say, it wasn't pretty. His entire troop count consisted of 18 zerglings and 2 hydras. I quickly crushed him.

Of course he had an excuse for why he lost so miserably, and I actually agree with him:

Post Game:

Notice his low unit score. I swear this guy made a total of 21 fighting units the whole game.

When we got back to the chat room, I decided that I wanted to get a little more clarification on what type of a clan this was. Soviet_JPDM and I had this conversation.

**My name is edited to protect my alter ego

After this conversation, he said, "That was pretty good, now we'll do a comp stomp."

I didn't reply, I just left the channel and logged off B.Net.

The End of a Quest:

Thanks for tuning in to my "How to Join a Clan" series. If you enjoyed it, tell me so in the comments section. If you are a clan leader and want to recruit me, please tell me how to contact you in the comments section. (haha)

Concluded