Clan review.

You don’t need to be competitive to have a clan, all you need is a group of friends and a name. And that’s the case with Dead Men Walking, a team which was created amongst friends to play local games without hassle. DMW was founded in 2008 and it consists of 18 players who play Call of Duty 4, Battlefield, Modern Warfare 2, Medal of Honor, and Black Ops on Xbox 360. From 2011 onwards the team which was once social will move forward as a more competitive entity planning to rival the current teams on the scene.

Ruled by democracy, and a few addicted members with higher command, Dead Men Walking feel that they have what it takes to give the older teams a run for their money on the battlefield. But this will only happen in 2011, when they form teams and strategies to face-off against their enemy.

Dead Men Walking formed when members used to play together in a team almost every night, filling lobbies and ensuring a local game. From this, the players realised that they were mostly of the older generation which lead them to creating a team which represented unity. Once they formed their team they grew their numbers to a maximum of 20, however since then two members have left leaving a total of 18. The creation of a team was quite obvious to the players as they were all quite new to the market, and they were all “XP whores” who mostly played at night. Their nocturnal nature for gaming lead to what they now enjoy.

Players in DMW were invited to the clan because of their nature of playing. They had similar styles, and similar lifestyles which includes married with and without children.

The idea behind Dead Men Walking comes from the founder Craig “OldManOnDaMove” Stuart who came across the name after being smoked by VandaL in a Call of Duty 4 game. OldManOnDaMove said to VandaL that he feels like a “dead man walking”, after the score was 23-4. But he was new on the scene. After saying this he thought that it would be a good name for the team as they come across as target practice for some of the other players.

However, DMW now feels that they have the right to hand out a few beatings – which they do.

The future is a different story, seeing as there is no real past. There are no clan games or scores because they are purely social at the moment, but in 2011 the team will become more competitive and this might lead to new members, and a new outlook on gaming. Competitive gaming changes players and the way they look at gaming — if you’re completely serious about it. There’s no real decided future for the team, but they are willing to take it anywhere it can possibly go.

At the moment the clan has a strong group of players who are completely committed to the team. They offer value to the team either “socially or through research and technology,” which suggests that they would turn to a teammate before turning to a salesman for advice. Also, the team is based all over South Africa with players staying in all of the major cities.

Overall OldManOnDaMove feels that the team has come a long way since the days of XP whoring, and the future is an exciting one with the addition of more competitive play up and coming.

DMW haven’t yet played any serious games so they don’t have a rivalry team, but they will soon enough. You see, after their first loss they will naturally find that they really want to beat that team because they were the first team to beat them. However, that’s in the future, so until then they believe that TECH9 is the team to beat where Target Practice would offer a good run as well. The team known as OAP is apparently said to be a similar bunch of folks therefore they would love to show them a good fight.

Being optimistic and all, DMW feels that it will indeed take some time to get to the level of the aforementioned clans because their playing style is completely different.

Gaming in South Africa as a whole is seen as a strong community by OldManOnDaMove, however there are wishes that it would be recognised a bit better internationally. There are loads of problems in the community, and it’s mainly infrastructure issues such as lag and pricing which scares players or fans off.

But to improve this, DMW would like to see more tournaments and more companies getting involved. BT Games for instance would be a good party to host leagues and offer prizes for tournaments, but they don’t. Not enough firms are involved in the side of gaming which is more important than just the basic sale.

To compare PC gaming against console is always tough, and one of the players, Dominion, has a background both scenes. Dominion said that although PC gaming is as strong as ever because of cheaper games, better servers, etc., console should not be ruled out because it’s different. After years of gaming on PC, Dominion moved to console where he quickly adapted to the analog stick for first-person-play, leaving his history in the dust.

He also believes that with Games for Windows there’s the chance that PC gamers will be able to compete against console because infrastructure will change. Whether this becomes a reality is yet to be seen, but it sure would be sweet to have PC play against console.

PC gaming won’t die, but neither will competitive console. The markets will remain just as strong, and just as different. And in the end, who knows, the console guys might teach PC folk a strategy or two.

As for Xbox Live in the country, DMW believe that it hasn’t helped yet, instead it only made things worse with the prices increasing. Exposure might give greater numbers in the future, and they’ll be waiting – competitive team in hand.

eGamer Overview

Teams don’t need to be competitive to group. They need a can-do attitude, friendship and the ability to have fun. The point of the Clan Review is to learn about the clans and what the community consists of, and it’s really cool what we’ve seen so far.

To have old players thinking about changing their 2-year-old play style to competitive is great. It shows that old dogs and learn new tricks, and this should encourage new players to get involved and try their luck, as well as grow the community.