Choosing Teammates: Locals or Online Heroes?

The first blog series I wanted to start out with was helping players choose the right teammates. Your teammates are the most important part of your game and not choosing the right ones could mean the difference between breaking into the pro ranks or staying an online warrior forever. You need to choose teammates that you get along with, play well with style wise (get into that later), have the same goals, practice schedules, drive, maturity levels, and many other things are factors when choosing a teammate. I'm going to dedicate this post to picking a local team or online players you don't live near.

Broly Bro with his local team offered to help me out with this one sense he choose an all local team over playing with online players. Broly's team (Avengers) consists of Hypnox son, Steady yo, and Tension eyy. You haven't heard of these players you say? Well you should look for them to make some noise at the opener. Broly started by telling me how he came to pick an all local team (everyone lives within 20 minutes of each other).

“I'd say practice is 4x better when your teammates live close to you. A lot of players I knew were already on a team. I wanted to find a team that would stay together, settle in, and practice until the opener. All three of my local teammates already decided to team at a past LAN and asked me to run games. It went really well and I thought it was the best option I'd get and feel the most comfortable with.”

Advantages of choosing local teammates;

• You can form a better bond with your team as friends and teammates.
• You know who you will be spending the weekend with for any events you attend.
• Attending LANs and split screen practice (important) becomes much easier.
• Going over game plays and constructive criticism become easier, tend to turn into less arguments.
• Players seem more obligated to be on time for practices and scrims when they will see you in person the next day.
• You don't have to worry about players being sketchy and not showing up to the event.
• Players tend to have more fun playing and game better when they play with friends and people they get long with.
• Hanging out with your teammates outside of the game is important also.
• It is easier to fix team work while sitting next to your teammates.
• If a local tournament happens you don't have to take time away from your “online” team and practice with a local team just for that tournament.

Just some things to think about if you have the chance to team with local players. While most of us don't have that option for those of you that do consider yourself lucky. For those that don't look for our other tips coming soon.

About Us and Site Features

 

About Us

At MyGamerConnections(MGC) we are trying to solve the decade old problem of looking for teammates and competitive gamers on your level to play with and against. I love the competitive gaming community and Halo 2 is what got me into the FPS genre. I tried to become the best player I could but lurking on forums and trying to find a team to run games with or scrim against was always a pain. Here we strive to connect the dots and help you easily find teammates and other teams to scrim in your respective games. Find the newest tournaments and LANs in your area while meeting players before you attend the event. MGC focuses on competitive gamers at the moment and wants to expand that community instructing others on how they can become better gamers themselves. We want to provide tools for gamers already in the competitive scene and those trying to learn the ropes and break into a tight-knit community. MGC wants to provide you with a lot more features in the near future while expanding the site according to your demands. We will listen carefully to your feedback, act on it, and hope you give us lots of it.

Site Features

What do I really want to accomplish with this site you ask? Really our site will be a social networking site like Facebook or Myspace for competitive gamers. Once you register you can input your PSN name(soon) or Xbox Live gamertag and later on we will be trying to add API connectivity to pull stats and what not from games and add friends/send messages right from the site. You can then choose if you are a FA, team of 2, team of 3, team of 4, a coach, or casual gamer from an easy drop down box right on your profile because we know this changes a lot. You can also pick the specific game you are a FA or team for ex: Black Ops or Halo: Reach. Then you can use our search engine to find gamers by a variety of ways, zip code, city, state, certain mile radius from you, games they play, if they are a FA, team of 2, 3, or 4, a coach, a casual gamer, or by just entering keywords you are looking for in a profile like event experience. With your profile you can put a little about yourself and the events/tournaments you have played in plus your placings. Also you can embed your best game play for whatever game it is you play to showcase your skill right on your profile instead of just talking the talk. There will be an events section in the site where you can post tournaments or LANs and invite players/friends to those events and find other players locally to invite. You can post the event time, place, what to bring, what will be played and whatever else you feel is needed. We will also be posting some of the latest competitive news, tips, and other things to do with competitive gaming right on our homepage.
What we have now;

• Customizable Profile Page
  
• Search engine to find competitive gamers many different ways(see above)
  
• Event page to post/find events and invite others to LANs and tournaments
  
• Messaging and friend list system
  
• Top Users page(working on)
  
• Gaming Blog with top news and tips.
  
• A way to embed your best game play or clips right onto your profile page.

What to expect in the near future after we launch and ideas for down the road...

• A rating system for game plays with a leader board for each game.
• A news feed or “Wall” to post what is going on right now?
• API to send friend requests and messages via Xbox Live on the site.
• Link your team to Game Battles and your team site easier more in depth with stats and records right on your profile page.
• A chat system for friends to talk to each other a lot faster and more conveniently?
• MLG customs list right on the side of the site to post your gamertag that resets every hour to find customs right away for people that are playing customs.
• Instead of a "top friends list" we will have a "My Team" section on your profile that will show who your teammates and coach are and can click on them to go directly to their profiles.
• PC games to be added to the site.
• A way to rank players based on points from events they have attended and their placings.
• An easier way to get Gametime and lessons from Professional players, we don't want any of their money or yours so the prices won't be hiked up sense we won't charge the Pros to post their services on our site.
• A system to help newer competitive players break into the scene and become better players.
• Any ideas the competitive community shoots our way, we are here for you guys spread the word!
  

How did they choose that GamerTag?!

I've been asked recently how I chose my gamertag: iCrim. It is actually a main charaters name from the anime .hack//sign. "Crim (クリム, Kurimu^?) is a Long Arm featured in .hack//Sign. His avatar is a male with spiky blue hair, a red jacket, flared red and yellow pants, and a wave symbol on his chest. Crim plays as a very happy-go-lucky character, easygoing and sociable. He enjoys testing his skills against strong opponents and is always ready to help anybody in need. He founded the Crimson Knights with Subaru, though he eventually leaves. He is very close to Subaru, as he knows that she is handicapped and offers his phone number to her if she feels the need to talk. He is a business man in his real life and is frequently sent off on business trips to places all around the world." (Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crim) I thought the character represented me because I am a business man myself and have some of his other characteristics
(no blue hair).

  So I went and asked my 300 followers on twitter how they chose their gamertag and here are the first responses if you want to share your story message me on twitter I'll gladly add it to the list;

Boilanger

@mygamerconnects My gamertag (Eckho22) was chosen because Echo was a nickname of mine(I repeat myself a lot) and 22 was my jersey number :D

FoxWearsPrada

@mygamerconnects ive always loved foxes and fox mccloud, and the devil wears prada is my favorite band :)

WTFZodiac

@mygamerconnects had it since like 2005.

hELENA_XxX27

@mygamerconnects hmmm my gamer tag was an abbreviation of my WoW name (mxcenzize) and i added beast, and i added 27 (my favorite number) :P

SlaptArze

@mygamerconnects um all the good ones were taken at the time, so I just went with slaptarze.

donniepeslis

@mygamerconnects Dr Peslis came from school. I always thought it was funny to write it on papers. Then it stuck.

PriusGuy2004

RT @mygamerconnects: How did you choose your GamerTag? ::Based on the first hybrid vehicle I owned...before it got flooded in a storm.::

IISerenityII

@mygamerconnects my gt represents my playing style alot at times. However at other times I'll explode creating this paradoxical irony :p

TICJoey

@mygamerconnects TICJoeyTheBEAST. TIC for the Team, Joey's my name, And BEAST describes my gameplay. Its that simple. BAM!

J_Karnes

@mygamerconnects xxGunslinger 19. In Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series the Gunslinger stood for nobility and justice. 19=theme in book.

KGBsovietRussia

@mygamerconnects well i just try and think of something thats interests me or something i find funny lol

xYOSHEx

@mygamerconnects my gamer tag YOSH3 my friends use to call me that ever since 6 grade. So when halo 2 came out. I use it and I still haveit

_JSlh_

@mygamerconnects JSlh is a nick I invented for myself 6 years ago, when I was into GFXing on photoshop and kept it ever since.

What does MyGamerConnections.com do exactly?

We are testing the site this Monday (2/4/11) and inviting a few select people to help so look out for that! What do I really want to accomplish with this site you ask? Really our site will be a social networking site like Facebook or Myspace for competitive gamers. Once you register you can input your PSN name or Xbox Live gamertag and later on we will be adding API connectivity to pull stats and what not from games and add friends/send messages right from the site. You can then choose if you are a FA, team of 2, team of 3, team of 4, a coach, or casual gamer from an easy drop down box right on your profile because we know this changes a lot. You can also pick the specific game you are a FA or team for ex: Black Ops or Halo: Reach. Then you can use our search engine to find gamers by a variety of ways, zip code, city, state, certain mile radius from you, games they play, if they are a FA, team of 2, 3, or 4, a coach, a casual gamer, or by just entering keywords you are looking for in a profile like event experience. With your profile you can put a little about yourself and the events/tournaments you have played in plus your placings. Also you can embed your best game play for whatever game it is you play to showcase your skill right on your profile instead of just talking the talk. There will be an events section in the site where you can post tournaments or LANs and invite players/friends to those events and find other players locally to invite. You can post the event time, place, what to bring, what will be played and whatever else you feel is needed. We will also be posting some of the latest competitive news, tips, and other things to do with competitive gaming right on our homepage.

What to expect in the near future after we launch and down the road...

•  A rating system for game plays with a leader board for each game.
• Link your team to Game Battles and your team site easier more in depth with stats and records right on your profile page.
• MLG customs list right on the side of the site to post your gamertag that resets every hour to find customs right away for people that are playing customs.
• Instead of a "top friends list" we will have a "My Team" section on your profile that will show who your teammates and coach are and can click on them to go directly to their profiles.
• PC games to be added to the site.
• A way to rank players based on points from events they have attended and their placings. 
• An easier way to get Gametime and lessons from Professional players, we don't want any of their money or yours so the prices won't be hiked up sense we won't charge the Pros to post their services on our site.
• A system to help newer competitive players break into the scene and become better players.
• Any ideas the competitive community shoots our way, we are here for you guys spread the word!

7 Player LAN Frustration = Great Idea?

Our thumbs were furiously working away at our phones trying to find one more person to come into our dark dungeon (my basement) and LAN Halo Reach with us. We had a nice setup 6 TVs with Xbox's in one room and a bunch of junk food and energy drinks stocked the mini fridge. The problem with this is we only had 7 Halo players... Rapidblaze and Court decided not to make the drive to Syracuse last minute and Gilkey said he would have came but was preparing for the last Halo 3 event before the playoffs, so I don't blame him. We were expecting about 11 players or so and somehow by 10pm only 7 of us were still sitting there, playing some 2v2 and 1v1. We ended up hooking up to the Internet and running customs for some of the night. Eventually one of friends came (2am) but he had never heard of MLG and you can guess how that went. It wasn't a total failure but it just made me realize there needs to be an easier way to find players and set up LANs and events. This is where I got the idea for http://mygamerconnections.com I was sitting in a lobby with Gilkey a week after that LAN and was man we needed you there to make 8! I asked him about his new gamebattles team and he told me it was all local kids that he goes to high school with and they hadn't lost a match. I was just thinking how didn't I know of these kids they could have came even if Gilkey didn't. So here I am almost done developing the first phase of the site with a way to find players by zip code and city. Invite them to local events and tournaments and connect to them before you go. The site should launch in early February, and I'm pretty excited for it. At first I wanted to appeal to all gamers then I decided while going through this last month I wanted to mostly focus on the competitive gamer. So on your profile you can have the events you have attended/what you placed, if you are a F/A, team of 2 or 3, full team, and add your teammates right to your profile kind of like a top friends list, place your best game play right on the front page of your profile so people can see if they want to play with you or you want to give them a try on your team, link to team pages or gamebattles, and how many points you have. Players will also find it easier to market themselves through the site to potential sponsors. These are just a few features coming to the site with a lot more in the future but if you were wondering where the idea came from here it is, my frustrating night of a 7 man LAN.