Originally Posted by ScratchMonkey

Presumably the need for SM in an IHS is to get the extra resources (such as a sub-forum) provided by TG? So if one already had independent resources for that (eg. a separate squad website), one could operate as a squad without being an SM, right? (I'm not trying to discourage SM, just trying to understand why it's a requirement.)

Well, if you have external resources for a squad, such as forums, then you could certainly operate as a squad or clan or whatever you want to call it. I assume this is what HAF is currently doing and it is for sure what 6MD was doing prior to forming an IHS. We even had our own TS2 server.

I think Ferris answered Dunce's original question quite nicely although I would point out that I don't believe there is a hard and fast rule that says an IHS name has to start with a number. It's just been the convention thus far and I'm sure you would be strongly encouraged to stick with it.

6MD came over to TG primarily because:

1. We found a group of like minded gamers. So no matter which game we were playing there would be a good chance of it having a presence here along with other people to play with.

2. Forming the IHS allowed us to use TG's resources which includes the private IHS forum, our own TS2 channel, and even maintain a web presence via the wiki. The side effect of this is that TG supporting membership distributes the cost of these resources amongst the entire squad instead of just one or two people picking up the costs as I would guess is the case with most clans. Oh yes, let's also not forget the TG servers...something which 6MD as a standalone group was never going to support given how small we are.

3. Supporting membership also focused the nature of our group back into FPS games and is almost a requirement for playing on any of TG's very popular servers. So it was a win - win all around.

So what's the drawbacks?

Well, you are naturally going to give up some control and needing to have all your members with supporting memberships ($8 / month) can be a dealbreaker for many. We lost probably 1/2 our members because of this. Most of them were playing only WOW and just not interested in the extra cost. On the plus side we still hook up with them occasionally in the TG TS2 server when new games come out.

Hope this helps!

Bernout