Clan (social group)

Clans are formalized and organized (although some only very loosely) groups that players can join for purposes of battling other focused clans in an all out clan war (clanmatch in matchmaking) in team games and for practice. Clans exist in all three of the Halo games, but are becoming less prevalent in the older ones, especially Halo: Combat Evolved, in which they are somewhat hard to find. Halo 2 is the only Halo game which allows actual clans that appear as a list, or as a built in option.

Halo 2 has a clan system that allows you to hold up to 100 people. In Halo 2, any given gamertag may only belong to one clan at a time.

There are no clans in Halo 3 but people with the same emblem usually say they are in a clan. However, people often organize clans externally, via the use of websites and such, but these clans are usually the much larger communities consisting of four thousand members or more. Examples of these include KSI and LCU, the two largest Halo 3 gaming communities in the world. These are often created for competitive reasons, and are highly devoted due to the amount of effort it takes to effectively organize one. This kind of close devotion includes keeping a close eye on where the members are and what they are doing, holding meetings with the members, raising money to fund the community and the websites, and constantly recruiting more and more members every day.

Also some of the bigger communities, like LCU, have grown into businesses by selling clan merchandise, getting sponsors and distributing products of other retailers or large corporations such as Microsoft and Bungie Studios.

Ranking System
The Halo 2 clan system has a ranking system that consists of the following:


 * Peon- Lowest of all the classes. Can only participate in clanmatches. Usually used as punishment within a clan.
 * Member- Average member of the clan. Can recruit people to a clan via clan invite and participate in clanmatches.
 * Staff- Managers of the clan. They have all the privileges accorded to the lower ranks, but with the ability of changing ranks of lower ranking clan members (members to staff, member to peon, etc). Can also boot lower ranking members from the clan.
 * Overlord- Admin/Leader(s) of the clan. Have all the privileges of staff and clan except with considerably more power.