Clans are common in the online battlefields of today; They are a part of most online shooters, and offer a chance for you and your friends to gang up and take on the world. Sites like GameBattles are devoted to offer tournaments for clans to take part in, and some games, such as Killzone 2, even have their own systems built in.
Clans can range from just a few friends with a four character tag between square brackets to show off who you are playing for, to a serious army, fighting the world in their favourite online game.
In fact, our very own TSA clan takes advantage of the system in Killzone 2, with clan matches and tournaments being organised and played by the more hardcore members. There’s even the opportunity to join internal clan competitions, such as the King of Killzone being played later tonight.
We’ve also played a few matches against other sites on Modern Warfare 2, which is a lot of fun, but these matches need to be organised between the sites themselves rather than letting an in-game system set it up for you. However, the plus side of this is that the options for the way you would play the matches are very diverse; You can do as many rounds as you want and you aren’t stuck to a certain formula.
So, which system is better? The more complicated, yet more diverse options available in the Call of Duty series, or the system seen in Killzone 2 that makes setting up tournaments easier, but applies more to the hardcore players? Of course, these are just a few examples; many other games feature different forms of clans, you can even create your own teams in games like Skate 3.
What would you like to see clans evolve into in future games? How about a league system, where clans are organised by a system to battle against each other and get to the very top of the leaderboards? Are there any games that you think do clans even better than Killzone 2?
Perhaps clans can just be too much hassle for regular players, and could actually take away from the experience of some games, which could be the reason for the Call of Duty series sticking to a simple system. What’s your opinion on this matter? Would you like to see full clan systems like GameBattles built in to every online game, or would you rather it wasn’t pushed and was simply an option to visit the website?
DJ Judas
id love to see a centralised system for placement into a clan so everyone can join a team without knowing someone who’s in one. similar to starcraft 2s league system but with choice involved.
difficult to implement though, I loved Wireplay’s ladder system years ago.
DeathByNumbers
I play with a group of people and that’s about it. I used to be in a clan and tbh it wasn’t much fun, people took things too seriously, like KDR etc. I actually have more fun and a higher Kdr and w/l now than I did with a clan. I appreciate that events etc need organising and are fun when everyone shows up, but making set times for ‘team building excercises’ got boring quickly.
3shirts
I like playing with people I know from more than just the game, be they RL friends or you guys on here. Problem is I don’t have the time to commit to a clan. I like the meets here though because I can play with people who aren’t nobs without having to be dedicated to playing regularly
gideon1451
I’ve never been in a clan, despite playing many online FPSs :|
Clans in driving games would be interesting.
matty
I’d love all games to have the killzone 2 system, so simple and easy to use. I don’t think it would take anything from a game, because if you don’t want to be in a clan you don’t have too and that wont affect your game when your playing just normal multiplayer. Having a system like MW2 causes problems by putting it down to the player to say we lost/won on game battles. My two mates have a clan on there and have won and had the other clan disband on them and not give them the win. You can’t do that on killzone the win is handed out at the end of the clan match.
Charmed_Fanatic
I like Halo’s system, of finding people, then offering to team up with them when the game is over
Blayney
I don’t play clan matches at all on MW2, however my friends and family associate themselves with the clan tag [DARK], so if you see someone on MW2 with that it could be associated with me ;)
Oh and it comes from Perfect Dark, as DarkSims were the hardest lol
hol
although i play Mag in a ‘clan’, in reality it’s just a group of friends. Our tag gets used on all the games with the facility, kz2 too, which has a great system. Gt5 by all accounts has a clan system called car club :)
cc_star
In-game clan systems & challenges, leagues tourneys etc are great for people who want them, and is probably something we should expect from a AAA shooter. However it doesn’t appeal to me as I can never play games in a regimented format.
I just pick up my pad when I want to game, browse the servers and join one.
I’m not a fan of the matchmaking approach of games like uncharted2 as I like to see what games I’m joining, and browsing servers, looking at map rotations etc is the only way to do this a-la Warhawk & Killzone2 etc
AG2297
Great discussion. Good timing also with the Virgin Gaming website working with at least one of the major publishers (I think it was Ubisoft) and the rumours of possible subscription fee’s for clan related features on COD.
I think clans are great and most definately are not being taken full advantage of. It can be used by casuals to show everyone in the lobby your in a group with the same clan tag, or used by hardcores so that your enemy remembers how that clan gave you a kill-to-death ratio of -6.0.
I would prefer there to be a greater use of clans in more games, where its more than just a clan-tag. After all a clan is just like a team, so you might want to have your own uniform (using some in-game editing tools. Think Warhawk) or a clan leaderboard built into the game. Most of all, I think the big multiplayer games need better and more simple ways for clans to organise matches against other clans and it should certainly be free.
For matches such as King of Killzone though, I feel using the website and when in game a PSN chatroom is a much better and simpler way of doing it though.
To summarise, id like more clan features and more recognition but for the communication side of it I feel the PSN and XBLA are just not “there” yet. It is much easier and simpler to set it up on websites and through email/IM.
ii3illy
Test.