Friends Chat



The Clan Chat feature allows any player to create their own chat channel and assign ranks to other players in their channel. Similarly to public chat, any messages sent in a chat channel are seen by all players in that channel, except if the sender is on any player's ignore list or vice versa.

Clan Chat is available to members and non-members, and was released in the Clan Chat update on the 6 August 2007. Players do not need to set up their own channel in order to use someone else's.

Players in a Clan Chat channel send messages in the same way as with public chat, except using a slash (/) at the beginning of every line. The slash does not appear when the message is displayed. As with private chat, the other players can be logged into any server. After a recent update, selecting the Chat option at the bottom of the screen eliminates the need of using a slash (/).

Creating a channel




Any player can create their own channel, using the "Clan Setup" button in the Clan Chat interface:

The player will then be presented with an interface that allows them to set ranks for people on their Friends List and control who can enter, talk, and kick other players from the channel. They can also set a channel name of up to twelve characters, which will appear on the side of the chat box to indicate something said on that channel. Censorship still applies to the channel name, and Jagex has made it so the word "mod" cannot be included in the name either (e.g. "I Am A Mod" or even "Game mod e").

Players that have the rank required to kick others in the channel can only kick those with rank lower than theirs, for example, a general with kick power cannot kick other generals. They are free to kick those at captain rank or below, however, the channel owner may not approve (and can lower their rank). Players kicked from a channel cannot re-enter for an hour; in addition, those on the channel owner's ignore list cannot enter a channel at any time.

If a channel reaches the player limit (100) and any ranked player tries to join, another player with a lower rank than the one entering will be kicked to make room. Otherwise, any other person will be told "This chat is currently full", and will have to wait until someone leaves to rejoin.

A Jagex Moderator can always join a chat, will always be able to chat on it, and can kick any player off the chat. The owner of the Clan Chat is free to give them any rank he/she wishes, however.

In some clan chat channel's the owner has made it so only ranks can go in the clan, If you add the person then he may wish to put you as the rank that is allowed in The Clan Chat channel

Using a channel


To enter a chat channel, players simply click on the "Join Chat" button in the Clan Chat interface. The name of the player hosting the channel must be entered in the message box. Once this is done, the player is able to send messages to other players in the channel by writing messages in the public chat box with a slash before them.

The Clan Chat interface shows the name and creator of the channel the player is currently chatting on. In addition, each player in the channel (up to 100) is shown on a list, along with their channel rank and current world.

Players not on the channel owner's friends list do not have a rank icon; players on the owner's friends list but not assigned any other rank have a friend icon; and each of the other ranks (except channel owner) are assigned by the owner to other players on his/her friends list.

If a player is kicked from the chat, the player will be able to rejoin after one hour. Alternatively, the chat is reset if it is emptied and those kicked can rejoin then.

Note that some of these icons do not show up properly on a white background

The interface also contains a button for players to enter or leave a channel. Note that Jagex moderators have powers equivalent to a channel owner if they join a channel.

Players who are breaking rules in chat channels can be reported using the report abuse button as normal.

Updates
On 15 October 2008, Jagex released an update that shows all players in the same chat channel as purple dots on the minimap.

An update on 13 October 2009 made it so players logging out while still in a clan chat would immediately rejoin that chat when logging back in.

On 10 January 2011 an update was added which introduced a manual "kick/ban" button beside the "toggle-lootshare" button, in addition a new ability to kick players from the chat, using the chat window. The ability to "refresh" a temporary ban using the manual kick button was also added, which resets the temporary ban to 1 hour when someone's name is added who is already banned.

On 1 March 2011 an update made it so a notice is shown whenever someone attempts to kick/ban another player in a clan chat. The notice displays to everyone who is in the channel at the time who is attepting to kick who. It has broght about controversy in larger channels, since it can easilly spam large chats where kicks occur quite regularly.

LootShare
LootShare is another feature that Jagex added to the Clan Chat in the LootShare update of the 16 October 2007. When LootShare is active, all players within a 16-square radius of a fallen monster have a chance to get the drop. There is an additional message in the chat box that informs the clan who received the drop, and what the drop was. Furthermore, receiving substandard drops or none at all increases the chances that a player will get a more valuable drop the next time.

To activate LootShare, the owner of the clan must enable it through the Clan Setup menu, then each member of the clan must activate it as well. It should be noted that the minimum clan rank needed to engage in LootShare is "Friend." In addition, when LootShare is activated it requires 2 minutes to begin working.

LootShare is only available in certain worlds, noted by the world select screen. LootShare does not work for player-killing.

The Chat Directory sticky
If players are looking for a Clan Chat channel to join, they may try looking in the Chat Directory Sticky in the RuneScape Forums. Sometimes a player may come across an unoccupied channel, but a few of them are popular.

Members may also advertise their Clan Chat there. Players are only allowed to advertise the chat channel relating to the username who posted it.

Future Clan Chat Updates
It has been stated in this developer blog that there will be a new clan chat system developed specific for clans. The current system will be renamed "Friends Chat", and will remain unchanged (see here). Confirmed new features of this new clan chat include:
 * The ability to customise the names of your ranks.
 * A seperate "clan list", which will be used to rank players in place of the owner's friends list.
 * The ability for players other than the channel owner to change other player's ranks.
 * A restriction which only alows players to become a member of one clan at a time.

Glitches

 * A glitch occasionally causes players to appear multiple times in a Clan Chat channel.
 * When the Kick button was first added to the Clan Chat interface, a player could 'kick' themselves from their own channel by entering their previous display name. This glitch has been fixed.
 * On 8 July, when the interface was updated, players were temporarily able to add themselves to their ignore list. Consequently, anyone with their own name on their ignore list was rendered unable to enter his or her own Clan Chat for as long as the name remained on their ignore list. Furthermore, if players added themselves to their friends lists, they could give themselves a different rank in their own Clan Chat channels. This did not affect any in-clan functions, however, and the person retained the "owner" rank.
 * There is a rare glitch where a Clan Chat window displays that a certain player is in the Clan Chat channel; however, they are not actually in the channel, and are unremovable/unkickable even by the channel owner. This can be fixed by disabling then re-enabling your Clan Chat channel.
 * When clan chats were first added to the game, some players could not talk, even if they had the proper rank to do so. This has been fixed.
 * When your connection was lost and you logged in automatically you can see yourself multiple in the clan chat.
 * On the Day of the "Fish Flinger" update, several worlds would not allow clan chat to function properly. In World 100, for instance, you could type something to the clan, but nothing would show up on your screen. In 50% of the cases, some could see your text, some could not. Other people may entirely not be able to read or see chat. This has since been fixed.
 * Since 9 June 2010, there was a bug for some people with Clan Chat, giving users affected the message 'Error connecting to Chat Channel. Please try again later!' This issue appears not to affect everyone, but has affected several players. Jagex is currently looking into the issue. Please see this post by Mod AC for more information.
 * Since 22 July, there has been a glitch where few or no players show up on the clan chat interface. Jagex is currently fixing this problem.
 * There has been a glitch where if your Clan Chat text was changed to another colour and if you enter a POH (Player Owned House), then the text in the clan chat will turn default while the Home Sweet Home picture is displayed. This has not been fixed yet.
 * There is a glitch that if you change the ranks of users, the rank name (for example, General) will appear instead of the username for a second.CC glitch.png
 * On 10 January 2011, about 2 minutes before the system update, a glitch caused every player to be 'kicked' from all chats, and everybody received the message "You leave the channel". There was no waiting time to get back into the clan chats, and the cause of this glitch was unknown.
 * Since 10 January 2011 there has been a glitch where a player or players will be randomly banned from a clan chat for an hour for absolutely no reason. It is said to be a problem from when Jagex fixed the kicking bug that happened on the day that this bug was reported to start. This is causing controversy as people in clan chats are blaming each other. This glitch has yet to be fixed.