Clan


 * For more information on RuneScape Clans, see our sister site, the RuneScape Clans Wiki

A clan, also known as a player guild or team is a syndicate of organised players who work together to achieve one or more goals as a group, which cannot otherwise be achieved (or as easily) by a single player. These goals vary from clan to clan, ranging from clan warring and skilling to creating a simple and enjoyable community or working together to make money. The amount of players needed to create a clan is five, but it can consist of many more members. There are well over a thousand clans in RuneScape - for every possible group activity, it is likely there will be a clan who specialises in it.

History
Clans have been involved in RuneScape since its creation. The first clan to appear in RuneScape was The Sabres,  who were previously based upon the Jagex game Cyber Wars. In the early days of RuneScape, players could PK anywhere outside of Lumbridge - one such PKer was known as Militant, who would ruthlessly kill anyone he encountered. The Sabres' primary focus was to combat Militant's forces as an APK, or Anti-PK clan.

Over the years thousands of other clans joined the game and began to compete against one another. Even at this stage, there were many different types of clans, many of which did not solely participate in Player vs Player (PvP) activities. Aside from Team Capes, Jagex offered very little clan support, so clans utilised third-party availabilities such as off-site websites and forums, memberlists, chat programs and Voice Communication software. Many of these elements are still present today.

It should be noted that while many third party clan elements are totally harmless, players should still exercise extreme caution.

Jagex support for clans truly began in 2007 starting with the implementation of the Clan Chat feature. Their continued support has been consistent over the years with elements such as the Clan Camp, Clan Citadels and the Jagex Cup. The clan world to this day is still one of the most prominent elements of the game. 2011 was the official Year of Clans for RuneScape.

Categorization
There are many different ways to categorize clans. In previous times, clans could easily be split into two different groups: RSB or RSOF Clans (RuneScape Boards or RuneScape Official Forums) and Traditional Clans (or Fansite Clans). RSB clans were known to use only the features provided by Jagex, while Traditional Clans would make use of other third-party features, in particular RuneScape fansites. However, in recent years, the distinctions between these two groups has blurred substantially due to the age of the clan world as well as the amount of support from Jagex themselves. One way to cateorgize clans is by their aims and focuses.

PvP and Warring Clans
PvP Clans, which include Warring Clans, specialise in the Player-versus-Player element of the game. The focus of many PvP clans is inside the Wilderness - however this does not exclude other forms of PvP such as the Clan Wars Arena. However, clans which advocate other "safe" PvP elements such as TzHaar Fight Pits and Castle Wars are not generally considered PvP clans - rather they are categorised by that particular minigame.

One of the oldest events in the clan world is the PKing Trip, where a clan will enter the Wilderness with the intention of killing other players - either for profit or enjoyment.

Two or more clans can also fight against each other in battles, known as a Clan War. Clan wars are usually fought to define superior strength - however there are many variations to this. For example, clans will usually use their best gear, although many circumstances have gear caps which limit the use of some items or gear to a certain value. Not all wars are "serious", many clans host fun wars which can include dressing up in a less-valuable armour such as steel (metal war) or other themed uniforms for pure enjoyment.

There are two main types of clan war: a Knock-Out (or Full-Out), in which one clan claims victory by defeating all members of the opposing clan. The other is a PK Run-In (or PKRI), where members are allowed to return upon death. There are two kinds of PKRI:


 * "Capped" - the victor is decided through kill count or numbers. If it is a time cap, the clan with either the most kills or numbers remaining at the end of the designated time is victorious. If it is a kill cap, the first clan to reach a certain number of kills, e.g. 100, is victorious.
 * "Uncapped" - the victor is the last clan remaining on the battlefield - the opposing clan must be "cleared" (unable to fight due to lack of members) or have "ended" (their members have ceased to return).

Clan wars may take place either in the Wilderness (for tradition and/or other elements such as risks) or in the Clan Wars Arena (for events such as the Jagex Cup and/or safety to prevent elements such as "crashing" (the interference by another non-participating clan)).

Many different sub-types of PvP clans exist, which include, but are not limited to:


 * Main and Pure clans - a Pure is an account with deliberate high offensive stats and low defensive stats - e.g. level 1 defence and level 99 strength.
 * F2P and P2P clans - if the clan's events are in either Free-to-play worlds or Members worlds.
 * Single and Multi clans - depending on whether the clan fights in single-combat zones or multi-combat zones.
 * Clan Wars and Wilderness clans - if the clan fights primarily in the Clan Wars Arena or the Wilderness.

PvM Clans
A PvM (Player-versus-Monster) clan specialises in killing monsters as a group, in particular bosses (known as Boss-Hunting). PvM clans are the second-most popular type of clan in the game, and specialise in a range of bosses ranging from the King Black Dragon and Kalphite Queen to the Corporeal Beast and Nex. The main purpose for boss-hunting, aside from the enjoyment, is for the drops - it is one of the most profitable activities in the game. However, many professional PvM clans have high entry requirements, such as the ability to use Overloads and Turmoil.

PvM wars between clans are held between clans to determine strength. A good example of a PvM war is when two clans gather their numbers and take on a boss at the same time, using the LootShare features to determine which clan gets the boss's kill at the end of the fight. The clan who reaches a certain number of kills first is declared the victor.

Skilling Clans
The third most prominent type of clan is the Skilling Clan - a group of players who train non-combat skills together. These skills include fishing, cooking, mining, smithing, runecrafting, crafting, woodcutting, firemaking and dungeoneering for F2P. P2P also has skills including fletching, herblore, agility, thieving, farming, and construction. Most skilling clans avoid combat entirely - some as far even as to disallow entry to members who have trained their combat skills at all. Skilling clans can focus on either a range of skills, or one particular skill (with high-level requirements for entry).

A Skill War between two or more clans is a race in gaining skilling experience. The clans agree on a set time limit, and at the end of the cap, the total experience gained by all members of each clan is added up. The clan with the most experience gained overall is declared the winner.

Other Clans and Teams
There are many other types of clans, which include, but are not limited to:
 * Community
 * Quest
 * Merchanting (Price-Manipulation)
 * Activity (such as Distractions and Diversions)
 * Role-playing

A Team is an organised syndicate which is not strictly a clan, but serves as an aid to provide other clanning elements which an individual's main clan does not or cannot provide themselves. For example, a person who likes fighting in both the Wilderness and Clan Wars joins a clan, but the clan only does Wilderness fights, and will not allow their members to be in multiple clans at once (known as multiclanning).

There are both official teams and unofficial teams. An official team will be much more organised (for example in terms of application process and the use of third party software such as voice communications), and much more similar to a clan in many ways. There is a lot of controversy around teams, and many clans have rules set in place for such situations to ensure conflict does not arise, e.g. if the clan and team both have events at the same time.

An unofficial team can be something as simple as a friends chat which anyone can join. A popular example of this is a Wilderness Team - any player can join their chat at any time, and involve themselves in the team's activities almost instantly. These teams are usually less organised and may sometimes prove weaker, but are a good option to players who wish to get involved in an activity at almost any time when their clan is unavailable, without spending the time joining an official team (e.g. through an application process).

Jagex support
For the first years of RuneScape, Jagex offered minimal to no in-game support for any clan-related activities. Players could group together on the forums or on fansites, but there was no official way to control clan affairs in the Wilderness or any other area of the game.

Team capes
The first update directly beneficial to clans was the introduction of team capes. These help to prevent players from accidentally attacking clanmates, and make it easier to identify them inside and outside the Wilderness. In addition to this, the in-game minimap was updated to show all players with the same cape as purple dots, thus making it easier to tell caped members apart from non-caped members who still appear as white dots.

Clan forums
The official RuneScape forums offer a clans section with several clan-related boards for players' use. These include:
 * Jagex Clan Cup
 * Clan Introduction
 * Recruitment – Looking for a clan
 * Recruitment – Under 140 Combat
 * Recruitment – 140-175 Combat
 * Recruitment – 175 Combat and over
 * Recruitment – Specialist Clans
 * Clan Home
 * Clan Discussion
 * Clans Feedback

There is also a private forum specifically for Clan Leaders which is hidden from view for everyone else. Only some leaders are eligible for access to this - an application form is provided in the Clan Discussion board.

Clan chat


In 2007, Jagex began supporting clans more with the addition of the clan chat feature on 6 August 2007 - this version of the clan chat is now the Friends Chat. It allowed all members of a group to mass-communicate privately and efficiently.

Prior to the Clan Chat, the only other in-game method of communicating with clans was through private chat. On many pre-2007 clan events, it was common for all the members of a clan to add each other in order to speak to each other without the use of third-party software.

Clan chat is essential to LootShare and Clan Wars. There is a member cap of 500 for the clan chat.

Clan Wars
On 10 December 2007, the Clan Wars Arena was added to the game, though removing the original Wilderness PvP system and implicating Bounty Hunter, which caused major controversy. However, the Clan Wars Arena proved an overall success, and is still in thriving use by all types of PvP clans today. Also known as CWA, the arena offers a safer option for hosting wars, to ensure rules such as gear and boundaries cannot be broken, as well as preventing interference from other persons not involved in either clan.

Jagex Cup
In 2009, the first Jagex Cup for clans was held, and has been held every year since. The event is organised on the RuneScape forums, and involves a number of clans being able to compete against each other. There are three different sections: Combat, Skilling and Combined. The Combat Competition is held in Clan Wars, the Combined in Stealing Creation and the Skilling based on XP gained between the competing clans. Sub-divisions for Combat were added from 2010 onwards.

Winners of the individual cups are named on various plaques located around RuneScape. The victors for the Jagex Cups are:

Clan Camp


On 12 April 2011 Jagex implemented the Clan Camp update, which included several new additions. The Clan Chat was re-designed for official recognition of clans, as well as integrated management features for members, events and so on. Clans were able to create Clan Web Pages on the RuneScape website, complete with Stats and Clanmates pages. Clan members could obtain a customizable Clan Cloak and Clan Vexillum to display their clan colours. Rated Clan Wars was also introduced.

The area itself is located south of Falador, from which players can visit and retrieve the aforementioned items.

Clan Citadels


On 26 July 2011, the Clan Citadels were added - each clan receives their own citadel in an Instanced Shard World (similar to Player-owned houses). There are seven tiers which the citadel can be upgraded to week by week, which provide further aesthetics and availabilities. Upkeep for the citadel is required, and upgrades are done by clan members by collecting set numbers of resources from the various skilling plots around the citadel area. There are many features available in the Citadel, including the keep and the Battlefield.

Citadels can be accessed via the portal on the west side of the Clan Camp, just south of Falador.