Clans



Before there were godswords, abyssal whips and fairy rings, clans were battling ferociously to see who was best. Clans have been a constant presence in RuneScape ever since the beginning and have evolved along with the game. Creating communities, building friendships and pwning their enemies - clans are a concrete part of our community.

What is a Clan?

There's more to clans than Clan Wars
A clan is a group of players who choose to play together on a regular basis with a common goal in mind. Some clans come together only for a specific tournament, while others have been around since the dawn of the 5th Age (RuneScape's release). Some of the longest running clans such as 'The' Clan, Gladiatorz (aka Gladz) and BlacKnights have seen it all and are still together today thanks to their camaraderie and shared love of pwning other players.

While many clans exist purely to wreak havoc on PvP Worlds, the diversity of clans means that there's more than likely one suited to you. Take the Caped Carousers, for example, who began as a small group that liked to get together to celebrate completing all of RuneScape's quest. Two years since they formed and they're now a thriving community of Quest Cape owners. Modzilla is another good example; their roots lie in the P-Mod team, but now they're a huge clan who get together to train skills, compete and generally just hang out together.

Some clans choose to have certain entry requirement (e.g. a minimum combat level) and some are happy to welcome anyone. The diversity of clans means there is always one out there for any player. Being in a clan can not only alter the way you enjoy playing the game, but can lead to you meeting new people, making good friends and getting more involved in the community.



Joining a Clan

To join a clan couldn't be simpler! You could be invited to join one by a clan leader in-game, post a thread in the 'Looking for a clan' forum, or apply to join a clan in one of our recruitment forums. On the official forums, we categorise clans as 'Under 100 combat', 'Over 100 combat' and 'Specialist clans'. Specialist clans do not have a combat level requirement to join, but may have other requirements like having to own a quest cape, knowing how to play a certain activity, or who wants to train a specific skill. Before you apply to join a clan, make sure that you meet all of that clan's entry requirements by reading their forum thread fully.



How to Create a Clan

If you can't find an existing clan that suits what you're after, or if you just fancy the challenge, you could always just create your own clan. Before you create a clan, it helps to have a vision of what you want to with it - what sort of players you'd like to join it and what type of activities you'd like to do. It's likely that you have a small group of friends already, but ensuring that you all know what you want to do with your clan will minimise the chance of any problems occuring in the future. Do you want to train skills, fight boss monsters, play activities or PvP? Who do you want in the clan? How many people? Should they all be in the same time zone as you to make arranging events easier? What entry requirements should you have for the clan, if any? Perhaps most importantly, what should your clan be called? Once you've determined these sorts of things, you'll be better prepared to create your clan.

A good way of figuring these things out is to use Clan Chat, which will continue to be of use once your clan is up and running. It's very quick and easy to set up a Clan Chat channel - either follow the simple steps below or go to this page for more information:
  1. In-game, click on the Clan Chat tab in the side interface, then click on 'Clan setup'.
  2. Make sure that you give your clan a name. An abbreviation of your clan's name works best, as this leaves room for more chat to be seen (e.g. if your clan was named Rune Killaz, you could shorten it to RK in Clan Chat).
  3. Set the privacy level for your clan. Should it only be open to clan members or is anyone welcome?
  4. Choose which of your clan members should have the ability to kick disruptive players out of your Clan Chat channel.

Other players (depending on what privacy level you chose) will then be able to join the Clan Chat by inputting the display name of whoever set up the channel. The next thing to consider is the 'rank' of any of your clan's members. You can assign players on your Friends List a rank within your Clan Chat to make this a little easier, especially for moderation of the chat.

The available ranks are shown in this table, from highest to lowest:

Chat owner

General

Captain

Lieutenant

Sergeant

Corporal

Recruit

Friend



Two clans going head-to-head in Castle Wars
Now that you're all set up in-game, you're going to want a place for your clan to get information about various clan events and to have discussions with the rest of the clan community. To this end, we have a section on our forums dedicated to clans, including Clan Home, Clan Suggestions and Clan Discussion, plus the recruitment forums noted above. If you wish to create your own threads here, you should make your thread's title clear as to what the thread is for.

It is also recommended that you create a number of 'reserve posts' for your future use. To do this, post replies to your own thread with the phrase "Reserved for future use." (or similar) for as many posts as you wish to reserve. You can then edit these posts at a later time, should you need to.

Your thread can contain anything you want. Some common threads include events schedules, a list of a clan's members, clan history and the like. If you find yourself stuck for ideas, check out other clans' threads.

Another aspect of your clan that you will want to consider is recruitment. It can be difficult to get players to join your clan in-game, so the majority of clans also use the forums to recruit other players into their clan. Make sure that your recruitment thread is informative, but to the point. Not everyone will want to read pages of text.

Careful recruitment is one of the key parts of creating a fun, long-lasting clan. Letting prospective members apply to join on your recruitment thread or inviting people on an individual basis as you get to know them means you'll be more likely to have like-minded players in your clan.



Clan Leaders

In October 2008, we opened the clan leader forums for all established clans to take part in. This is a private forum for clan leaders only; it is kept private so that clan leaders have a place where they can feel confident about expressing their honest views and for giving feedback to us without fear of being scrutinised by anyone else. For you or your clan to access this forum, you need to be an established clan with a sizeable community, and for your clan leader to be officially recognised by us. This is to ensure that clans don't yo-yo between having access to this forum and not having access. For more information on accessing the clan leader thread, visit this forum thread.

Having your clan and clan leader being officially recognised by us has a number of advantages for your clan:
  • Direct access to the Clan Support J-Mods for any help, questions or advice that you have or need.
  • Meetings with Clan Support and other clan leaders, held on a weekly basis.
  • The ability to raise issues about your clan, the clan community, or anything else to all clan leaders in one forum.
  • Help and advice from experienced clan leaders and the knowledge and resources of specialist J-Mods.
  • Information about and help with planning clan events.

The clan leader forum isn't restricted to players whose clans are run through the RuneScape official forums, it is open to every RuneScape clan.



Clan Support

RuneScape Dinasty vs Violent Resolution
Clan Support is a part of our Community Management team dedicated to working with players, clans, the clan community and other teams within Jagex, with the aim of furthering our support of all RuneScape clans. It is led by J-Mods who have first-hand experience with running clans and experience of RuneScape.

Clan Support offers a number of different things for clans:
  • Regularly moderated forums with support and advice from J-Mods.
  • Advice from J-Mods on how to run a clan, the issues that can arise and general game knowledge.
  • Direct access to the Clan Support team through clan leaders.
  • Major Jagex-created events, such as the Jag Clan Cup.
  • J-Mod support for events created by clans/the clan community.
  • A clan database housing player-created information covering all RuneScape clans.
  • Passing on specific feedback to the RuneScape Content team regarding clans and their suggestions.

Anyone interested in clans might also like to read the Clan Submissions page, a semi-regular feature containing news from the clan community, clan interviews and reviews of recent clan events.