What Is a Clan in "Halo 3"?
"Halo 3" is the third major revision to the "Halo" series of first-person shooter games for the Microsoft Xbox and Xbox 360 console gaming platform. A clan is a social organization of people who like to play "Halo" and other games together as a team on multiplayer online events and tournaments.
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Clan Support In Different Versions
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"Halo 2" had in-game support for clans, effectively letting each player make a list of up to 100 other players. When a member of that list would log onto the local game server, both players would be notified so they could initiate text-based chat and link up to play together. In addition, "Halo 2" allowed clans to put badges together that would show up next to their names in the game, allowing players to publicly broadcast their clan affiliation. The original version of "Halo" did not have this feature, and when development moved on to "Halo 3," this feature was not replicated in the latest version.
How Clans Form
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Clans are, by their nature, an informal grouping. What causes them to form are a group of people who play "Halo" or other games together and who swap some out-of-game personal contact information. A number of clans have started out as housemates and college roommates who graduated and use "Halo" as a way to keep in touch with their friends over longer distances. They may also actively recruit on public servers, trying to find people with comparable skill levels in the game.
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Clan Recruitment
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Most clans will actively promote themselves with websites showing screen captures of recent clan events, often with bulletin boards and challenge matches. Some clans form rivalries with other clans, or form alliances. Clan-on-clan death matches and tournaments are routine social events, and in some ways, "Halo 3" clans work like guilds in "World of Warcraft" -- they provide a way to make sure there's always someone to play with in a multiplayer environment, so there's always someone to "watch your back."
Clan Behaviors
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Because clans are largely informal, different clans have different attitudes about what is and is not acceptable behavior; some clans focus heavily on killing new players as they join a public server, a practice called "griefing." Other clans focus on building user-generated content and inviting other clans to come and play in it. With the removal of formal support for clan rosters inside the game with "Halo 3," most of the clan-vs.-clan competition has moved to Internet message boards and a few informal clan rating sites.
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