I remember in the aftermath of Halo 3 everyone was begging Bungie to bring back clan support - one of the most interesting and at that time one-of-a-kind feature for Halo 2 - but Bungie ignored them.
Then Halo 2 was shut down all together and many people were angry and upset. I myself played Halo 2 on live in its final days and I had a blast. I didn’t think the gametypes were as good as Halo 3’s, but the BTB maps were much better.
Everyone then started begging Bungie to put clan support in Halo Reach, a request that was met with silence, until one day I remember reading a thread where a Bungie member explained that the reason for the lack of clan support was because it acted as a ‘second friend list’. Clan support was around before Xbox Live had friend lists, and one of the main reason Microsoft claimed they needed to turn off Halo 2 was because it would allow them to increase the friend limit.
This seemed like a solid reason as to why clan support couldn’t return, but then I thought of my own idea. How about have a clan feature, but people in your clan must already be in your friends list. You simply select the members you want to invite, and then they can choose to join or not. Perhaps run a lot of the clan support through Waypoint (it would boost the number of active forum members a ton), and you can choose to enforce the armor they wear, the colour of their armor, and their emblem (all these would only apply when playing in the clan battle playlist).
It would be a way of bringing together groups of friends battling it out for supremacy, having fun as their clan ranks up (use the same system as individuals in order to rank up, but average the whole team in order to find the answer).
I have been suggesting pretty much this exact suggestion since before Reach came out, but it appears my solutions fell on deaf ears.
To be honest in my opinion clans are the worst thing to happen to Halo.
They’re usually are formed by the younger audience of Halo. They often have little point other than battling other clans and do not contribute to the community. They cause arguments between other clans and rip apart the social framework of Xbox. I can list hundreds of reasons clans are pointless and very childish.
I myself play MLG with a team of four, actually I’m in transition at the moment but I feel MLG is much more rewarding, don’t get me wrong there are really bad and unhelpful MLG’s out there but they’re the Gamebattles side of MLG.
Real competitors do a lot for the community and most importantly MLG has a purpose and that is to increase individual performance and team performance in order to win and win money.
I think if we were to try and bring back some sort of “Social Grouping” they should move away from clans and call them something new for a start. Then create a in game leaderboard system like MLG Gamebattles. Where teams can find matches and pit the teams against each other in the form of healthy competition.
What’s so bad about clans? Sure there are a lot of annoying ones made by younger fans, but I love to play with mine. We have become close friends because of it and we work together as a team in games, they way halo should be played. Not sure if there needs to be a new playlist though, we already have squad slayer and BTB. If you want to have a clan battle, then you can just search for one in the file browser or just come on over here to waypoint.
This is HALO not runescape. They should be called “Teams”, and they should support them, allowing you to make team logos for your armour and naming your team. A bit like “Noble Team”
I loved Clans. I never saw the “second friends list” as a really valid reason for discontinuing them. Clans would’ve have made Reach better because you could find a group of people separate from your friends list who would be interested in what you were interested in. Make firefight/campaign teams, have someone to play customs with, or even go into matchmaking with. The best part about Halo is the social aspect of it, and you can meet some very like minded people in clans.
My favorite part of clans in Halo 2 was I ALWAYS had people online to play custom games with. When Reach launched I remember one guy made 5-6 Xbox silver accounts as a way to sort of make a clan for people who would be playing Reach. Just shows how appreciative the community would be if they were finally brought back in Halo 4. It really was a cool feature.
> [SNIP] I myself play MLG with a team of four, actually I’m in transition at the moment but I feel MLG is much more rewarding, don’t get me wrong there are really bad and unhelpful MLG’s out there but they’re the Gamebattles side of MLG. [SNIP]
^This. Red text.
Squads, seem like a better idea to me. The same idea OP suggests for armor, emblem, colors, etc. except only 4 - 5 players per squad. They would be, like clans on 2, able to play in a specific playlist, with the armor/emblem/color changing idea like above. Team colors would not be present, the squads would actually have their clan colors showing in-game instead of Red vs Blue.
I think this is probably one of the better ideas I have seen.
I honestly don’t understand how people find being in a clan to be fun… I USED to be in numerous clans when i started playing XBL, but then I realized how dumb it really was. for example, why do you HAVE to wear the same emblem and armor that your clan leaders tell you to wear? to represent that you’re a member of 1 of the 1000’s of clans in the halo community? NO, you don’t have to wear the same armor or emblem. you can choose whatever you want. Clan leaders just peer pressure you into changing it or else they will remove you from the clan. Also, I just find it to look extremely stupid when multiple people have the same emblem and armor when i go into matchmaking. I honestly support actual teams, whether for Arena or MLG, as they can take things more competitive. But what do clans do when they get “competitive”? They run BTB with warthogs and ghosts, then go on the forums and spam it with clan challenges for more BTB, only on Custom games.
But where do they go with this??? They act like being a clan leader is their job, but really the only money they could possibly make is from their own clan members donating! And it’s not like all of your clan could go to a live event and perform to win. Do you get where I’m going with this? MLG and Gamebattles!!! In gamebattles, you can ACTUALLY get a sponsor. In MLG, you can actually play competitive and get better at the game! Heck, if you even desire, you can make money from playing it too! Whether at actual MLG events or just a local one.
Long story short, I just feel like clans have no place or reason in the halo community, and are just for saying “hey i’m in a clan! you want to join?! I’ll get a promotion if you do!”. but with MLG and gamebattles, you can actually show off your skills as a team, you know… without the warthog or ghost.