StarCraft Clans
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The popular Real-Time Strategy (RTS) video game StarCraft was released by publisher Blizzard Entertainment in 1997. It remains extremely popular to this day. Nowadays the ability to play multiplayer games over the internet is a standard feature in RTS games, but it was still very new when StarCraft was released. Since then, many in-game clans have formed, uniting groups of like minded individuals under a common banner. These clans have two distinct aims: firstly, to allow structured continuous tournaments between individual players, and secondly to allow participation in other more community-focused events such as map creation.
Melee/ladder game clans
People who play melee or ladder games, such as the [AzN], [K9], [ISI], [CG] or [MB] clans, focus on defeating other players in person to person challenges. Clan ratings are based on game results and chronological seniority. The purpose of joining a clan is to have a constant source of people to play, to challenge your skills against high level opponents, and a sense of camaraderie.
Clan Wars
A clan is also created to allow them to compete with other clans in clan leagues and other competitions where a clan can earn the StarCraft community's respect. Some clans have become extremely well known because of their success and even have professional players in their ranks which play the game full time with sponsors.
Use Map Settings Clans
Channels
Most clans have a channel that represents their clan. In effect, it is simply a private chatroom where 'members' can gather. Aside from this, any group of people (clan or not) can effectively claim a room as their own. Utilizing the WC3 system, one can legitimately created a clan channel, wherein the name of the channel will brandish power to the user of that name. For example, joining the channel "Clan XoX" would give power to the User XoX. The other way one can take power in a channel, for moderator purposes, is if one joins 'Op Username'.Map creation
Many of the maps produced have almost nothing in common with StarCraft, due to the ability to change unit stats, names, and triggers for more stragetic gameplay. Heroes of Might and Magic is an example of a map based upon fantasy that has nothing to do with the StarCraft universe. Ties between people to produce maps for widespread play has resulted in private communities forming. Maps bring together clans, and pit them against each other. Such a situation follows:
One of the largest of these communities is the Lord of the Rings community. Maps of the Lord of the Rings (LotR) variety are for multiplayer, and usually require 5-8 players for a balance in factions to be reached. Due to this minimum player requirement, clans can provide an instant source of reliable players and feedback for map makers. One such player was Melkor, who was a part of the clan White Council . Over the course of four years, Melkor created the maps that would define future Lord of the Rings maps. He created maps that focused on a few exceptionally powerful hero units, a concept that revolutionized future LotR maps. While armies would still play a role, most practiced players would use the hero units to strategically defeat opponents while avoiding similar strikes. Middle-earth version Pre Lord of the Rings and version Post Lord of the Rings are examples of this, and are still known as two of the more popular Lord of the Rings maps. The player Ar-Adunakhor, who created the map Lord of the Rings version Last-Alliance, achieved a quasi-celebrity status due to the popularity of his map. Less popular productions of his include Diablo: War of the Soulstones SE.
Community structure
The purpose of UMS clans is to provide the community structure for socializing with a source of like-minded individuals who play similar maps. Players achieve status by being skilled in maps considered to be most fairly balanced or strategic minde. The map Pre-LotR was once the trademark of the Lord of the Rings community, but it slowly fell out of favour, because it became too popular and thus overplayed. Other maps soon preceeded Pre-LotR, having the same impact on the community as each predecessor. Maps with similar designs faced the same problem as Pre-LotR, albeit not to as great an extent. Such maps include The Rings of Power, Quenta Silmarillion, Sauron's Deceit, and presently War of Power.
Initial clan politics were governed by personality. However, as the LotR community aged and grew people were unable to interact as frequently. In game talents became the determinant of personal worth. Eventually, even this system was abandoned as new players were unable to match older players who had accumulated thousands of hours of experience over the course of a few years. As the players that began the society leave the game in favour of post-secondary education, the community has fractured. A main group remains, with internal politics usually based upon an ever-shifting friendship network, similar to most highschools. Other groups remain, often the remnants of one or more older clans that choose to avoid the "newer" players in favour of occasional gaming with older friends. However, due to their seclusion, they are not considered to be a part of the LotR community.
Duration
Clans that survive on Battle.Net revolve more around the melee aspect of the game, as opposed to the UMS part. Such examples of a melee clan would be the clan Sphere, which has more than a million gamers#redirect [[Template:Fact]] worldwide associated with them. They encapsulate all sorts of players found in these games. However, many clan members will use methods of communication outside of battle.net to play other video games. This leads to the creation of multi-game clans that share a single channel for the purpose of interacting with internet friends. Other channels are used for a meeting place of players doing a certain thing in these games. An example of this type of channel is Op Baal. Several players choose to stay in this channel over public channels, so that they are able to meet with online friends, forming a channel community. While not bound together as a clan, channel communities such as Op Baal allow players to associate in a way similar to being in a clan together, without formal ties.
Another large faction on Battle.Net, due to the popularity of anime, is the focus on Dragonball Z. Many gamers have jumped onto that stream, and the creation of the clan DBZGT has revolutionized the movement of DBZ geared players. So much, in fact, that one may not attempt to play a UMS game without seeing such a game present in the lobby.
An channel that brings many associates together for the purpose of Role playing is the channel Town Square. While no clan claims this channel, the people form a single fluctuating community.
Town Square
A main hub for the roleplaying community on StarCraft. It serves as a channel where people can scoop up players and host one of a variety of games, or remain in channel and socialize. Roleplaying has one of the oldest and longest lasting communities on Battle.Net, focusing on descriptive dialogue, similar to Dungeons & Dragons as well as UMS map. Because of its longevity and open community, the channel almost always has over a dozen active players at any time of day. This has even allowed for a genre of maps to be created. They generally allow players to create their own units, and use these units to act out a story with other players. In essence, this allows you to go anywhere on the map, and make a base with whatever heroes one chooses, allowing for complete freedom and full control of every unit in the game. Once the player has mastered quick spawn (the ability to spawn a lot of different units, without making too many copies (massing)), the game becomes quicker, and the time until you can actually roleplay decreases. There are many favourite Rp maps in the SC community, but the most well known maps were created by Volcove99, aka 'Volc'. Such maps as Volc's Jungle, and Volc's Desert are still being played. Some maps are specially made to contain terrain that is fit to make a legitimate castle (Walls designed to allow a player to create rooms such as a throne room, a court, et cetera). Roleplaying has also had a significant impact on Warcraft 3, and is played in the same fashion.Roleplaying outside of Starcraft takes place on Diablo 1 and 2. Instead of hosting a map, characters host the D1/D2 game and move inside it, like one would play Everquest or World of Warcraft. Players themselves become the main tool to RP, instead of controlling a kingdom or group of spawned units.
Entertainment association
Literature plays a large role in UMS clans, as they are often based upon books of the fantasy genre. While Lord of the Rings clans are most popular, clans from Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series and George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series also exist. The TV show Dragonball Z and the video game series Final fantasy have also both inspired clans of followers, as has almost any visible media with a significant audience.
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