Clans

Clans are formalized and organized (although some only very loosely) groups that players can join for purposes of battling other focused clans in an all out clan war (clanmatch in matchmaking) in team games and for practice, or share a common interest such as film production and forge. Clans exist in all three of the Halo games, but are becoming less prevalent in the older ones, especially Halo: Combat Evolved, in which they are somewhat hard to find. In Halo: Custom Edition, clans are still easy to find and host multiple dedicated servers in an effort to provide a place for people to play and spread "publicity" about the clan. Halo 2 is the only Halo game which allows actual clans that appear as a list, or as a built in option.

Halo 2 has a clan system that allows you to hold up to 100 people. In Halo 2, any given gamertag may only belong to one clan at a time.

There is no built-in clan ladder on Halo 3 but people with the same emblems and/or service tags usually claim to belong to groups. Due to the lack of a built in system, people often organize clans externally, supplimenting unique uniforms with websites and bungie.net. These clans are usually the much larger communities of gamers, sometimes devoted to other games in addition to Halo. Examples of these large communities include MLG and LCU, the two largest Halo 3 gaming communities in the world. These are often created for competitive reasons, and are highly devoted as demostrated by the league's dedication to organize these logistical organizations. This kind of devotion includes keeping a close eye on where the members are and what they are doing, holding meetings with the members, raising money to fund the community and the websites, constantly recruiting to maintain the level of popularity and keeping the group from disbanding.

Ranking System
The Halo 2 clan system has a ranking system that consists of the following:


 * Peon- Lowest of all the classes. Can only participate in clanmatches. Usually used as punishment within a clan.
 * Member- Average member of the clan. Can recruit people to a clan, via clan invite and participate in clanmatches.
 * Staff- Managers of the clan. They have all the privileges accorded to the lower ranks, but with the ability of changing ranks of lower ranking clan members (members to staff, member to peon, etc). Can also boot lower ranking members from the clan.
 * Overlord- Admin/Leader(s) of the clan. Have all the privileges of staff and clan except with considerably more power.