Previously, Production Director Chris Sigaty announced that Clan support was coming to StarCraft II with Heart of the Swarm. As of our Beta Patch 2.0.1 this week, testers will be able to create and join Clans and put this new feature through its paces. Here’s a first look:

Anyone can create or join a Clan, and doing so gives you access to the Clan window. In the Clan window, you’ll find a completely private chat channel, a News tab where Clan affairs can be posted for all members to read, an Info tab where officers can post Clan information, and a Members roster.

When you create a Clan, both a Clan name and a Clan Tag designation are required. All of the members of your Clan will have their character name pre-pended with the Clan’s Tag. The Clan Leader is able to promote members to the rank of Officer in the Clan (and demote, when necessary).

We also have a few notes about Clan functionality in the beta for you:

- Clan names must be 3-24 characters long, and will be case sensitive, allowing spaces, numbers, periods, apostrophes, and commas.

- Clan Tags must be 2-4 2-6 characters long, and are also case sensitive, allowing letters and numbers.

- Clan names and Tags must adhere to standard name policies.

- The Clan Tag is automatically pre-pended to a player’s name.

- There is a limit of 50 members per Clan.

Our goal with Clans in StarCraft II is simple -- we want to bring people together in ways that make sense for allowing players to organize into groups, communicate with each other, and recognize others in-game. Like other new features being tested in the beta, Clans is a work in progress, and we’re looking forward to testing it with you.

But wait! There’s more.

This is the first part of a larger social system being introduced in Heart of the Swarm.  While Clans are geared towards teams of players participating competitively in StarCraft II, we’re working on support for Groups: players who want to associate casually, and in larger numbers.  We expect that Groups might be focused on a specific genre of Arcade game, geographic location, BarCraft, community website, popular personality, or eSports organization. How you use Groups will be completely up to you!

Both the Clans and Groups features will be made available to Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm players.

looks good, interesting to see how we can use that in recruitment.

A feature which should have been included there from the start... finally after a long period... also only 50 ppl max ... good it's finally there, but should have been added way before...

I agree the clan system is great, but its super late, it should have been incorporated into Wings of Liberty IMO.

They are going to update Wings of Liberty in the upcoming week. In this update the clans and groups will be included.

http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/7302802/

ERMAHGURD

ITS FAPTASTIC D:<

The update was large but well worth it.

I noticed that there are already 2 clans with TAW in the name.

[TAW] The Art of Warfare

[TAW1] The Art of Warfare 1

yep...a space-saver...just so we can have the names reserved when the time comes...

Given they had a whole system set in wc3 this is really late. Isn't group more appropriate for TAW then clan since it can hold more members or are there significant differences in the system?

good stuff!

NupidStoob:

Given they had a whole system set in wc3 this is really late. Isn't group more appropriate for TAW then clan since it can hold more members or are there significant differences in the system?

Here are the differences between a CLAN and GROUP...

Maximum members:

Group = unlimited

Clan = 50

Maximum Per Character:

Group = 20

Clan = 1

Can be Public:

Group = Yes

Clan = No

Tag:

Group = No

Clan = Yes

Like Clans, each Group has a designated chat channel, a News tab where stories can be posted, an Info tab where officers can post a brief description of the Group, and a Members roster.

While you are only able to join a single Clan, you can join many different Groups. Additionally, a nearly unlimited number of players can join a Group.

The Groups feature is a way for you to meet and interact with other StarCraft II players who share common interests. Accordingly, when you create a Group, you'll select a category that best describes the type of Group you are creating. These categories include topics such as BarCraft for Groups that are interested in finding and keeping in touch with friends they’ve made at BarCraft events, Strategy and Coaching for Groups that are looking to share their favorite strategies and helping others improve their play, and many more. Once the Group is created, others will then be able to search for the Group by name or browse through the Groups by category.

When a Group is created, you will also be able to designate whether you want the group to be open to the public or private, requiring an invitation to join. Private Groups won’t appear in search results.

TAW already has 2 clans (TAW and TAW1). Having a public TAW group would help to increase our visibility.

whats the standard clan tag for batallion 1 members?

We currently have two clans in place for StarCraft II. The tags will automatically added to your name when you join one of the clans. Talk to one of the officers or DI's / TI's for an invite to one of them.

Our community group is listed as The Art of Warfare Community. It is open to the public and anyone can join.

The european group is simply called TAW, feel free to join and play some games!