design Gameplay Clans vs Player-made Clans

[Ueda]

Dear Ninja,

Although the Clan system is still quite awhile away, since I'm making the changes to display name policy. I should quickly explain why we're going this route for Clans. It has been the plan all along for clans to be a selection of presets, unlike Organizations, which players can make and join.

What Clans are in the Ninja World
When designing the clan system, the first thing I want to look at is what clans are supposed to be.

In most cases, a clan is a family. When there is a structure, a leader, an elder, and there is still a clan house or home.
It's a bloodline in some cases, when there are few remaining ninja in your clan, and there is no longer a family structure, we know it as a bloodline. You trace your special abilities back to a bloodline lineage.

We know ninja from a some clans can potentially learn special jutsu passed down through their clan, and ninja from other clans sometimes have bloodline limits that can give them special abilities naturally - like doujutsu (eye jutsu).

Clans can be small, but they can also be large. They tend to stay within the village, but can decide as a whole to turn their backs on the village sometimes, and have small subsets remain.

Clans don't pop out of nowhere. They are ingrained in a village's history, when generations die, generations below still continue their legacy.

So I took all this into consideration for Nin Online's Clan system.

What Clans will be like in Nin Online (Not Anytime Soon™)

Do note: All of this is subject to changes, I am still deciding a lot of things regarding WHEN you choose clans. There is a chance we might do it later in the game and not at character creation for example.

On character creation, you select from a variety of clans of that village. Each clan will have unique outfit(s), and a default hair color or eye color recommendation. Some clans will have fixed eye colors for their unique doujutsu (eye jutsu). Some clans don't have eye jutsu and do not limit your hair colors. (All of these colors are still changeable in-game with the premium eye color changer - take those as colored contact lenses and rainbow hair dye - hair dye literally, but your character's natural hair color is always your clan's)

Having a manageable number of presets per village will allow me to give each clan unique jutsu and outfits, because it will become a sustainable feature. If clans were player made, they would not be able to get these things because we cannot infinitely add more clothes into the game for every player clan made. This would be unsustainable for me as an artist and for our server which cannot infinitely add more items. Every clan outfit is one less important that everyone else can wear in-game.

It will also allow us to create clan houses for each clan, where you could learn your new clan jutsu and get clan clothing pieces.

Having preset clans will create belonging for new ninja, and make it so you have to work together as family. We'll be able to see special RP occurrences like an entire branch of a clan decided to leave their village and become a sub-set of their clan as criminal missing ninja. You might see that older players are less accepting of new members in a clan and do not work together to create a welcoming clan. This will cause splits in the clan. Whereas in clans where the senior family members have good structure and are welcoming will be more holistic and united. We will see clans that dominate the politics in their villages and clans that feel underappreciated and leave. New ninja who choose that clan in the future will also be more likely to join their kin as missing ninja as being a ninja from that clan would lead them to being ostracized by their village.

The way "clans" in Nin Online are right now, you see players who form their family name and have people change their name to join them. It doesn't feel permanent, unlike what a family should be. Having a limited selection of permanent clans that will remain around indefinitely will make it so that each clan will potentially have a large number of family members. Instead of 5 or 6 player-made clans with 10+ members that see maybe 5-6 online at a time.

I'd love to give the chance for current pre-made clans to have their clans turned into one of the preset clans for their village. This will most likely be the case. I will of course have my own ideas that I might want to impose onto the clan's overall aesthetic and name (got to keep them as lore friendly with the other clan names) and of course, I will be the one to decide what clan gets what jutsu as that falls into balance.

I hope this gives you a better idea of the vision for the in-game clan system of the future. 
Don't get your hopes up on when you'll see any of this anytime soon!

Regards,
Rory

[Niti]

It is a much more interesting approach with preset clans, rather than the current "Family" system, that we (players) are using.
It would lead to, as you state, more RP occurrences for players where RP normally wouldn't be a factor.
For instance, a long-time rogue ninja could be a part of a noble Leaf or Sand clan, almost forcing them to RP with one another on an encounter.

[Ueda]

16 minutes ago, Takami Suwa said:

Well some stuff looks cool indeed..
Tho what about an option of being clanless? Not everyone in a village is supposed to be in a clan, right?

We can certainly offer the option for that, but the chances of people choosing it will be much much lesser because most people will want to be included and get at least one of the benefits.

[Reap]

These are some nice ideas and will be fun to see the different clans and abilities of each. Let me know if you need a extra hand in this 

[Meids]

Well, I am, and will always be opposed to player made clans. 
It would hurt me if I were to see some troll clan named xXx_PusyyDestroyers_xXx walking around the town
So yeah, proceed with preset clans, many people prefer that.

[Light]

Non-Clan should have their benefits as well. The clan concept in general is good.

[Tatara]

If clans do get their own jutsu I could only tolerate clans with extra abilities being made if they are not to access for example, forbidden jutsu. I wouldn't want to be at disadvantage just because I am not in a clan.

Also, there's nothing really wrong like you try to point out with the current ones. The large clans that were made example Kuraen, Hozuki, Mirana, Sasayaki all function and were large/semi- sized groups that became more than just an ingame clan. Some even already have their own uniforms.

So in my opinion forcing players to only choose from selected few clans instead of creating their own, limits the possibilities of imagination and rp and simply amassing a horde of players into few clans isnt really good idea.

Also Name-changes do not affect gameplay in anyway since the game is rp/pvp, again taking out the freedom and possibilities just to make some ban-tracking job easier... Joining a clan will never feel permanent if you dont commune with other members and just do it for the name change or for some "ability"... sigh

PS. Game already feels limited because of certain "rules", don't make it less so. Also I am in no way trying to disrespect or bad mouth the ideas set by the development team and am simply stating my honest opinion on the case.

 

 

[Darth Vader]

So what are the clan names for each individual village?

[MrChubb]

Hmm, will we have to reset to get the clans? I would be willing to do that lol

[Itachi Uchiha]

If clans get benefits like their own jutsu, then people who do not pick a clan should get a bonus as well. Perhaps like 15 extra stat points at character creation. Some people don’t want to join a group. And with this system it’s almost forced.