Indeed, many players are finding it increasingly difficult to be able to even afford to join a clan, let alone found one; many will remember the human interest story we ran recently about one player who was left with nothing after purchasing a 100,000qp clanhall.

With this in mind, a group of entrepeneurs have launched Clan, a new generic product affordable to any player by means of the lack of frills or imagination seen in other, more established clans.

To ensure costs are kept to a minimum, the following policies have been introduced.

• clan channel will only be available in uppercase characters
• clan maze will consist of a single, empty room. If the clan proves successful, this may be upgraded to a single 3-room maze with up to 2 guards
• all clan logos, equipment, and room descriptions will be without color, name, or description. For example, the clan portal will simply be <clan portal>
• a new 'global morgue' system, where, on dying, the members will be able to retrieve their equipment from a corpse left in the room where they died.

At present, membership is on a strict 'invite only' basis, with positions being offered only to the most deserving and tragic cases they can find.