Are all clans dead?

It's not that "all" the clans are dead.  Rather, it's that there never really was a clan scene to begin with.

By clan scene I mean a situation where there would be numerous clans and organized competitive leagues or ladders.  The problem is that this game has never had high enough online player counts to support a real clan scene.  I bought the game in mid-March and came online in late March or early April and the most people I've ever seen playing it online at one time is 250, with more recent player counts maxxing out at about 100.  There are a couple clans here and there but there isn't any real organized clan activity.

I beg to differ...

Clan scene at start, although not huge, was indeed present however sooner or later pretty much everyone realised that game simply isn't made for clan / competitive scene mainly due to lack of two things:

1. Lack of shorter / smaller competitive game modes which would bring wars down from 2 hours + to about 30 or so minutes per match... Yes, games today can indeed last as little as that too but only in case of total noob bash or domination, however, in case of equally matched teams game simply lasts for AGE and therefore isn't suitable for anything else but casual play...

2. Lack of any clan support, leaderboards, leagues, competitions and other similar motivators...

So yes, clan scene is DEAD as dead can be and will stay that way until 2 points above are taken care of...

It is utter shame since this game can easily create decent size competitive scene if managed and directed that way.

Well, as far as leagues and ladders go, it could be handled manually and there are places where ladders could be set up (Clanbase, TeamWarfare.com, etc.).  I don't think that's what did in the clan scene.  IMHO, an online multiplayer game needs large player counts to support a thriving clan community.  If the game had had 1000 people on at one time then maybe we could have had a 30 team ladder with about 10 members per team.

RG is still alive.

Though we are going throuh a little bit of a lull, it is only becouse of the holliday season.

We currently have a post going on in these same forums. We arn't based on competition like most clans, so we don't die as easily.

We'd love to see you, (or anyone else) active on teh RG boards, (wheather you intend to join or not doesn't matter)

http://rebelgeniusclan.freeforums.org

I'd think clans could just concentrate on training, friendlies, modding etc... as an alternative to the traditional competitive formats.

I'd think there's a number of options to make the games shorter, though?

Technically, under your vision of what clans could be they wouldn't really be clans, IMHO, but rather community groups.  The traditional concept of what a clan is includes a competitive interclan component.

Here are two links to an example of what a real clan scene might look like (from the now long-defunct but excellent Proving Grounds ladders):

http://web.archive.org/web/20031228174006/www.provinggrounds.com/ladder.cfm?ladder=73

http://web.archive.org/web/20040212020323/www.provinggrounds.com/ladder.cfm?ladder=5

The links lead to an archive showing now defunct 3v3 and 5v5 Capture-theFlag ladders from the game Unreal Tournament (1999--the original and best).

(Be patient it may take 30 seconds for those arcived links to load.)

I think the irony in here is that people wish [DT] were dead

Many sins clans dont stay alive for long, since there is not much to compete against.

GE and all other good clans simply disapeared because multiplayer was so u nchalenging and boring. It s a real shame, since Sins is a good game.

For example, the calans do well in game like Supreme commander, where average skill level of a player is way above the average 'i spamm cobalts, then die horribly and quit' sins player.

The lack of intuitive game systems dont help it much.

There is no unit managers, like in sup com. For example, its night impossible for make a "capital ships only" game without a mod. And its almostnight impossible to get anyone playing mod since there is no auto download or archive system in IC.

Same goes for custom made competetion level maps. In random maps, winner is desidet by who gets boned less by the map.

I gather the Quake 1 community epitomized what a clan originally was, and probably ladder gaming also originated there. But there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then, and a clan as a general concept now encompasses wildly different game communities. My first online game, and my first clan, was with Battlezone in '98. We definitely did friendlies with other clans, and even had our own player-organized campaign with a small number of clans participating. However there was very little ladder play for clans, the ladder was 1v1!

Wikipedia seems to adopt a definition like this - competition may be an  aspect of clans but not necessarily. Even things like corporations in Eve Online are considered clans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_(computer_gaming)

Yes, the community aspect would certainly come to the forefront, but since there would be clan vs clan friendlies I'd say we're still talking about clans and not mere community groups.