Welcome to the 13th Issue of Clan Soup, an issue filled to the brim with tasty words from Age of Conan's leading guilds. Before we get to the good eats though, let's get the technical stuff out of the way to begin. I want to start by taking a moment to remind everyone that we're always accepting new members into our cabinet of ingredients.



To sign up for Clan Soup, send an e-mail titled "Clan Soup Registration" to jobildo at ten ton hammer dot com with the following contents:

• Your Clan's Name
• Your Clan's Website (if applicable)
• An e-mail to use as a contact (for our use only)
• A few sentences about your Clan

Those few things will get you all geared up for the wondrous world of awesomeness that is Clan Soup, so don't just sit there... get that e-mail sent! You can read up on all that Clan Soup's about here.



And now, it's my pleasure to introduce to you our newest member.

New Members of the Soup

Devotion Guild - Clan Website



Devotion Guild is a long standing Hardcore Raiding Guild. We have a long success story in World of Warcraft becoming one of the dominant guilds on our old Server. We have moved over to this new game as a guild. We currently reside on the Bane server (cultural PvP). We have parts of our guild city built with more going up every week. Currently we are recruiting some key classes which will be updated on our site. We are looking for previous raid experience, over the age of 17 and available from 10pm Eastern Time till up to 3am Eastern for raiding. We thank you for your interest.

Weekly Clan News

Condemned - We're still recruiting. We have gotten the Keep, Trade Post, Temple, and Library up. We are beginning to make a name for ourselves. SLAYER RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shadow Company - I would like to call your attention to our guild video. Our mutual friend Martuk is buried in there somewhere (I recommend selecting the High Quality version!).



LINK

Ten Ton Hammer - This week the Ten Ton Hammer guild built its last two City structures! Now we just need all our walls and our fortress will be complete. After that? We just have to all get to 80 so we can move our domination to the Border Kingdoms.

Question of the Week

This week, I asked the Clans to bare their minds for the good of the game by requesting that they...



NAME THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FACING AGE OF CONAN, FROM A GUILD PERSPECTIVE, AND TO NAME THE GREATEST THING ABOUT AGE OF CONAN AS A GUILD.



I think it's safe to say that while there are a few issues that could really use some seeing-to, for the most part folks are having a blast with Age of Conan. It's up to Funcom now to listen to feedback like what these guilds presented and attend to any complaints. I have faith that they'll do just that. Here's a few of the responses that I received.

Scions of Fate - Thog Server: I think the biggest problem right now is the lack of guild tools. You can't set the permissions of the ranks they gave you nor can you create new ranks or change the names of the already existing ones. However Funcom has stated they will be updating the tools and guild UI in future patches so I am looking forward to that. There are other things that are advertised but are not in the game however. So I am waiting to see if we will get it later on. Especially a guild tax or at least the option of having one. Building a city is very expensive so i think they should put this back into the game.



As for the best thing, I don't know about any other guilds but my guild has helped out a lot in gathering resources and donating money to build our city. This is truly what being in a guild is all about. Coming together to accomplish a common goal. Not to mention it's a blast running all these brand new instances with your fellow guildmates and truly experiencing all that the game has to offer so far. I can't wait to see what else they put into this game.

Vigor Mortis - Wildsoul Server: The biggest problem for age of conan, from a guild perspective, is either the bugged professions or the lack of content for leveling. The bugged professions make it harder for the guild to function as a group and rely on each other for crafting, and bugged professions are demoralizing meaning there is less will to harvest things for the guild city.



Also, the lack of content makes it harder for the guild to level up so we can start doing instances, siege pvp etc. Very few people enjoy grinding mindlessly, however we have great faith in Funcom, and we are sure both these problems will be taken care of.



The best thing in age of conan for the guild, is in our opinion the guild city. Being able to create a city that we have to harvest materials for and create as a team, really strengthens the bonds of the guild members. Also, having a hub for crafting and socializing really adds something to the overall feel of the game.

Condemned - Doomsayer Server: Guild Cities, would have to be the biggest problem right now. For those of us on a PvP city it's all about the sieges, with out the ability to create a tier 3 city there is no end game. With all the buildings not working as intended it makes it hard for the guild to feel good about the achievements they have made towards a guild city. Yeah there is some PvE but how much fun is that really? We want to dominate the server and you just can't do that running an instance where you only fighting NPC's.



The best part also involves Guild Cities. Guild Cities, once they are working correctly, would have to be the best part (kind of a double edged sword there). They bring the guild together towards one purpose, and give everyone something that you can share as a group. Instead of yeah we beat such and such raid dungeon or we got some uber lewt. You can say yeah we have a tier 3 guild city that we all pulled together to create, and have started taking over the server by holding these battle keeps.

Fallen Wild - Dagon Server: Our biggest problem are the bugged resources and the bugs with crafting.
Our Leader and Guild Architect almost had a heart attack when all of his
skills and resourses vanished, just as he was about to draw up the plans
for our Library. We also have several Gem Cutters that have to log in and
out every time they want to cut a gem, it's holding back the development
of our city and making some members a little annoyed.



But then the best thing we've seen was on Saturday 31st of May when the whole Guild gathered at the site of our city and
partied while the first three buildings went up. We had to deal with
several Mammoth's and Rhino's all walking through our keep and trade post,
I'm sure you can imagine the clean up afterwards. . From my perspective,
having the whole Guild assembled in one place was the best thing so far
about AoC. It's gone a long way to building a real feeling of
'Togetherness' within Fallen Wild and we now have a greater goal to aim for.

Sanguiphoria: I wanted to get some member feedback for the questions this week as a guild is nothing without its roster. The members answers are all pretty similar. The biggest problem facing AoC from a guild perspective comes down to the guild tools either not being implemented yet or still unpolished. City buffs are not active yet, the guild bank is much too small since you can't store items in your city, no auto deposit tax system, and no alliance system has seemed to create unwanted drama between all guilds on our server.



Of course the game can still be played without these options but it sure would make the "fun factor" in playing a MMO much higher. The best thing about AoC as a guild is of course the great group of players we've been able to recruit and mold into our family.

Black Hand - Bloodspire Server: The biggest problem facing AOC from a guild perspective... I would have to say finding mature members – we are constantly struggling to keep our population up because we require our members to not act like complete morons. The ratio of morons to actual people we let stay in the guild is 5/1. We have to go through the recruitment process for each of these people and usually end up only keeping a fifth of them. This takes considerable time and effort that we could be using to level our characters. We understand that there are some guilds that take any and everyone, but we think that our approach is a better one.



The greatest thing about AOC as a guild – The sandbox content is great. Building a keep really requires your guild to pool resources and work together. Defending it and attacking others requires planning, coordination, and is great fun. The PVP is definitely the best part of this game for us. We hope that funcom will continue to deliver great content and more ways to pvp.

United By Legend - Zug Server: The biggest problem so far has been the lack of features. To elaborate, lack of taxes have put tremendous pressure on Guild members making money to compensate for members not contributing. Taxes were a genius idea, but it's heart breaking to not see them in game. We have managed to raise the majority of a tier 1 city walls are almost complete. But have seen absolutely no benefit from them for our members. Granted the city represents a monumental effort by our members to work together, but it frustrates me to no end that they do not have the stats or recipes to reward them for their effort. Guild Bank size is a joke, I already have my characters acting as over flow using my own space to compensate for the lack of guild banks size. There is no record of who deposited what into our bank so we cant give credit to the generous. Additionally I would like to see custom capes for guilds, if it were possible. All this would not be as bothersome if there was more communication from the Dev side to state what features are on the way, what features simply wont exist in the game either ever or in the near future, and what mechanics are in place currently to allow certain features to be come available to the Guild.



Though I came off harsh on my criticisms, this game is amazing. It is still very early in launch, I am sure many things are on their way. The greatest thing is sitting in ventrilo with my guild and hearing how impressed they are with the game and how happy they are that we have come together to play it.

Shadow Company: The worst things are no officer chat, no member notes functions, no customizable ranks, no customization of guild vault features.



Now for the greatest things. CITIES.. raising a keep is just fantastic. Now I want to see the ingame benefits/buffs working and it will be tremendous. Also be nice to have a call to guild city in-game skill.

Gladius: Well Gladius has a couple of things that we consider a guild problem. Guild cities don’t do anything atm. No NPC’s, no tradepost, nothing! Crafting is all but useless atm as well. And there's no content after level 50. We have had many players reroll just so they can wait for content.



We have had many great things for AoC for our guild. We have PVP’ed in mini games and we have also held guild meetings at our guild hall.

Varangian Order - Wiccana Server: The game being so new and the likelihood of change being relatively high, I would say that one of the more generic problems facing most guild leaders and members is planning in an environment of change. Not that the “change” is likely to be globally devastating in its implementation, but it is something that the wiser guilds will keep an eye on and plan for.



The better things though... communication is made easy, via the /tell and “guild chat” systems; this in addition to the player and guild banks (and the in-game “mail” system) that allows members to easily transfer items and share items with other guild members. Right off, this adds an “ease” of organization and support for members of guilds,
allowing them to focus on playing the game and not spending time on meeting up and transferring items.

Cleaning Up

That's it for this week folks. As you can see the Soup's really boiling lately. And just think all you have to do to have your clan highlighted is sign up to be a member of Clan Soup!



We're always accepting new members and all you have to do is follow the instructions found on this page. And don't forget to check out the Clan Registry to get a look at all the clans in one heaping mound of goodness! It's changing every week, so go take a look!



Until next time, eat well fellow Hyborians!