Welcome to the 14th Issue of Clan Soup. This one's chock full of updates from Age of Conan's premier guilds, so

get yourself strapped in. As always before we get the ball rolling, 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

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/28862">here

.



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

New Members of the Soup

Refugees - Clan Website



We are a group of mature, like-minded individuals - professionals, homemakers, students - who came together to form

what we believe to be a truly different kind of guild on February 7th, 2002. We are fathers, mothers, brothers,

sisters, grandparents, etc., leading very full lives outside of the realms of Hyboria as well as enjoying our time

here. Do not mistake our 'anti-uber' call to arms to mean we do not work toward playing in the end-game of Hyboria

or any other game we enter - quite the opposite. What it means is that we believe, strongly, that neither this

game, nor any other we enter, is going to consume our lives.



We believe that the word Honor is more than simply a word - it's a way of life. We believe that the players behind

the toons are what counts, not your level 80 totally-specced out ubermensch Stygian spoon-wielding Herald of Xotli,

but YOU, the player behind both that level 80 toon AND the level 2 Aquillonian Ranger you're dying to play but have

neglected because you're too busy chasing that next big 'shiny thing'. Step away from the shiny thing, step away

from neglecting your 'real life', and step into something truly different...



We are Refugees from the very thinking that defines 'uber'. Some guilds call themselves 'family' - and then

pressure you to show up and raid 3 times a week or lose your 'place in line' in the guild. Some people call you

'friend' - and then stop talking to you when you don't want to run raids until 4 a.m. every night of the week. We

have a dedicated TeamSpeak server that we use in order to get to know the REAL YOU and not the toon. We have fun,

we cut-up, we dungeon-crawl, we craft, we adventure and we experience this virtual world and others - together. And

we've now been doing it for 6 years straight! Isn't it time you did yourself a favor, did your friends and family a

favor, and found yourself a guild you can truly call 'home'? Somewhere that you truly feel like you're a part of

something special? Where the guild leaders and officers don't look at you as a number? This is your

invitation...your call to arms...your chance to truly embrace being something other than 'uber' and still enjoy the

world of Hyboria alongside people who will be glad to see your toon, happy to hear your voice, and who will miss

you when you're not online, but will know it means you're doing something else even more important than staring at

the pixels on your computer!



Some who read this will laugh at the fact that a guild like ours even exists. Some may even go so far as to flame

us for this post, or make fun of our name because they think it will somehow make them a 'bigger person'. Those are

not the people this post is meant for. It's meant for all the others, the ones who yearn for something more, to be

a part of something more than just themselves when they do log in to this world which we all like to escape to. To

THOSE people I say, 'Welcome! Come on in, sit down and stay awhile, won't you? Check us out for yourself. Make up

your own mind. We'll leave a fire burning in the hearth, and a tankard of ale on the table!'

The Damned - Clan Website



Starting in Everquest as a group of friends, playing through DAoC and the release games for the xbox360 The Damned

finally migrated to Lotro where we have evolved into one of the best social and raiding kinships there regularly

downing end bosses for member enjoyment. Setting up our second home in AoC has allowed us to move on to our next

stage of development and become a multi game guild. Catering mainly for the 'Mature' players who have knowledge of

long trousers and a blue sky outside of the bedroom we try and maintain a friendly social atmosphere whilst still

raiding with the dedication of a 'hardcore' raid section of players.

Weekly Clan News

Teutonic Interdiction - Teutonic Interdiction is no more! We have changed our name back to our old name of

TeamShortBus! We thought we would give a new name a try but it failed so were going back with the old name. We have

been growing steadily and have 2 towers, a keep, temple, and trade post up. Were still recruiting and looking for

more members so stop by the site at Teutonic-Interdiction.com which

will soon be TeamShortbus.net.

Question of the Week

This week, I asked the Clans to impart upon us all just how they feel about Crafting in Age of Conan.



CRAFTING - ARE YOU ENJOYING IT? WHY OR WHY NOT?



I'll not bore you all with my words, and instead I'll just show you exactly what our guilds had to say on the

subject.

The Destroyer's Legion: City building is tedious and expensive. Gathering mats for it is ok
especially with your own resource rich zone. The having to buy the
mats make a set of prints and turn them in for quest credit then have
to buy another set of mats and make the same prints so you can a build
is not much fun. I understand they want it to be expensive since it is
a city but they could have done it differently.

Tainted Souls: Well let's make a breakdown of the crafting professions from our PoV and see how enjoyable

they can be.



Alchemy: Alchemy can't progress cause some of the rare mats are totally missing from the game.



Gemcutting: It's my personal choice as a prof. but still can't get over the fact of how badly bugged it is.

To complete the first quest you have to either log on and off 3 times making 1 gem /time ,or change instances or

pray to all the hyborian gods in 26 different languages. You can't see the stats of the gems you want to make

before making them so it's a bit of luck if you don't follow the forums to actually get a gem useful to you. After

3 alleged fixes for gemcutting it is still bugged.It doesn't crash you anymore but not all bonuses are applied.



Weapon/Armorsmithing: These seem to work ok after the fixes for the silks and various other adjustments. Of

course with gems still bugged you can't get the full potential of what you make/ buy.



Architect: The only truly busy craft in the game but only cause of the guild cities.Our guild architect is a

busy bee most of the day and he got investigated by FC for spending large sums of money.Doh! The only real bug

encountered is when you go to tier2 there is a pretty good chance you will lose the t1 plans from your book .



Gathering: To be honest these are quite fun .I don't know if it's the chance of spawning a random mob or how

you have to look for them but i like it. of course the bugs ain't missing from here as well but doesn't make em

less enjoyable.The only frustrating thing i can find is the low drop chance of the rare ingredients you need to

find between changing tiers of materials.



Overall once again the crafts have good potential. But are not quite there yet.

Vigor Mortis: We are enjoying crafting quite a bit. Gathering items in this game is actually a relatively

fun way to spend your day, and the advancement system the crafting professions have is great. However most of us

are very far behind on our armour crafting due to the leather bug that was fixed this Monday. Harvesting leather in

the game is a real pain in the neck, because the creatures in the harvesting zones run away from you making them

difficult to catch, and seem to hardly drop any leather at all. Personally, 2 days of farming leather has provided

me with 5 rough leather, hardly enough to get on with my leather harvesting quests, or to craft any items.



In short, the crafting in the game is very well made, and is pretty entertaining. However its had its fair share of

kicks below the belt because of bugs, both the cotton bug, the leather bug, the gem bug and so on.

Cleaning Up

That's it for this week folks. We're nearly one month into the live version of Hyboria and the wheels are just now

starting to churn. So just remember that 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

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/28862">this page

.



Until next time, eat well fellow Hyborians!