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Age of Conan: Unchained Dev Journals: The Iron Tower
The team over at Funcom has penned this developer journal giving us details on the newest dungeon in the game: The Iron Tower.
By Guest Writer on October 20, 2009
The grim Iron Tower stood apart from the citadel, amid a maze of narrow streets and crowding houses where the meaner structures, appropriating a space from which the more fastidious shrank, had invaded a portion of the city ordinarily alien to them. The Tower was in reality a castle, an ancient, formidable pile of heavy stone and black iron, which had itself served as the citadel in an earlier, ruder century.
- Robert E. Howard, The Hour of the Dragon
From the hands of Conan himself the Iron Tower was founded as a prison of civil confinement for the most malicious and vile criminals within Aquilonia. Murders, thieves and other deviant corrupted souls are here awaiting their unforseen judgement before the hands of Mitra.
The Iron Tower brings the final chapter from the epic story of Tarantia Common District. This closure introduces a vast amount of new and challenging game play including four new epic boss encounters, five mini-boss encounters, the chance of five rare boss encounters, and many new exciting rewards for levels 78 to 80.
Towering over the rooftops below, The Iron Tower can be seen from anywhere in the Tarantia Commons District. Previously inaccessible for players on the Age of Conan servers, the new dungeon is now opening up for adventurers with who dare to face the many challenges within.
A new challenge
The Iron Tower is a level 78 and up group dungeon that lies in the heart of the commons district and functions as the climax of the epic story from Tarantia Commons. Players pick up from where the story ended in the commons between the conflict with the Wharf Rats, Crows and Daughters. Much like the first chapter, the developers wanted to throw the players head first into the storyline and both offer some closure to the story as well some new challenges to indoor encounters.
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The tower hosts some of Aquilonia's most vile criminals while also entwining them into the plot. As you journey through the tower you will notice that the difficulties of the content scales depending on what level your currently at in the tower. In addition, you'll also want to take notice our new approach to the content and how the AI uses their classes. As you go higher up the tower your opponents will use more abilities and reflect what type of classes they are in different ways. This will help add diversity and allow more utilization on what classes you should bring to the fight than what we've done before.
One of the key characters from the previous chapter that you'll encounter will be Anoki the Scourge and leader of the Daughters. She is back and she has bribed the guards from the commons district to act as her personal guard If you try to follow her trail then you will have to fight corrupt guards and a sadistic Executioner with his power to force his will on others causing them to hurt themselves.
Higher up in the the tower you will encounter Anoki's Officers who have freed prisoners and started a riot. Apparently Anoki is trying to free a mysterious Prisoner but she can't get to him as he is guarded by a strange cult that have formed around a priest of Mitra who calls himself Desumo. Gossip has it that he is here on his own free will in order to see that no one even gets close to the prisoner. Not only is he personally guarding the only way to the prisoner but it seems he has set up various defense mechanisms that will pose an interesting challenge to all that enter
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Exciting encounters
The Iron Tower dungeon is full of new and exciting experiences, and players can expect several dramatic new encounters such as:
Executioner
The executioner is a sick minded bastard with the power to impose his will to others and causing them to inflict pain on themselves. When battling the Executioner we basically tried to show this mental state of his while trying to sacrifice a few players with deadly torture instruments that we all know and love. Players will have to beware of these devices in order to survive and teamwork is imperative in order to survive the iron maiden as well other lovely torture methods
Anoki the Scourge
Anoki is back and she is not a push over as everyone thinks she is Besides being a deadly assassin and the abilities to charm her foes out of combat, she can also call down the gods for healing as she dances on your corpse. In the heat of battle Anoki will call upon her dead officers and beging a ritual to destroy all who oppose her Players will have a great challenge on their hands both finding ways to defeat Anoki while avoiding her charming and stunning ways.
Desumo
When word got back to Desumo that this mysterious Prisoner was incarcerated in the Iron Tower he gave up arms and volunteered to be a prisoner. Now put in place to guard this mysterious Prisoner, Desumo channels the power of his god into Pillars of Faith to strike down his enemies and prevent them from approaching his captive. But the long years have worn at his sanity and a single misstep could send him spiralling into madness.
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All new rewards
Of course, facing the many challenges that the dungeon offers will definitely be rewarding should you manage to make it through alive. Most of the boss loot in the Iron Tower has brand-new and unique visuals that are distinguishable from what is already in the game. Here are some of the new rewards that players will find in the Iron Tower.
Plumed Helm of Divinity
51 wisdom, 25 constitution, 31 magic mana tap rating, 4.8 natural mana regenration, 166 mana
Grizzly Mask
135 combat rating, 56 strength, 42 constitution, 35 critical rating
Oraste's Robe
49 intelligence, 20 generic magic damage, 48 critical damage bonus, 41 constitution, 39 hit rating, 4.8 natural mana regeneration
Helm of Idra
72 constitution, 38 strength, 24 evade rating
Club of Larsha
35 wisdom, 32 generic magic damage, 38 critical rating, 33 hit rating, 26 magic mana tap rating.
More Content On the Way
The Iron Tower is one of many new dungeons that the Age of Conan developers have added to the game since launch. In the previous months the developers have also added other high-level dungeons such as Xibaluku and The Amphitheatre. In coming updates developers will be adding even more content to high level players, such as introducing tier three raiding in Thoth Amon's Stronghold - the lair of the ultimate Conan bad guy, Thoth Amon himself. This and more new content and features will be finding their way to Age of Conan soon.
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AoC has great graphics, they would even be much better if they were consistent.
Like the in one of the pics of the dungeon the grey statues does not fit the environment at all.
The texture makes them look like brand new in an old and moisty dungeon...
After it's shakey launch AoC is just getting better and better.
Who would have thought that out of all the fantasty MMOs released recently that AoC would be the one to survive and grow.
Lots of kodos has to go to Sirrilion for turning the game around, keep up the good work!
For all the many problems AoC has had since it launched, in lots of ways this game definitely raised the bar for MMO gaming. I keep catching myself while playing other (recent and older) titles thinking "Yeah, but Conan did this better". The graphics, the setting, the more dynamic combat, the steady flow of new content... of course I'm not blind to the issues that still plague the title, but I'm certain that in the long run history will judge this game a lot more favourably than many could have believed at launch.
But then, that's always been Funcom's problem right?
Funcom has managed to sort out some of the huge issues the game had. That does not mean that there are not other huge issues in the game - and even bigger issues that were promised at launch but havn't even beein implemented - Like mounted combat.
I still give Funcom abit of credit cause they are at least in touch with the reality and are fixing the right things. Compare that to WAR where they are not bringing any real solutions to the problems - Only increasting them in many ways.
That beeing said - Both WAR and AOC are mediocre games and statistcs show that. The launch of AION took these games down to 60-70 on xfire - and so far there are no signs of recovering from it.
Ofc new games like Aion will take away from games like AoC and War. Even WoW, but since WoW has a lot of players it will not be as noticable.
Aion's 30 free days is nearly up, head over to the Aion forums now and see how many people are complaining about the game. Which is normal for a new game, a lot of people will leave.
AoC is not perfect but it is heading in the right direction and as i said in my previous post, out of all the newly released fantasy MMOs, AoC is the one that I feel will top the pack. The vibe around it is good, head over to the AoC forums and see for yourself.
Smurf dude, AoC is finished, what in the world makes you think people will go back? People don't want to rejoin a game that had server merges, new content or not. I agree the games graphics are awesome, but people don't go back after getting treated bad and lied to by funcom...It's just not going to happen and it has never happened in the history of MMOs...I had 4 lvl 80 toons on AoC and even if they paid me i would not return, yes it left a big scar
Foolishness.
I've drank a glass of milk that made me sick, I low-and-behold continued to drink milk. Why you undoubhtedly ask? Because I like milk.
I like Age of Conan too. Do I care what was "on the box" when the game launched? No, not even remotely. Why... you undoubhtedly pontificate? Because the game is fun... to me. Fun is the key here, ladies and gentlemen. Do, we, have, fun, with the product. Do we enjoy it.
I don't care what "Funcom" did in the month the game launched, it doesn't matter, its in the past. Right now though, AoC is fun. Its what I expected it would be, thats all that matters to me.
I really wanna try this game out before I commit to buying AiOn,what were the problems before?
You will love the game from lvl 1-80 it is awesome, but after lvl 80 you will get griefed by the people who have high lvl PvP gear and it will force you to quit, eye candy is like no other MMO ever made, but lacks in gameplay in general...I got a free 14 days and got my ass beat all over the server, my assassan was geared well when i quit the first-time...Now my gear is pathetic compared, let alone i can't kill anyone anymore, was nice of fujncom to invite people back after everyone who stayed got the uber pvp gear...It was kinda like going into a FPS game for the first time, you get owned and can't ever get anything done
Just wanted to say good article and I'm looking forward to trying out this content.
Foolishness.
I've drank a glass of milk that made me sick, I low-and-behold continued to drink milk. Why you undoubhtedly ask? Because I like milk.
I like Age of Conan too. Do I care what was "on the box" when the game launched? No, not even remotely. Why... you undoubhtedly pontificate? Because the game is fun... to me. Fun is the key here, ladies and gentlemen. Do, we, have, fun, with the product. Do we enjoy it.
I don't care what "Funcom" did in the month the game launched, it doesn't matter, its in the past. Right now though, AoC is fun. Its what I expected it would be, thats all that matters to me.
this is a terrible analogy. So, you drank a bad glass of milk yet continue to drink DIFFERENT milk. You didn't go back to the same jug that made you sick and drink some more.