A Veterans Reward System was also introduced on October 27th. As a reward for prolonged membership, monthly points are rewarded that allows subscribers to purchase increased storage space, faster recovery, increased non-combat speed, XP bonuses, all snow mammoth (blue, red, and purple) and horse mounts (including Armored and Swift versions), and mammoth and horse riding training. Two new social pets (the Hyena and Pleasurable Company), various social appearance modifiers (height, larger breasts, and heavily muscled arms), and Transportation Abilities (to the three hub cities and Raid dungeons) have been added to make a Veteran player's life easier and provide a little entertainment.
After the Veteran Reward System, Age of Conan developers began telling us what we should expect from Update 6. Access to the improved features of Update 6 hit the Test Servers in December 2009. Forum threads, reviews, and positive player opinions have already become widespread. Update 6 should be released to the Live Servers in early 2010, well before Rise of the Godslayer. A huge part of Update 6 will be building a system of Guild Renown. Renown will be measured in terms of Valor Points (PvE gameplay), Glory Points (PvP gameplay), and Artisan Points (Crafting gameplay). Together, these three separate but equal factors will add up to your Guild's Overall Renown, and we will essentially "level-up" our Guilds, as we would any of our characters. When Update 6 is released, there will be twenty guild levels, which grant various Social Rewards, Pets, Mounts, Horse Armor, new vendors and quest givers, new features for our guild cities, and new designs to add new buildings in the guild city, including PvP arenas and taverns with social weapons. The Guild Keep will also have a new Social Instance, located beneath the Keep, themed to the guild's culture. Gold, Silver, and Bronze rankings will be advertised for the top three guilds on a regular basis.
New Tower-based PvP objectives will also be released with Update 6 that can allow those smaller guilds that have not yet built their Battle Keeps to participate in the Border Kingdom battles on a smaller scale. Towers can be attacked by anyone that is a member of a guild at any point in the day. Guilds can capture and hold these objectives, but the manpower and planning requirements are not so demanding. Players are not the only parties that are interested in capturing, holding or destroying these Towers. These events can be more spontaneous than other types of raids. There will also be a new Token Reward System for Raids. With these Tokens, players will be able to "buy" some raid gear that they could not find in the dungeon.
Thoth-Amons Stronghold, including the opportunity to find the final answers to your Destiny Quest and fight alongside King Conan himself, will come along with Update 6. We will get to penetrate the deepest, darkest, and most dangerous of Thoth-Amon's holdings, eventually coming toe-to-toe with Conan's arch-nemesis directly. He will be the most dangerous villain in the game and we will run into many of his strongest henchmen from other published media, including Hathor-Ka. The Tier 3 Raid content is being introduced with Thoth-Amon's Stronghold.
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We were first introduced to the House of Crom in articles published before the release of Age of Conan and in the Art Guide that shipped with the Collector's Edition of the game. As early as April 2009, comments circulated on the progress of this massive dungeon complex. The House of Crom will be a level 80 instance and it will contain social elements. It will be developed in two parts. Part one involves the cooperation and coordination of several teams for mutual success, and Part two will be of the more popular single-group dungeon experience. Perhaps, we will finally see this legendary destination in early 2010.
