Give Joel Bylos a chance.

[KullOfValusia]

Already, I'm beginning to feel the stench of negativity permeating the forums here about the new GD. This was exactly the same feeling I felt when I was reading up the secret world forums during the latest patch although the blame for the "technical" issues there absolutely cannot be shouldered by one person alone (in fact I prefer my GD's to be concerned about quality of content.)

Therefore,things for your consideration.

1.) I believe Joel in the pcgamer interview. He said we'll see small chunks of updates periodically, I'm guessing every 3 months we'll see some small content update.

2.) F2P I'm going to take a wild guess and I think Joel's master plan is to make AoC some kind of hybrid p2p/b2p with the option of players accessing the game content through a sub or through a b2p model. If successful it would be a masterful move that would significantly increase sales.

3.)In terms of the content itself Joel will probably lessen the dragonspinesque eye candy updates and more vertical integration of existing content and player to player interaction (PvP included).

Lastly, the man is juggling 3 games at once. Funcom will not assign their bread and butter products if they think he couldnt at least maintain the status quo or even improve the games in general. Give him a solid 5 months before passing judgement. Let's all stay positive.

[letsdance]

When it comes to actual content, yes, we should wait and see. But nothing has changed when it comes to the good old silent Funcom. Can't they/he just confirm that content xxx dosen't function properly atm, so players don't have to go waste their time?

And please don't go to third party sites and say that the content is working fine and all players are enjoying it. If someone actually describe how they kill the last boss in Sepulchral of the Wyrm they get moderated...

IF the wyrm dungeon actually do work, why don't Joel take 20 mins, grab 5 devs, kill the last boss, and twitch it out to us, to shut some mouths?

It's a 2 month old dungeon and apparently the playerbase has deterioated so much now that we can't even take down a new dungeon.

We simply can't afford to "waste" a brand new dungeon, so Funcom need to find a way to tell about the mechanic.

[pelado]

I dont have a problem with the guy. If he will be as creative with AoC as he was with TSW, im all for it.

[twinklez3]

I said it in another thread. I can't excuse Funcom for years of mismanagement and misdirection just because of a directorship change.

While I have greater hope for the future, that does nothing for me now. Funcom via Joel has to do some pretty major things very quickly to earn any points in my book.

[Prima]

I've been reading up on what stuff Joel's worked on. It's my favorite content in AoC, and TSW was great, even if I don't currently play it. It's dark, mature, and cohesive content. It's MMO gaming for intelligent adults. The fact that it's delivered via some fairly innovative game systems -- AoC's combat; TSW's progression; etc. -- makes me feel even better about sending Funcom my money.

If that's the content you want, this is the team to send your subscription money to at the moment. I don't feel like that's acknowledged enough. Why cut down the people doing the best at what you like most?

People let their personal gaming preferences and technical frustrations cloud their judgment. It takes every bit as much good judgment to recognize and acknowledge what is good as what is not. I think some people think that constant negativity keeps the fire under Funcom's heels. It doesn't work that way. They are painfully obvious in their lack of judgment. And why waste time reading the input of someone who lacks judgment?

[twinklez3]

One more point has to be made. Joel is given the credit of creating the "rise of the godslayer" expansion. This was the beginning of the end of AOC. This expansion brought the massive gear grind and the imbalance brought about by the horizontal progression system.

It gave us the rise of the six man, and endless amount of dungeons, a wide open playfields not conducive to world pvp, and absolutely no pvp content.

[pelado]

One more point has to be made. Joel is given the credit of creating the "rise of the godslayer" expansion. This was the beginning of the end of AOC. This expansion brought the massive gear grind and the imbalance brought about by the horizontal progression system.

It gave us the rise of the six man, and endless amount of dungeons, a wide open playfields not conducive to world pvp, and absolutely no pvp content.

The endless gear grind I have a problem with(as I stated in a different thread), but sixmans are fun and there isnt anything wrong with having lots of dungeons to choose from.

[Manilavanilla]

Joel is the man. nuff said

[Blindman-au]

One more point has to be made. Joel is given the credit of creating the "rise of the godslayer" expansion. This was the beginning of the end of AOC. This expansion brought the massive gear grind and the imbalance brought about by the horizontal progression system.

It gave us the rise of the six man, and endless amount of dungeons, a wide open playfields not conducive to world pvp, and absolutely no pvp content.

Joel did his job and created the "rise of the godslayer" expansion. That doesn't mean what occurred because of it or the decision to do it was his. You can't blame someone for making something that they were told was wanted. Judge him by his work not what he created under directions from his boss. I don't see a problem with the content he created, sure there were bugs but that's nothing new or unique to "the rise of the godslayer" expansion and yeah the gear grind sucks but even that has been scaled and made easier to obtain the end result of getting gear to the point where people can get a fresh 80 run dungeons with their guild mates for around a month and be able to take that toon into T3 and not need to be carried by the raid, that's not such a bad thing IMO.

[Deathsader]

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that he knows that PVP needs to be addressed, and on an equal playing field as PVE, tells me that he's not a bad guy. I am willing to give him a chance for that reason alone, and I know a lot of my guildies feel the same way in that regard.