by Stacy Jones on Feb 26, 2013
Some people are workaholics, and that may fit Funcoms Joel Bylos but he is clearly a man that enjoys his work. In his first Game Directors Letter since the recent Funcom transitions, Bylos announced that he is not only the creative director for The Secret World (TSW), but also Age of Conan: Unchained (AoC) and Anarchy Online (AO) as well.
Bylos took some time to discuss plans for the future of AoC in his letter in regards to new content and possible tie-ins with the upcoming Conan movie that will see Arnold Schwarzenegger reprising his role as the brutal barbarian. With the teams centralized, Bylos explained that it will be easier to develop new content by sharing assets, team members, and centralizing the content development. AoC and TSW will both benefit to this due to being built on the same architecture and even when voice actors are hired to lend their vocals to a project.
In Bylos letter on TSW site, he touched on the roadmap plans for 2013 starting with Issue #6: The Last Train to Cairo update scheduled to release in early March. The following update, Issue #7, will take players to that fond little spot of terror known as Transylvania to track down a new monster in the region. The Issue #7 update will end with a bang that will start a new in-game event that will run until the Tokyo zone is introduced. Bylos also briefly touches on Issues #8-12, which is around the time Tokyo will be added along with some nifty new features.
As for the outgoing creative team, Craig Morrison has a few words for the community in Bylos AoC letter and Dave "Ilaliya" Williams made a post on the AO forum to say his goodbye to the fans.
Sources: AoC Letter, TSW Letter, AO Forum