I’m a patch whore. So today I’m happy:

– EverQuest 2 patches!
– Civilization 4 patches! + SDK + Pitboss + low-res movies (notes)
– Mount & Blade patches!

EQ2 introduces a new raid zone (“The Lyceum”, but remember that “raid” in EQ2 is equal to 24 people), an overhaul to Permafrost (loot revisions and named mobs) and a new guild recruitment system. By reading the boards it seems that the raid zone is still inaccessible due to a bug, but the devs say it should be solved by tomorrow. The guild recruit system interests me since I’m still without a guild and looking for one but I wish the guild listing was permanent instead of requiring a recruiter to be logged in for the guild to appear on the list. The other changes I cannot comment since I’m still a noob to the game. The only relevant change seem to be about the durability hit on equipment as you die. The new system makes sense but I think it could have been designed better (maybe I’ll comment this in detail later on).

Civ4 finally releases a patch that was expected for the end of January. It’s a little late. The SDK seems extremely powerful and opens up completely the whole game logic and AI routines in the dlls, I think it’s the first time that a game completely opens itself. The patch itself seems good and should address some problems with the memory usage and improve the overall performance in the game. The rest is about fixes to the multiplayer and balance changes. I was waiting for the patch to start playing.

M&B deserves just praises. This is the game that yesterday hooked me for five hours straight. It rarely happens (I have ADD with games) and as I’m done writing this I’m going back to it because it’s excessively fun and addicting now that I figured out how to progress in the game (before I used to level up in the arena and by when I was out I was always outnumbered). The patch adds many minor changes if considered one by one, but they become significant when bundled up. There are new sounds, new graphic here and there with a complete overhaul to the heads, new voice emotes in the battle with the NPCs yelling and taunting and screaming “VICTORY” at the end of an intense fight. I think there were also many balance changes because the game feels much better. The mouse movement was smoothed and I think the collision system was also improved. The hugest changes are about the horses, it’s hard to nail down exactly what is different in the animations, sounds and controls, but for sure now the horses don’t sit in the place when you kill the rider and continue to roam around the map, even ocasionally running over those who get in the way, making the behaviour much more believable.

This game is a masterpiece and the more you play it the more it gets addicting.