First, the changes, according to BioWare:

• Fixed potential corruption of character statistics
• Fixed portrait appearance sliders when importing a character from the downloadable Character Creator
• Fixed import for preset face settings from the downloadable Character Creator
• Made Easy difficulty easier
• Slightly increased attack, defence, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty
• Fixed video issues when running on a very wide screen display, including ATI Eyefinity displays

Hey, who doesn’t like easier easy? Anyway, notice of the patch brought out some catcalls about the quality of the game’s shipped code. So Laidlaw posted a comment to “pull back the curtain a bit,” on game development.

Game development seems like it’s extremely up to the moment, but at the end of every game there is a period where you have to enter a lockdown so that final QA runs and certifications can be completed. This process is exhaustive and is the kind of thing that you have to completely re-do if you make any changes.

That said, it’s hard not to be proud of your game, and to want it to be perfect, so we try to identify things that might be patch candidates. In Dragon Age’s case, we had a unique opportunity to compare balance numbers between console and PC, and in the end we decided to make some tweaks and put them in the pipe for around launch day, while keeping an eye for any extremely bad bugs to include.

There’s good odds that there will be another patch, as there seem to be a few issues still creeping up (dagger damage, etc) and I would like to see those addressed. Of course, we have to do due diligence and test and QA these things properly, so it’s not an instant fix. Just be aware that we are watching these forums and working to try and nail down any issues that are creeping up.

Laidlaw then returned to the forum to say that future patches will likely continue to address game balance. “Mages, however, are awesome,” he wrote. “That’s not going to change.”

Dragon Age Origins Patch v1.01 Released [BioWare Forums]

Here are the PS3 fixes, from the Gearbox official forums (fora?)

• Load times have been improved
• Lilith’s Phase Strike ability now works as intended
• The introductory quests with CL4P-TP should now always progress properly
• Fixed a bug that caused the digger elevator to be unusable after completing the Find Tannis mission
• Weapon mapping to the D-pad should no longer reverse left and right
• Fixed a crash when ejecting the disc during the autosave warning splash screen
• Players in a lobby should no longer experience long loading when starting a game after one player leaves
• A bug which caused players and other things in the world to appear incorrectly on clients in networked games has been fixed
• Fixed a bug in which players gibbed in arena combat disappeared
• Changed how space required for saves is calculated
• Fixed a bug which caused the dollars counter to spin continuously
• Various localisation and other text and tooltip corrections

And on the Xbox 360, tell ‘em what they’ve won, Don Pardo:

• Fixed a bug which caused players and other things in the world to appear incorrectly on clients in networked games
• Fixed a bug in which players gibbed in arena combat disappeared
• Fixed a bug which caused the dollars counter to spin continuously
• Fixed a bug that caused the digger elevator to be unusable after completing the Find Tannis mission
• Weapon mapping to the D-pad should no longer reverse left and right
• Various localisation and other text and tooltip corrections
• The introductory quests with CL4P-TP should now always progress properly all the time
• Lilith’s Phase Strike ability now works as intended
• Load times have been improved

360 Patch 10/30 and PS3 Patch, 10/30 [Gearbox forums, via VG247]

Even better, both of these things are free. So you too can get in on the choke points, silly hats and magic cake madness.

Here’s what developer Titan Studios has to say about the patch:

After playing innumerable games, reading the forums and piles of email, and reviewing all the great feedback we received from you, the fans, we have made a variety of tweaks to the gameplay balance and systems to ensure the game stays fair, fresh and as fun as ever. Here is a full breakdown of all the changes that can be found in the upcoming patch:

New Map

* A brand new awesome city map has been added called New Pork…and it’s free!

Game System Tweaks

* The host’s ability to kick and ban players has been removed.
* The ability for players to switch teams post-game is now restricted so that sides cannot be unbalanced by more than 2 players.
* A new switching team system has been implemented during matches:

* If there is a deficit of 2 players between teams, the weaker team will drop a team coloured ball on the death of a player.
* Picking up the coloured ball switches a player’s team and rewards them with a 300 point bonus.
* So…get the ball.
* The 10 game average ranking system has been removed.
* A new ranking system has been implemented, which adds rank points for every game based on the player’s score.
* Awarded ranking titles will now never go down once earned.
* Online leaderboards have been increased to display all players not just the top 1000.
* All online leaderboards are to be reset shortly after patch 1.03 is released, but all unlocked customisations and trophies will remain unlocked. You will not lose them.

Main Bug Fixes

* The Princess disappearing bug has been fixed.
* The issue with statistics and trophies not saving correctly has been fixed.

Character Balancing

* The Dark Priest’s lock-on range has been reduced.
* The Dark Priest’s drain ability has been slightly reduced.
* The Ranger now has larger movement penalty when locked on and charging attacks.
* The Adv. Ranger has a smaller shot dispersion and increased damage per shot.
* The Warrior’s attack damage has been increased slightly.
* The Warrior’s movement speed has been increased slightly when locked on and charging attacks.
* The Warrior’s 360 degree protect when his shield is raised has been increased from 20% to 40%
* Warrior’s Lock on range increased to match Ranger to stop class being hit from behind when retreating
* Warriors weapon collision box increased in size to aid with hit detection
* Adv Warrior speed increased slightly when locked on and charging to match his normal movement speed
* Adv Warrior damage increased
* Adv Worker’s bomb knockback force removed
* Princess calorie burn decreased slightly in weight state 3 and 4

Control Tweaks

* Two new control schemes have been implemented to allow players to use the R1 button to attack and to free the player’s right hand for target switching. This is AWESOME.

Scoring Updates

* New switching team bonus added of 300 points.
* Princess rescue score increased to 300 points.
* Princess rescue assistance bonus increased to 150 points.
* Princess escort bonus increased to 75 points.
* Win game scoring reduced to 150 points.
* Match completion bonus added of 75 points.
* Average Rank bonus award removed for games won under 3 minutes.
* Bonus score for winning games in under 3 minutes removed.

Additional Tweaks

* Candy confetti added as a special effect when blood is turned off. Check this out – it is really cool.
* All loading screens now in colour.
* Loading screens now allow players to scroll to next and previous tips during the load.

We look forward to slaughtering you – ahem, seeing you – on the battlefield!

Pick-up groups, or PUGs, are the bane of many an MMO player’s existence. Rather than grouping with your guild or folks you know, you group up with random strangers who often turn out to be complete and utter tools and probably think the same thing about you. PUGs are generally avoided whenever possible, but World of Warcraft’s new dungeon and raid system, due out in an upcoming patch, actually rewards players for grouping with random strangers. In fact, the more random additions to your group, the faster you gain rewards, including a Perky Pug non-combat pet.

In order to make PUGs even more attractive, the new system features smarter group matching, which means you should never end up with five shadow priests, which would completely break any instance you entered, along with cross-server instancing, which can pull players from any server in your Battlegroup to go dungeon hopping with you.

Another cool new feature that will seriously cut down on waiting for your PUG members to show up is Instance Teleporting. Much like the PVP battlegrounds in the game, when you join a dungeon using the new system, you will be automatically teleported to the dungeon entrance, where you can then sit AFK for 20 minutes while you get a sandwich.

The new tool will also allow players to select multiple dungeons to take on, or they can take their chances with a random dungeon, with NPC’s giving out quests and rewards to those that complete daily random dungeons, which will be taking the place of the current daily heroic dungeon system.

All of this, plus vote kicking, a looking-for-raid tool, group disenchanting and a need-before-greed update are coming our way in the upcoming WoW content patch. It should go great lengths towards making an already easy game that much easier. Huzzah!

New Dungeon System [World of Warcraft - thanks Joshua!]

No word on when this patch goes live, but when it arrives, the development team has promised defensive tweaks that improve the chances you record a sack (rather than the CPU quarterback throwing the ball away), improving defenders’ pursuit angles, and improving the coverage of the flats. Better simmed stats in franchise mode also are coming, as well as other unspecificed uniform and presentation changes. The official blog post on the patch reminds that the list of fixes and updates is not final.

Madden NFL 10 – 2nd title Update Preliminary Details [Inside EA Sports Blog via Pasta Padre]

Additionally the update enables support for wireless microphones and lays down an “audition” feature you may use when the Rock Band Network enters its open beta.

When “Audition Mode” goes live, RBN members will be able to “upload songs from their PCs and audition their songs using our suite of song audition and testing tools”, according to the official Rock Band Forums. Currently, Rock Band Network is in closed beta and the game will tell you ‘To enter Audition Mode, you must be signed into an Xbox Live enabled gamer profile that is a member of the XNA Creators Club and connected to Xbox Live.’” Harmonix says the open beta will commence in the coming weeks.

Meantime, gamers will find improvements to the hammer on/pull off tricks in guitar play. The forum says these improvements were brought over from The Beatles: Rock Band, which featured “much more robust handling” of hammer-on and pull-off.

Other upgrades: In the sort menu, you may now arrange songs according to the star rating you’ve achieved in each of them. Unplayed songs will be grouped accordingly. This helps players chart their progress toward five-starring every song they own.

The game will also support wireless mikes, such as the Lips microphone. Ion Drum Kits now have velocity sensitivity in both drum fills and freestyle mode. And most conveniently, background downloading in the Music Store has been enabled, so you no longer have to wait for the complete download of a purchased song before moving on to another.

As for the PS3, Harmonix’ Sean Baptiste explained that patch is being worked on and awaiting its certification process with Sony.

Rock Band 2 Software Update Notes [Rock Band Forums via Joystiq]

The latest patch brings the terror back to Azeroth, returning the mighty dragon to her former glory. What was until recently possible for 2-3 people is now a 10-man or 25-man raid encounter, with rewards styled to look like the old rewards, only much more powerful. Those lucky enough may even find themselves with a 310% flying mount styled after the lady herself.

Plenty of other changes come with the latest patch, but nothing quite as exciting. Check out the patch notes and let me know if I am wrong.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.2.2 (09-22-2009) [World of Warcraft]

You might remember, earlier this month, we reported the egg-on-face situation where auto-named rosters from NCAA 10’s Teambuilder site, imported into the Xbox 360 version, resulted in players named “Jason XXX” instead of “Jason Gay,” This was attributed not to EA Sports code but to Xbox Live filters. Microsoft stood by its filter policy.

Interestingly, among the slew of fixes in the second patch was this one: “Certain TeamBuilder teams were incorrectly being blocked by the profanity filter and showing up as XXXX, this has been corrected.” This extends to the rosters, as I just tested it out myself. In fact, if you want to put “Gay” anywhere in your team name, go right ahead.

I’ve emailed EA Sports to ask if there was any sort of exception granted for the last name of a sports roster. I’ve emailed Microsoft to ask if this is a shift in policy. If there’s any response, this post will be updated.

For most, however, this patch will be noteworthy for 31 fixes and tweaks, ranging from the quality of uploaded video highlights to a number of AI fixes – in running backs, wide receivers, receiver routes, lead blocking, etc. The full list follows.

• Player Lock in Online Games will now move the camera behind the locked player (like Offline games)
• Greatly increased the quality of uploaded videos
• Fixed an issue with penalties on a change of possession in Overtime
• Fixed an issue where you would sometimes lose control of your player going offsides in no huddle situations
• Tuned holding chances on Field Goals and Extra Points
• Fixed a couple pass coverage issues with Wild Cat plays
• Tuned the chuck success chances to favour more neutral results. Wins and Losses are extreme and should occur less for both the offence and defense
• AI Tackle slider is now more effective
• Lead Blocking tweaks to fix some cases of pulling lineman ignoring defenders
• Fixed a few rare cases that would cause players in pursuit to run away from the ball carrier
• Tuned the CPU ball carrier to make some smarter choices
• Fixed a bug where the CPU would high step at inappropriate times
• Tuned player switching logic to give a more appropriate player
• Fixed an issue with Punts being spotted incorrectly when the punt went out of bounds
• Corrected an issue where pressing in man coverage would cause the CPU to throw the ball too early
• If the receiver caught a pass during a slip, rarely would he be ruled down after the catch (even if he got up before making the catch). This has been fixed.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the clock would continue to run after hold on an extra point
• Forward pitches are now correctly tracked as passing and receiving yards for the players involved
• Receivers will now try and release to the appropriate side of the defender based on their route
• Fixed some problems that were causing defensive players to not always get back in time during hurry up plays
• Reduced the effect of the Run Block Slider on special teams plays
• Tuned how effective the slant route for running backs out of the backfield was
• Tuned how far away diving sacks will start from
• Fixed an online grieve with pausing the game
• Fixed a bug where using a TeamBuilder team as the away team would cause the team colours to be incorrect
• Fixed an issue where some Dynasty teams were only able to offer 15 scholarships. You will not have to restart your dynasty for this to take effect, the fix is for offline and online dynasties.
• Certain TeamBuilder teams were incorrectly being blocked by the profanity filter and showing up as XXXX, this has been corrected
• Fixed and issue where Punt was not the default selection on 4th down and punting distance
• Off-centered single digit jersey numbers are now centered correctly
• Fixed a crash in Custom Stadium Sounds when the list of files was too long
• TeamBuilder teams with & in the name can now be searched properly
• Fixed an issue where the “Online Dynasty Servers are Down” pop-up was showing up incorrectly

This patch is kind of a pity. On one hand, it means a better game. On the other, 32 fixes, on top of the earlier online roster issues mean the consumer code that went out day one was less than acceptable.

NCAA Football 10 Patch #2 Details [Pasta Padre]

The Disgaea 3 trophy patch goes live on July 16th, adding in the ability for players to earn coveted trophy points for achieving various goals. Unfortunately, most players will have to achieve those goals all over again, as the patch will render all of their Disgaea 3 save files useless. The official press release for the announcement contains the following warning in bright red type: CAUTION: Trophy Patch Update will make old save data unusable.

Disgaea 3 is the sort of game that one can play for 100’s of hours, so news of a patch that renders such progress null and void might as well have been titled “Don’t Download This Patch” as far as most fans are concerned. The only alternative I can see is to back up your save files, just in case, start a new game to unlock trophies, and then uninstall the patch when you are done in order to access your previous saves.

That’s an awful lot of hoops to jump through, but if you really want those trophies, then there you go. Me? I think I’ll pass.

Aside from a new 5th Column Task Force / Strike Force series of missions, the bulk of the Issue 15 update for NCsoft’s superhero MMO is dedicated to making characters look their best and making it easier to use the mission architect player-created content tool introduced in Issue 14: Architect.

On the cosmetic side of things, players now have more than 20 new faces to choose from in character creation along with two new costume sets – vines and ulterior – making an already ridiculously versatile system even more so. They’ve also added new costume change emotes, allowing players to back flip, salute, or maniacally laugh their way out of their clothes.

NCsoft also updates their mission architect system, adding new testing tools to help iron out the kinks and enhanced search capability to help players separate the wheat from the chaff.

Considering the major changes that came about with the last update, Issue 15 seems rather tame, but with the massive Going Rogue update next in line for release, we can forgive the odd lighter than normal offering.