A lot of people have been looking forward to this patch, although there is apparently a bit of an issue if you have the digital version of the game vs. the CD version. I updated without any issues – but keep in mind when you do an update like this you lose your quest progress. I wasn’t particularly enjoying the quest I was on so I didn’t think it was too big of a deal. The screen shot above is using the new camera feature that allows you to move 360 degrees around your character even while in the castle – no more barbie house view. This was probably the biggest change for me and the one I was looking forward to the most. The only issue I still have with the camera views is that I’m constantly right clicking on my portrait in order to change the view back to how I’d like it. It seems to flip between camera abilities too easily (ie: right clicking the portrait puts you into the ‘follow my character’ view, and the arrow buttons allow you to swivel around that character, rather then the base view which is more free form). Below are the patch notes (since for some reason my update didn’t come with any notes for me to read) and in italics are my comments about the ones I’m most looking forward to. Enjoy!
Here is a list of what will be included in the new update!
- New Feature: Free Play Ambition – Set up your perfect kingdom without worrying about long term goals. In this special ambition, you can play quests when you wish, or control up to four heroes at once in a more open free play mode. (Very excited about this! Some times I just want to do things ‘free form’)
- New Feature: Child Succession – If a Hero Sim dies, but already has children, you can choose to have one of the children grow up and take over their parent’s job!
- Camera improvements – Have you ever wanted to get a better view of the action? The camera now allows tighter zooming and full 360 rotation in buildings. (The most important thing to me in all of these updates)
- End Game Improvements – Similar to the Free Play Ambition, can now play quests, earn XP, and build buildings even after your ambition is completed!
- Hero Leveling Improvements – Can now gain XP beyond level 10 for all heroes, giving additional benefits.
- Brave New World Quest Improvements – When you complete the quest “Brave New World” and start a new ambition with that character, he or she will now retain several abilities from their previous profession!
- Kingdom Aspect Improvements – Can now gain additional benefits when increasing aspects beyond their maximum capacity
- Ambition Improvements – Certain ambitions now allow one or two additional buildings to be placed at the start.
- Increased the maximum number of residents in a household from four to five. Go ahead and have another child!
- Implemented game stability improvements that affected some players.
- Adjusted several quests for clarity.
- Fixed several bugs related to staying on a quest for a long period of time.
- Improved detection of monitor resolution for some hardware configurations.
- Fixed a variety of issues in Create-A-Sim.
- Fixed several text and art inconsistencies.
Over all I’m pleased with the patch, and I hope to see more coming. I’m almost sad that there is no store attached to this version of the Sims franchise, unlike Sims 3. I got a few free sims points with my Sims 3 purchase (Generations is coming up soon and I’m looking forward to that expansion) and enjoy browsing the stores for new goodies. Ah well.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
The 360 camera rotation is very important to me too. I have the motivation to go back to this game again now, especially with the freeplay. I hated being beholden to quest objectives.