Die Veröffentlichung von Stronghold 3 (ab 10,10€ bei kaufen) war nicht gerade eine Glanzleistung von den Firefly Studios, denn das Strategiespiel ist in einem ziemlich unfertigen Status vom Stapel gelaufen (wir berichteten). Daher wurde am Mittwoch auch gleich ein kleiner Patch veröffentlicht (Veränderungen siehe unten). Doch interessanter ist in diesem Zusammenhang ein Statement vom Entwickler-Team auf der offiziellen Website . Neben den obligatorischen Besserungsbekundungen werden die Spieler aufgefordert, jegliche Form von Bugs oder Unzulänglichkeiten zu melden. Laut dem Blog-Eintrag nehmen die Entwickler die Kommentare der User sehr ernst und empfinden sie als wertvoll.

Die Verbesserungen bei Stronghold 3 sollen zunächst mit eher kleineren Patches vorgenommen werden, die häufig auftretende und wichtige Probleme (Stabilität, Multiplayer-Schwierigkeiten, schwerwiegende Bugs etc.) beheben sollen. Im Anschluss daran wollen die Entwickler größere Updates folgen lassen, die Verbesserungen und Features hinzufügen sollen, die es nicht mit ins "finale" Spiel geschafft haben. Sind die Personen bei den Firefly Studius dann damit zufrieden, würde man über neue Inhalte und Features nachdenken. Da das Entwickler-Team allerdings ziemlich klein ist, werden die ersten Patches wohl in einem wöchentlichen Rhythmus erscheinen.

"You may not think it, but we at Firefly pay attention to almost every word you say. Whether it’s a Facebook comment, forum post, tweet or rant on your blog, if it’s about Stronghold chances are that someone at Firefly will have read it. The series has long had a devout following of fans, many of whom have been with us from the very start and we value all your comments. (...) Rest assured however, we love Stronghold as much as you do and we are working hard on improving and adding to Stronghold 3 to make it the game we all want it to be. We will continue to do so over the coming months."

Stronghold 3 v1.1.24196
General Fixes:

• Fix for villagers which would break some saves.
• Fix for wheat farmers. If ever a wheat farmer was replaced by another wheat farmer the wheat cycle would stop.
• Fix for weaponsmith load/save issue.
• Fix for knight load/save issue which was causing crashes after load.
• Fix for issue with units ignoring your commands if they'd just been assigned to your player (e.g. reinforcements).
• Fix for incorrect minimaps showing in the multiplayer game select screen after viewing the credits.
• Fix for stats system which would break some saves.
• Fix for build proxy which would break some saves.
• Units no longer get stuck in tunnels.
• Multiple armouries/barracks can no longer be placed after loading a savegame.
• Music is off by default when creating a new profile.
• Fix for c1m1 music/ambient sfx playing in the tutorial, if c1m1 had been selected in the mission select screen.
• Fix for multiple UI sound effects being triggered during initialization, causing a "crunch" sound under the Firefly logo intro movie.
• Keep positions are now deserialized correctly when switching between maps. Correct keep position icons are now shown on the minimap.
• Fix for thread memory bug causing sudden large drop in framerate.

Multiplayer Fixes:

• Various issues with Multiplayer lobbies which should be much more stable now.
• Fix for the issue with players joining & leaving MP lobbies before start. It should no longer hang on "starting game".
• Teams/colours should get assigned immediately on startup (no more waiting a few seconds and then your team number changes).
• Fix for players still being able to build after being eliminated from the game.
• Multiplayer estate assignment should be more consistent.