Ubisoft has released a list of the changes the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations day one patch will bring to the game. As reported by DSOGaming, the patch will improve Nvidia’s 3D vision with added sky rendering, and also fix “problems with running game in offline mode”.

Maybe Ubisoft aren’t all bad. Both Skyrim and Batman: Arkham City have required substantial post-launch patches to get them up and running properly on the PC, and these have taken a few weeks to appear. We won’t know if there are any more issues until we actually play it on December 2, but it seems Ubisoft is at least trying to nip some problems in the bud.

Full changelog after the break.


Fixed issue when in some situations smoke bombs didn’t trigger properly

Fixed issue with a Dares being displayed incorrectly

Fixed various text overlaps caused by the localised representation of Keyboard buttons
Multiple graphic improvements related to NVidia 3D vision (Added sky rendering options to game menu)

Various small camera related fixes, like camera now follows a fresh respawned user if he spams the “Center Camera” action key

Fixed some issues that sometimes occurred when switching between executables

Eyefinity optimizations for superwide resolutions

Various tweaks and fixes in Multiplayer related to Friends system

Voice chat icon is now properly displayed when it’s turned off
Fixed problems with running game in offline mode

Last month, Ubisoft said they would patch their online-at-startup-DRM out of From Dust and now RockPaperShotgun are reporting that they have made good on their promise. The next time you fire the game up on Steam it should update and sync up your savegames with the Ubisoft servers. Rejoice!

Previously gamers would have to be online and connect to the Ubisoft servers when they started From Dust, although they could disconnect and continue as normal afterwards.

The DRM was one of many issues with From Dust's launch, if you want our verdict on the game itself, read our From Dust review.

Jamie Keen, lead developer on Far Cry 3 has been speaking exclusively to PC gamer about the evolution of the series since Far Cry 2 and the difficulties of developing for multiple platforms.

I saw Jamie play through the same demo we saw running at E3. It seems that, despite the on-screen controller-prompts, the demo was running on a meaty PC. We guessed that from the framerate and anti aliasing too, but thought it was worth mentioning.

According to Jamie, scalability doesn't necessarily mean compromise: "The consoles simply don't have the same kind of grandeur that PCs can have. Especially a top end PC. This is an E3 demo so we're going to have everything really really, really dialled up. But it's going to be scalable. And that's the good thing – we are starting off with something that's scaleable to begin with.

"Right now we're just trying to show this stuff – we want to show the range and put our best foot forward. But then that's just the nature of development. The specs of a console are different to the specs of the top end PC, so it's not that we're able to avoid," continued the developer.

"We really listen to what the community is after. There's a hit list of things that we need to get right this time. Not that anything we did was really bad last time, it's just that there's going to be develop to make sure that we deliver the experience."

Story, and the player's interaction with the world are high on the developer's priority list: "I think the other thing is narrative. The narrative within Far Cry 2 was a great, but it was slightly at arms length. But what we really want to do with Far Cry 3 is we want to make sure that you feel this really human scale thing. Something you make your own way through, that you can really interact with... we want to take you on a voyage of discovery."

For more on Far Cry 3, read our E3 preview.

 
The maniacal performance of the player character's captor, Vaas in the Far Cry 3 demo was one of the most memorable moments of E3 this year. We caught up with narrative director on Far Cry 3, Jason Vandenberghe on the show floor to discuss the art of honing a great virtual performance, and explore the reasons why so many virtual actors end up in "the uncanny valley of performance."

Far Cry 3's virtual actors are captured from real performances, using technology that records body and face movements simultaneously. Vandenberghe told us that keeping the body and facial performances together made it much easier to shoot Far Cry 3's scenes. "We were able to play it as a movie," he says.

However, getting Vaas's performance onto a hard drive involved more than simply pointing a camera at the actor. "I think we have to be sophisticated and use these tools correctly," says Vandenberghe. "Directing actors is also a technical discipline, and a creative discipline.

"There are techniques in acting and performance that evoke great performances, and there are techniques in acting and performance that evoke good performances. The industry has gotten really good at getting good performances, almost no-one can get great ones."



Talking about why some virtual performances work and others don't, Vanderberghe said "there's an uncanny valley of performance, not just in characters, but performance, and we are just, like, one or two of us have just gotten across that frickin' gulf, right? Like, scrambling up of it, going "okay!"

"Now we have to figure out how to repeat that, and make sure that we're consistent in doing it, so it's a fun moment to be pushing that. Our goal is to be at the very front, to be way ahead of anyone else."

For more on Far Cry 3, check out our Far Cry 3 preview from the E3 2011 show floor. The Far Cry 3 announcement was one of our pick of the biggest news stories of E3 this year.