We know that many of you have been waiting to hear word about a patch for Lionheart. We're happy to announce that there is currently a patch in Interplay's Quality Assurance testing right now.

The patch fixes several bugs and also adds a performance feature that we agreed would help out people that were having difficulties with the game.

Here is a list of the patch fixes:

1) Optimizations to the size and frequency of network packets. This will help low bandwidth connections such as 56k modems.

2) Increased the timeout time for non-guaranteed data so more of it gets a chance to make it to the client on a slow modem.

3) Faster 3D rendering. This generally speeds up the game when there are numerous characters on screen. This doesn't mean that characters have been sped up, it means that machines that saw dips in framerate during scenes with many characters should see an improvement with the patch.

4) Fixed rendering error that occurred in some loaded saved games with dragons.

5) A Speed Slider has been added that allows the user to select the speed that the game plays out between ranges of 70% to 100%. It is accessed by hitting the escape button. There is a slider in the middle of the small menu that allows speeds to be switched.

The speed slider will slow down all creatures and characters alike, however, some gameplay elements will occur at normal speed. For example, sound files will play at normal speed, regardless of what speed the animations or combat are set to. This implementation should help those players that want to play the game in a less frantic mode. Current tests show that at 70% reduction, there is very little to no loss of sync with battle sounds and ambient, but at slower reductions, it becomes very noticeable.

In conclusion, some of you have asked whether Lionheart will be supported post release. We want all of you to know that Reflexive does care about this product very much and we have listened to the comments on this board. We won't be able to address every issue that is brought up, but we will do what we can to make sure that Lionheart is a fun and engaging game for as many people as possible.

Reflexive will continue to monitor the boards and read your posts. Should any additional patches become necessary, we will post a notice on these boards.

Thanks for your support and patience.