Gears of War Patch to Roll Out Before Maps

Epic's Marc Rein has announced the multiplayer patch for Gears of War will precede the new maps via download on 1/09/2007.

As you already know, Epic has announced the release of 2 free multiplayer maps that are set to be released on 1/10/2007. In a recent post on the Gears of War forums, Marc announced that many of the new bug fixes for Gears will precede these new maps on January 9th. The patch is said to fix several of the multiplayer issues within Gears of War and has been something the community has looked forward to since the games release.

From The Forum Post:

A Gears of War update should start pushing through the system at some point tomorrow, Tuesday January 9, 2007 prior to the two new multiplayer maps being available on Xbox Live Marketplace on Wednesday January 10, 2007.

The maps, plus an introductory video featuring Gears designer Cliff Bleszinski, are free thanks to the kind sponsorship by the Discovery Channel's Future Weapons series which launches next Monday January 15th, 2007. Be sure to check out the show to see some really cool firepower. I expect game designers all across the country will be watching the Future Weapons series very carefully looking for ideas for their future games

Here is a list of what was addressed in this update:

• Fixed aspect ratio distortion when using VGA cable with 4:3 displays at resolutions higher than 640x480
• Fixed voice issue with new players joining Player Match games in progress
• Players can now get the Achievement for "Dish Best Served Cold" when using Troika turret to kill RAAM
• Fixed rare situation where host could loop countdown and never start match
• Fixed rare situation where players could get stuck after chainsawing in multiplayer
• Reduced Grenade Tag melee distance
• Enabled “Strict” NAT check on host to prevent possible connection issues
• Optimized server browser queries to return results more quickly and prevent scroll bars from hiding quality of service icons
• Reduced number of possible revives in Execution to match Warzone
• Removed host name from Ranked match server browser
• Disabled security cameras in Ranked matches
• Ranked matches now require balanced teams (3v3 or 4v4)
• Increased penalty for quitting a Ranked match to -50 points
• Added additional cheat detection code
• Additional housekeeping updates

While many of these fixes are welcome, much of the problems within Gears lie in its lack of a decent party system for online game play. Since this patch takes out the host's name in ranked match, it will actually make it even hard to play a ranked match with friends online. No longer will friends be able to search out each others rooms. Lets hope we see some more news about the party system in the future.