As I am sure some of you will have noticed by now, we have made some major changes to Lord of Ultima today, not least of which is the move from Closed to Open Beta! If you have any friends who haven't been able to gain access to Lord of Ultima yet, let them know they should be good to go now!

One of the major changes is the introduction of the Shop! You will now be able to purchase Diamonds and use them to obtain Artifacts and hire Ministers! As we mentioned yesterday, we will not be wiping the servers once the game moves out of Beta, so there is no need to worry about purchasing an item now and losing it once the game launches. Don't forget we will also be sending codes for Diamonds to anyone that has opted in to receive our Newsletter! We will also be distributing some codes via Twitter, Facebook, and the Forum.

To add further enjoyment and longevity to the game Quests have been introduced. These will give you alternate goals to try and complete as opposed to the day to day running of your empire. Should you successfully complete a Quest you will be rewarded handsomely!

There are many many new features, buildings and bug fixes. In fact there are too many for me to continue to wax lyrical about, so without further ado, I present to you the patch notes!