[JeffR]

First of all, my apologies for not being around for the last few days. I had intended to post an update during the weekend, but wound up spending most of my time from Friday onward sick in bed (apparently not looking after myself for a couple of months, particularly not getting enough sleep, results in an immune system that folds up the first time a virus looks in its direction.) I'm not quite back to 100% yet, but I'm upright and coherent enough to start getting caught up on my work and correspondence - sorry to anyone who has been expecting a PM or email response from me recently and hasn't got one, it'll take me a day or two to dig myself out from that backlog.

Fortunately, while I was out, Sebastian and Malte have been working away at the patch. We've been testing the first test build since Friday. As I mentioned before, the fixes in this one are the things that take both longer to code and test, so it's not something we can get out as quickly as we did the first one. Here's what's been completed so far:

1. Never-ending penalties fixed.
2. Crash when offering trade involving draft picks while in historical mode fixed.
3. AI teams should no longer skip draft picks when protected list is full.
4. Tactics are now saved when user exits game and restarts.
5. AI no longer makes cap-reduction moves for user's team if he doesn't have all "assistant" options off.
6. Player no longer occasionally prevented from signing free agents despite being below payroll.
7. Payroll in custom games should now match salary obligations properly.
8. Playoff games no longer scheduled on back-to-back days.
9. AI now allots time to 3rd PK unit and uses special-teams icetime percentages properly.
10. Shutout leaders now sorted properly, instead of alphabetically.
11. Faceoff leaders now sorted correctly (by percentage, with minimum qualifiers)
12. Game now counting IR players against cap floor.
13. When negotiating salary for free agents, NHL-caliber players will initially expect NHL-caliber wages even when signing in other leagues, and players will sign ask for more or less if they are signing outside/inside their home continent.
14. No more multiple responses after a trade is rejected.
15. No more invalid database error when attempting to launch a quickstart.
16. Expansion teams in historical mode now start with 0-0-0 history instead of all-time total.
17. HNN fixed and restored to game.
18. Overtime penalties now displayed in OT period in boxscore, instead of third period.
19. Injury settings now split between game and practice, both levels editable.
20. Under-20 major junior players contracted to NHL teams can no longer be sent to AHL.
21. No longer possible to type in play-by-play box during games.
22. Nicknames and preferred number now cleared properly when fictionalizing players for custom games.
23. Teams whose current rosters don't match league requirements (e.g., KHL teams without enough prospects) will no longer get fictional placeholders to fill those spots.
24. Trade deadline in KHL should function properly now.
25. Sorting on sone Skater Skats 2 categories works properly now.
26. Custom leagues with divisions but no conferences now get minor league teams assigned correctly.
27. Players in non-cap leagues should not request front-loaded contracts.
28. Misaligned plaayer portraits on leaders pages fixed.
29. Goon/enforcer bonus can no longer improve players past third-line (approximately) status.
30. Trade window should no longer occasionally default to a team other than the user's own.
31. German teams can no longer have two playoff games scheduled for the same day.
32. "Sim to end" button added to in-game screen.

That's the "fixed, needs to be verified" list as of right now. Most have already been verified fixed in the new build, although a couple definitely are still broken and will need more work. So this is just the actual, completed fixes so far - just because something is not on the list doesn't mean we're not working on it, particularly the more complex problems which will take a while to deal with. If an issue has been mentioned in the bug thread, it's either on our tracking list now or about to go there (I'm going to start getting caught up on that after I post this, I think I'm about three-quarters of the way through the current list.)

I had been thinking about issuing a data update this week, but I'm going to hold that for at least one more week instead, since there are still some unresolved issues with the way the way quickstarts are being built from the database (the "Cy Young" effect with top goalscorers getting very high goal:assist ratios is one of them - the pass/shoot preference for certain types of player is, for some reason, getting moved a couple of points farther towards shooting than it should be.)

There is no definite date for release of the second patch yet. There's still a fair bit of coding and testing to be done before everything that urgently needs fixing is fixed, so I don't want to get anyone's hopes up that we'll have it out in X number of days if it turns out that the changes aren't working as intended, or are having unexpected consequences. It'll be out when those fixes are done, and testing confirms that they work properly and not breaking anything new. I'd rather not keep testing your patience like this, but forcing it out early to meet an arbitrary deadline is only going to make the situation worse.