[JeffR]

A very brief update, because I'm extremely pressed for time right now:

Testing has been going fairly well. Today's build still has some things that need to be dealt with, but in general the problems we're finding are getting smaller and less urgent. I think the worst thing going on right now is the AI getting very trigger-happy with firing coaches (20+ NHL firings each season.) The first fix for the problem seems to have had actually made the issue worse, so I think we're going to need to dig a little deeper into the issue; I'll be talking to the guys about it when they get up tomorrow morning.

I'll be updating the database with tomorrow's trades (hopefully keeping busy will numb the pain of watching my Canucks get dismantled), and that'll be the final data changes for this update. That'll get mated to a new build shortly thereafter, exactly when depending on when Malte and Sebastian can complete the fixes that get reported tonight. Then more testing, and if that goes well, a patch release not long after that. We're down to a matter of days, but I don't want to promise it'll be out before the weekend and then run into an issue that takes a day or more to deal with.

(Edit: forgot to mention, it's unlikely I'll publish patch notes before the release as I've done in the past. They're going to be pretty enormous this time, as I'll need to include long explanations of new systems in addition to all the other stuff we've changed. So that'll probably get completed while we're in the process of preparing the final release-candidate build and I won't have it ready until right around the time the patch comes out.)