On Thursday, we patched v1.28.3 which could be the final one for 1.28. This last patch fixed a few outstanding issues that we wanted to get out of the way before we move on and probably eeked out some more, very small performance gains (every little bit helps!). We still have a minor issue with RTB codes and are looking at those right now to determine how big a problem this is to fix.

Now it is time to turn our attention to 1.29.

As you may know, our preliminary plans for 1.29 were focused on some long-overdue features and fixes for the naval portion of the game. This plan must now come in a future release because of an important opportunity for CRS and the future of the game. We have entered into an agreement to license Battleground Europe for operations in the People's Republic of China. As part of that agreement, we must add a few features which are mandatory for that part of the world. These include PRC language support and a government mandated "anti-addiction" function which warns and stops scoring players after excessively long play sessions.

The agreement also gives us the opportunity to focus on the way new players are introduced to the game by improving the UI and adding training modules to the game. A newbie training system is something the game has always needed but we have never really had the chance to create. We are very confident that improving the initial experience for new players by shortening the learning curve and introducing combat in a more controlled way will bring more players into the game, which will make the game more exciting for everyone.

Success in a new market and an improved introduction for new players in existing markets will help provide us the resources needed. More resources results in new features, content and even striving to achieve some of the bigger plans we've had for the game.

This is a unique opportunity we feel we must pursue and we are committing our full efforts to its success.

In the next few weeks we'll reveal more details of the 1.29 features and we are going to answer questions you have in a follow-up so please post them here .

We're also going to be hosting a TeamSpeak chat on Thursday, February 28th at 7pm CST to talk more about 1.29 and take questions from players.

The CRS Team Speak server address is 216.6.226.108. (for this event only)

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