Hello, fellow pilots!

Today I’m going to fill you in on some of the new elements of the upcoming 11th version of Rise of Flight, which is expected to be finished before the end of February.

I told you previously about a new single player mode for ROF. We are preparing 3 different mission types in 10 different locations. Currently, testing is in progress and there is still much debugging ahead of us. Even so, the plan is still to get it into version 11. Simultaneously, we are working on the new multiplayer mode. We tried hard to get a lot of new features in that create a unique gaming experience that requires not only good piloting, but team strategy and tactics. I'll be sure to tell you more in future posts.

It's commonly understood that the Allies currently have the advantage in multiplayer battles. That's about to change. The next aircraft, we're rolling out will be another German fighter. There are a lot of disputes on the forums concerning the Fokker DVII's characteristics. In memoirs and other historical documents, it's described as an aircraft with huge potential. Though, as we can see in game, it doesn’t always live up to that potential. The devil is in the details; in this case, that means modifications. In Rise of Flight, we currently have our airplane installed with the Mercedes D.IIIa engine. But there was also an 'F' modification with a BMW IIIa engine. I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that we are adding this modification. Despite the exterior similarity, it's a completely new aircraft; there will be plenty of differences (bullet counters in the cockpit, for example). We are still developing this bird, and I'm looking forward to flying it myself!

Despite all of the hard work going into new game modes, we are trying to spare some time for objects you've been asking for: features that make our virtual world feel more real. Today I proudly present the dynamic wind strength and direction indicator. They call it a "windsock" in aviation. For you modders out there, this object is placeable anywhere. Now, circling the airfield once before landing will not only serve as an homage to tradition, it will also have the functional use that made it a tradition in the first place. With wind speeds of over 3 meters per second, it's essential to know the direction for a successful landing. Here is the video.

Lastly, I'd like to divulge probably the most important news about the 11th version.

We've been tracking all of our users' wishes and desires. You helped us out immensely by answering questions in our dispatches, voting in forum polls and generally expressing your opinions. We've also been checking out network stats and market trends. As a result, we came to the conclusion that you all needed the ability to fly without a permanent internet connection (in some game modes). A network connection will still be necessary for new user account and profile creation. And, of course, multiplayer and a few other game modes still rely on internet access. But now, if your provider is down, you have insufficient funds, or you just plain hate to log into games all the time, you will be able to fly internet-free in single player mode or in the new 'Quick Mission' mode. We hope that this modification will ease your minds about personal intrusion and internet provider costs. After all, we developed Rise Of Flight to help you escape those every-day, mundane worries and just let you fly carefree!

To make 'login offline' mode available, all you'll need to do is download the upcoming update. After that, you will be able to fly offline, but only with the last activated online pilot profile. The system will gather statistics of your progress and keep it till your next connection to the server. At that time, all gathered data will be transferred to affect your rating and overall statistics. And of course, connection will be needed for additional content purchase and game updating.

But everything else is in your hands!

We are completely aware that this change will simplify further creation of illegal copies, thus jeopardizing our potential income. But the creation of highly-realistic aviation simulators in our commercial world is impossible without an optimistic point of view. And right now, we are feeling pretty optimistic. I'm sure that the number of legit pilots, happy with this decision, will outnumber the illegal copies. So spread the word to all of your friends that balked at the login requirement and didn't purchase RoF. Now, there is no excuse not to give it a try!

Thanks for reading. And now it's back to work.

Hello.

The Christmas holidays come to a close as we jump right back into work. We have great plans for 2010, mostly concerning the gameplay. We intend to develop new interesting game modes and objects in order to make flying the RoF skies more friendly, for veteran and newcomer alike. Moreover, we hope to offer something brand new to the whole aviation simulation genre.

Today I would like to tell you about one of the new game modes.

It will be a new single player mode available from the main game menu. You'll be given an opportunity to create different and varied custom combat situations for training purposes or just for a quick, no-hassle flight. This will allow rapid mission creation for everyone but leave a wide array of options for experienced pilots. You start by selecting the location of combat which forms the main superstructure of every mission. Three types of locations will be available for three mission modes: "Air Combat", "Duel" and "Act Of Bravery". Locations will be arranged in different places on the historical map. Different locations will have different options, most for "Air Combat".

You'll have to create your own flight, two ally flights and three opponent flights. The types of aircraft can be set for each flight. The fuel levels, armament and aircraft skins are manageable for each aircraft, as well. Experienced pilots can choose type of formation and their position in formation. Then you can set yours, and your opponents', altitude, direction, orientation and relative distance. You can pursue your opponent or, on the flip side, escape from pursuit. You can take off from the airport or start combat in the air.

Different ground units (e.g. AA guns, vehicles, trains, ships, etc.) can be added also. You can then set the weather conditions and the time of the day and, finally, take off. Every created preset can be saved and shared with your friends. It's our hope that this game mode will be available for beta-testing in the very near future.

The most veteran and active RoF community members might recognize this type of quick mission generator. Laser, a very talented and dedicated community member, created something similar in 3rd-party app form. I enjoy using it myself and suggest you try it also. We would like to kindly thank Laser for such an outstanding job!

In conclusion, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the various polls and such, traditional for Christmas holidays. We got some very important awards, as a result. Of course, the most valued among them are the awards from gamer feedback. We are very grateful for your recognition and promise that we'll do our best to justify your appreciation and acclaim for the same awards this year.

We are working hard to create even more features to tell you about in future Blog updates. So with that, bye for now and thanks again for reading!

Hello dear pilots.

Our neoqb team would like to wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

If you look at Leaderboards you will see that Rise of Flight community is represented by many parts of the World (more than 95 countries).

This year our team has taken the responsibility and has offered you our vision of combat flight simulator releasing the “Rise of Flight” project. We have worried a lot and absorbed the experience of every month of our work. First of all our goal was to be able to create all the necessary technologies. Secondly we wanted to present our project not only in Russia but worldwide. Then the first additional plane for purchasing was created, then the first rotary engine plane… For the whole year we tried to hear to your ideas and wishes, and also saw your great support in these things. Thank you very much for it!

The plan for RoF for the next year is ready, we will announce it after the holidays. I hope you will like all that we are going to release. In this update we are rolling out a new airplane Fokker D.VIII. And also we have a special offer in our store – the bundle with 2 planes with a 25% discount from its regular price starting from December 23th 2009 till January 11, 2010. With this update all those who are enthusiastic making a plane skins will receive the first tool, which you can find it in the game folder ([RoF_folder]\bin_viewer\release\UserViewer.exe). I’m sure that you can easily get into it friendly-user interface, and that this tool will make the game world more colorful and interesting. We will post links at the forum in January, for which you can find instructions how to create a skin and that will reveal some secrets as well as files for Photoshop that will facilitate your work.

The full list of changes and improvements can be found as usual in the “Announcements” section of the Forum.

Congratulations on your upcoming holidays!
We wish you new interesting ideas, successes, health for you and your relatives!
See you in the new 2010 year!

Sincerely
neoqb Team.

Hello everyone!

I’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! This past year was very stressful for most of us, but on the other hand, it was also a period of time that brought many questions and just as many answers. We experienced enough to make us feel even older than we are!

We’ve almost finished the basic foundations of Rise of Flight with the release of update 1.009. Now we will direct our focus towards improving gameplay. I can’t be more specific right now, but I’ll let you know more when we’ve finalized the plans for next year.

Currently, we are working on squashing some of the bugs/issues that popped up in the wake of 1.009. And, of course, we will be rolling out a new plane to the RoF airfields. I’m proud to introduce you to the Fokker DVIII, the first RoF monoplane! Among many other features, she also includes a bullet counter, making her one of the most unique planes yet. I’m eager to see what you all think of this “modern” bird.

The next update will be released at the end of December, 2009, and as we journey into 2010, update 1.010 will be joining us too!

I’ll be back soon with more news.

Hello!

Right up front, I’d like to state that update 1.009 will soon be available for download. The full list of changes and improvements can be found in the ‘Announcements’ section of the Forum. Now, let me take you through some of the most significant features of 1.009.

First of all, we hope you are excited about the new Playback system, which I detailed for you last time.

The next critical improvement is that the Input settings can now be configured inside the game, without the need to quit the mission you’re playing. We’ve also added the ability to manually tune joystick curves via the game interface. To configure your inputs, simply select ‘Options’ from game menu. To adjust your Joystick curves, select ‘Responses’ tab in ‘Options’ screen.

Mods ON/OFF – As mentioned earlier, from now on you’ll be able to launch Rise of Flight in two different ways: Mods ON and Mods OFF. To use unofficial modifications, you’ll need to activate this option in the ‘Settings.exe’ application, ‘Game settings’ section. Please remember that having mods active means that you won’t be counted in the global statistics. We’re always glad to include great user made modifications into official (mods off) part of the game (e.g. modification of wounded effect texture, etc.).

New key assignments: Right Mouse Button and Esc key
The in-game menu was separated into “Exit Menu” (which is opened by pressing the ESC key, it contains only exit functions) and “Widgets menu” (which is opened by pressing the Right Mouse Button, it contains game widgets controls).

And the last thing I want to introduce to you today is the ability, within multiplayer, to change coalition in the plane list screen before each mission in rotation. I hope this streamlines your playing experience.

As is our tradition, my congratulations and presents for the 8000 (ArchddugBassett), 9000 (GARFIELD-CH-) and 10000 (leatherneck7074) customers of our store. Thank you for your attention and support.

Ok, now I’d better stop taking your attention and let you return back to playing Rise of Flight, while we return to work. I will be back soon, interesting news is coming…

ROF Playback system – a system to record and playback in-game videos. Recorded videos (also called tracks) can later be played back, not only on the author’s PC, but on any PC with the current Rise of Flight version installed. Videos can be recorded both in Single and in Multiplayer modes.

How does it work? The main feature of the system is that it records not only the player’s actions, but everything that surrounds him during the flight. In other words, when you watch your video, you’ll see everything as it happened in the mission. Beyond that, you’ll have options to fast forward and rewind your video, making for an extremely flexible playback.

How do you use it?
After you’ve chosen which mission to play, pay close attention to the complexity settings screen. In the “Flight record” field, you’ll need to choose a level of sound quality for the video you intend to record (there are three options available: no sound, medium and high quality). You’ll also need to choose whether or not to capture graphic (particle) effects (such as explosions) and ground units’ actions. After that, everything that occurs in the air with any object within sight (visibility range = 5 km) will be recorded. A name for the video is assigned automatically but it can easily be changed later.

To start recording, you’ll need to press RCtrl+R. A special symbol (a movie camera, seen below) will appear in the upper right corner of the screen. It indicates that you are now recording. To stop recording, simply press RCtrl+R again. If during the recording process, you pressed them rapidly, the system will automatically add suffix-numbers to the names of each video segment. That way, you can choose to record either short videos of only the most important/interesting events or whole missions.

In the version 1.009 of the game, there are two ways to play your video back. The first one, a “No change” mode, allows you to play a video back exactly as this video was recorded by its author. You’ll watch it through the eyes of its creator. The second one, a “Custom View” mode, lets you play the video back using various cameras, viewpoints and angles including the F11: free camera. In this mode, you can watch it however you wish, but if you press RCtrl+F1, the system will bring you back into “No change” mode once more.

When you’re in a playback session, you’ll see a scroll bar made to look like a magnetic filmstrip and a marker indicating your current point in the footage. To rewind or fast forward, simply move the cursor to the desired place and wait for the footage to update to that point.

Please be aware that in missions where you are recording a video, you cannot use acceleration of time in the game. However, when you play it back afterwards, those functions will be available to use. Time acceleration buttons, by default, are the same as in the game – use ‘]’ to accelerate and ‘[‘ to decelerate. Clever use of slow motion can create very dramatic scenes!

If you rewind your video, all cameras except F11 (free camera) are reset to their original positions that were in use when the video was recorded (i.e. RCtrl+F1). Free camera will keep the last position you established, but all of the objects will obviously be moving on their recorded paths. For instance, you could place the free camera in a position to record the passage of a vehicle convoy. Directorial methods such as this can created some great panoramic scenes. We also have the potential to add new cameras and instruments in the future.

How do you save recorded videos?
By default, Rise of Flight automatically assigns each video with a unique name. An example might be: “russian_roulette_2009-11-18_12-20_00.trk”. This means that on the 18th of November, 2009 at 12:20, the user recorded footage from a Russian roulette mission in Singleplayer mode.

What influences *.trk file size?
The key components that influence the size of a track are sound quality and the amount of objects you record. Higher quality and a higher amount of details and objects make a track file bigger.

Немного статистики:
For our test, we used medium sound quality and we recorded all possible in-game data of the mission. The overall track time was 2 hours and 14 minutes, and the file size was 320 Mbs (with a zipped file size of 97.5 Mbs).

In what folder are video files stored?
Recorded video consists of its track file (*.trk) and a corresponding folder with the same name. This folder contains all files needed for that track’s playback. Rise of Flight saves all of this stuff in *:\ROF\...\data\Tracks\. To watch videos produced by other users, place all the needed files and folders in that section.

As a quick reminder, please be aware that until an update is released, everything is subject to change as we work hard to test the new systems. If any of the smaller details change, I’ll let you know.

That about wraps it up. I’ll conclude by wishing you luck in creating breathtaking videos with Rise of Flight 1.009!

PS. Winter coming in ROF!

Hello.

Today is the 11th of November, 2009. Ninety one years ago, The First World War came to an end. That conflict killed many millions of people, destroyed several empires and pushed human civilization into a new age of technological development. Our project strives to authentically reproduce a technical innovation of the era — the airplane.

Before we had started, I knew almost nothing about this period of history. Now I can easily recognize different aircraft types and the most famous people who were the founders of aviation. It was fascinating research that taught me a lot and changed my point of view on many things.

If I am ever lucky enough to meet a WWI pilot today, I feel confident that I could find plenty of things to discuss and debate with him.

During my last visit to Holland (I attended fsweekend.com), I saw a real Fokker Dr.I. The strangest part was that even though this was my first time seeing the plane in person, I already knew it rather well, like we were old friends. This is possibly the most amusing feeling I ever had working on Rise of Flight.

It excites me to no end that modern technology can so faithfully reconstruct history. Currently, we are only able to reproduce certain elements, mainly technical ones. But I am certain that in the future, we will make bold strides into other aspects and moments of our civilization’s history.

Now, let me return back to present-day events. We have finished a new version of the Rise of Flight Leaderboard. We’ve added more data about pilots, and a new rating — the Aces rating. It counts a player’s victories gained during one virtual pilot’s life. This rating promises to be highly dynamic and it will be updated hourly. I’m looking forward to seeing if anybody will repeat some of the outstanding achievements of well-known heroes of that time: Manfred von Richthofen with 80 kills, William  A. Bishop — 72, René Fonck — 75, Godwin Brumowski — 35, Francesco Baracca — 34, Edward V. Rickenbacker — 26, Kozakov Alexander — 20. The Leaderboards are currently in testing mode, and it will be launched, in full, soon.

In this new version of the Leaderboard, you’ll see a representation of your current profile dynamics (with blue and red arrows). By holding your mouse pointer over the arrow’s image, you will get detailed information about players’ position changes. I hope the new and improved RoF Leaderboard system will stoke the fires of competition, anew. As always, we are glad to hear your feedback about it.

For the conclusion of this post, I’d like to show you a couple of pictures of a new vehicle you will get with the next update. These are images of a standard river ship that could be used for freight hauling and transportation of soldiers, but also for anti-aircraft defense. For right now, all ships will be armed with AA guns so be aware when attacking them. I’m sure that after some practice, though, you will manage to easily kill any ship.

That’s all, for now. We still have a ton of things to do in a very short amount of time.

Hello fellow pilots!

Before the release of 1.008, I promised to stay in touch with our community. Hopefully this update is a good first start. The last ‘Rise of Flight’ update was like an ‘iceberg’ in that it had its above-water aspects and its underwater parts. You read about, and experienced, the visible aspects, but the hidden one was equally important.

Any software development can be likened to a growing tree. Base modules establish the trunk, secondary modules form the branches, and finally, the interface begets the leaves and fruit. A more complicated project needs more numerous branches and a steadier trunk. Update 1.008 brought an important change that fortified our ‘trunk’. Now we will deal with the branches.

A new system of missions that allows players to respawn (a dogfight mode), multi-seat planes available in single player or multiplayer modes, new modes for virtual competitions - all of these tasty things, and more, are planned for the future, but as of last week, we have finally have a steady base from which to develop them.

We are working, in parallel, on SDK materials that will make possible our cooperation with small teams and individual developers. The first tasks will be new plane, vehicle and game map creation.
Going forward, this will ensure a steady stream of high quality content. That gives you a quick glimpse into the future, but let’s take a look at the more immediate concern: update 1.009.

Playback - a system with which to record and playback in-game videos. Each user will be able to record an in-game video of any length (from the overall mission time to a couple of seconds) by simply clicking one button. All events occurring in the game can be recorded and then played back, which is as easy as choosing from a list of tracks in the same manner as you choose a mission to fly. The RoF playback system records not only your own input data (i.e. the consequence of your actions), but it also records coordinates and actions of other entities in the mission. This grants you access to a fully accurate reconstruction of a recorded mission. The amount of in-game objects participating in a video influences output file size. This is why we have added an option for you to choose what in-game events you would prefer to record. We specially tested how well such files can be archived (e.g. zip), and we had good results with it. Greater detail will follow in the next blog entry.

Input settings. At the time of Rise of Flight’s release, we had no way of coding the input settings into the in-game interface. That’s why we left them in the launcher. We also assumed that a typical RoF user will play the game with rather simple joystick, so we hid all complex configuration adjustments. In retrospect, that was an error on our part. In studying the problems you’ve encountered, we’ve concluded that vast majority of RoF users employ rather sophisticated (and not cheap) input devices, sometimes tuned manually. As a result of this, it’s very inconvenient to configure your devices via the settings.exe utility and then wait for the game to load each time to check your keys assignments. Once 1.009 hits, those troubles will (hopefully) be a thing of the past. We are also adding the ability to manually tune joystick curves and axis sensitivity. More details will follow.

Mods ON/OFF – after the SDK release, we hope to see different user-made modifications to Rise of Flight. We have read many posts of users being afraid of possible cheating. It is a valid concern; mods always bring the potential for unfair play. To avoid those complications, we are creating a simple protection system. Starting with update 1.009, you will be able to launch RoF in two different ways: Mods ON and Mods OFF. Turning Mods ON allows for the use of unofficial modifications - the game will not check your files and data transfer. Unfortunately, having this mode active disqualifies you from being counted in the global statistics. Simply deactivate the Mods mode in order to resume being counted.

While we are eager to see some great user mods created, adding to everyone’s RoF experience, I hope you understand why only non-modded gameplay will be ranked. This system allows the ‘wolves’ of the sky to feast, while the ‘sheep’ can frolic unharmed.

These are three major elements of the upcoming version, but that’s not all you have to look forward to:

Winter season – winter time will come to RoF. New winter textures will be available in the Mission Editor. Squadrons won’t ‘wait out’ the cold anymore in career mode.

New Sky colors – we have improved the sky color system. You will see far more realistic colors in the sky. Our artists are continually working on it and if we will have enough time, you might be lucky enough to see the sky colors changing not only during the 24 hours of a day but also its seasonal changes.

Coop game mode – while you are waiting for this new game mode will be finished, we have decided to provide you with a simplified version of coop. There will be no need to choose a side before entering a server; you will be able to change your side inside a mission without leaving it. There will be a few nice changes for mission designers as well.

Skin Management – currently, Rise of Flight contains a limitation on the number of skins in use during a mission. Without this limitation, you would simply run out of memory. This is not an ideal solution since during WW1, aircraft appearance was of great importance. We have improved our system and now you can use more skins. The system will let you see only nearby planes. Other planes will be in default skins until they approach closer to you, such that you are able to discern their distinctive pattern.
This system will also fix ‘white’ planes that could be found in multiplayer missions in case a player had used a skin that others did not have.

Skins development SDK and Tools – I always look at new works with great pleasure. Sometimes I am awestruck by their brilliance. These tools will help you to work faster and easier, which is vital to creating things properly.

River Ships – ships will sail on the rivers. We have finished our first models and are eager to see them in-game. Ships can navigate and follow a route and can receive commands similar to other Rise of Flight objects. They can be dangerous because many have AA guns onboard. I’m excited to see what missions the community creates using them. If these first models are a success, I think there will be many waterborne vehicles sailing the Rise of Flight waters. And you’ll be able not only watch over them but launch off of their decks.

Realistic Smoke – at first, we intended to build a uniform system of physics. We did not launch it from the very beginning because it had a huge impact on PC performance. Your feedback informed us that this was a very coveted feature. The first aspect of new physics system will be smoke blowing in the wind. Its operation in-game will depend on various options set for a mission, such as wind strength, direction, gusts and turbulence. Have fun experimenting!

Planes Flight Model – as a result of very helpful and descriptive discussion on the forums, we will additionally tune some Rise of Flight planes. Many thanks go out to everybody who helped with the search for materials and information. I have no doubt that that kind of communication will be invaluable moving forward.

That is not the end of the list we are preparing. But the entire list would be too much for one update. I hope this has whet your appetite for future blog entries. We will be looking at many other features and concerns more in-depth, not only reading about them in the forums, but watching them in-game as well. Whew, that was a long one. Now I have to get back to work! Thanks for reading.

Hello,
I'd like the quickly run down some of the key features of update 1.008. It will bring two new planes in the store (Fokker Dr.I and Sopwith Camel) and will add new summer textures to the game. It will also fix the AI of pilots who sometimes “got out of hand” with their marksmanship skills and it should increase game performance on some systems as well.

Strenuous testing allowed us to spot some bugs that we had previously missed and we were able to squash them. Another new feature is the 'Fly now' option that has been added to the main game menu. With this, you can play a rather simple “sampler” mission that I hope will be helpful to those of you who find 'Rise of Flight' a bit too difficult. We have placed several typical targets such as an echelon, a vehicle column, Russian roulette, a balloon, etc. along a single flight route. We believe it will be useful for training purposes, and while it's not quite as advanced as the quick mission generator that you are waiting for, it's a good first step in that direction and brings us that much closer to the real thing.

We will develop this mission with each update, adding new elements and content, until we will have finished the real 'quick mission generator', which will allow for much easier, and more dynamic, mission creation.

Realism lovers and sticklers will be glad to find a blip switch added to some airplanes along with all the accurate engine behaviors thereof. It uses the Shift+E keys by default but can also be remapped at your convenience. We have also finished the full version of the 'Rise of Flight Mission Editor manual'. It's well over a hundred pages long and we're hoping it helps out the RoF mission designing community.

Some thoughts:
Reading the forums, I've been struck by the amount of dissatisfaction due to the lack of information from us regarding the development process. This surprised me, as I always thought we should only announce something if we are sure of it. The development of Rise of Flight, and projects like, are not easy tasks. And there are many moments and situations that are hard to foresee. It only makes sense to let you know what's coming when we are sure we can deliver.

But as I read further, I found that many people are simply interested in HOW it is all done. That is something I can definitely fill you in on and I promise to update you more as we move forward on 1.009. Because it's going to be one interesting update.

We know some users are currently experiencing performance issues. Unfortunately, we have not been able to reproduce similar problems on our systems. It might be because of specific hardware configurations. We are looking into all possible solutions.

Lastly, as is our tradition, congratulations and present are in order for our 6000 (Kneedowndean) and 7000 (Smoke218) customers to our store. Thank you all for your interest for ROF project! As for us, back to work we go.

Hello Dear Users!

We are approaching the end of October and that means the next update for our game is in the pipeline.

Throughout this month, we were working hard on new functionality and content. The new playback system is being tested now and you will get this feature in November with update 1.009. This system provides you with new possibilities to record in-game videos. It is a very powerful but easy to use tool. I will fill you in on the details of this as we get closer to 1.009. But in today's post, I would like to introduce to you two planes that you will see with update 1.008. First, I have to say, it was really difficult to model these birds. We thoroughly examined all the materials we could get our hands on and watched numerous videos of them dozens and dozens of times.

The one thing we were sure of was that these planes needed to be the next to appear in the game. Our desire seems to coincide with the opinions of our users, who took part in surveys and in polls on the forum. These planes are acknowledged as among the most famous and iconic planes of World War I. It is with great pride that I introduce these amazing birds to the 'Rise of Flight' virtual skies — The Fokker Dr.I and Sopwith Camel.

Fokker Dr.1

Sopwith Camel

We hope you will have as much fun flying these birds as we did when we modeled them. Personally, I could not decide which one is better. Both planes are unique in piloting and maneuvering. I would caution you not to be deceived by the ease with which these planes fly through the air. Both aircrafts are rather prankish and temperamental in landings but they can show you their mettle in maneuvers. I wish you good luck in flying these unique planes.

As always, you will get detailed information about update 1.008 on the day when it becomes available for download.