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Well Christmas is fast upon us again and that's a good thing really. Last Christmas we weren't sure we'd be around to see another one. With the help and support of you, our awesome community ... we have managed to actually have a good, if somewhat miraculous year.

The most important thing is the game has survived it's biggest threat ever and is still here for you to enjoy. The last campaign just completed even surprised us all with being one of the most memorable, if not THE most memorable campaigns in over a decade of awesome war-gaming in World War II Online.

We hired on TGUNR as a result of the successful Hero Builder program and this was an important step for us, as perhaps unknown to our players we were in a situation where all our back-end infrastructure had to be moved from it's old location to a newer one, and at the same time needed almost complete replacement or overhaul after 11+ years of operations.

This is a decidedly risky thing for a small group like us as without a parrellel operation to fall back on; any problem that crops up will impact the live game server directly. We did have a number of smaller issues but we managed to avoid the landmine in your lap going off. Much thanks again go to our community of players for their patience and understanding at times like these.

We also saw the advent of Eagletree, our new volunteer DataBase guy ... who's work on the CS&R v2.0 beta has been so excellent. This work is nearing fruition as the production stats package for the game and will also be bearing other newer fruit in the form of achievements, awards and the upcoming squad challenge package which I'll talk about a little later. Basically we are going to unveil an ongoing permanent series of squad challenges that will run within the campaign game and have the intent behind them of strengthening squad roles and participation in the game. With squad stats tracking we will also be able to set up new tools allowing for one off squad events as well. This will be a huge new direction for some of the games development going forwards.

We got a little work done on improving our web presence although we still have more to do in this area. It's all a work in progress for a small team like we are. Player support and enthusiasm continues to be excellent and we really want to pass on our heartfelt thanks as we near the Christmas break.

I'd like to echo a thought we've had before, but which sometimes people tend to overlook. It's easy to wonder what the future holds especially when one is getting through a difficult period like we all just have. There will be opportunities for the game, which means for the players, as we work through the year 2014 to come. We need to be here to take advantage of those opportunities however. That means we NEED YOU to be here with us. New things are going to come to the game, there will be progress, but not if you abandon it before these opportunities come to pass. We need to stay consistent in our efforts as the games developers, and we need our community to back us up if we're going to do this. For the record, we've had a 25% decrease in overall Hero subscriptions since the goal was achieved... a bit of a drop from initial support for this program. This support is one of the prime reasons we made it through this difficult period.

We need your support as Heroes guys,please play a part if you can here; it makes a tremendous difference. Our Hero Builders of 2013 helped pull us through where we might not have made it otherwise. We plan on getting everything done in 2014 that it is possible for us to achieve, and if we achieve anything it will be with the communities help and support, just like it's always been.

Most of all go and have a happy Christmas, enjoy the holiday season ... and be positive. We are.

Cheers! from the team here at Cornered Rat Software. Your WWII Online maniacs.

Learn more about the Hero Builder Program (click here).