The beta includes significant improvements in the AI, a revamped ratings system and the European transfer style system. More details and the download link can be found here: http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... 07#p159207
As for what'll be worked on from now until next week's release:
JeffR wrote:With a week to go, the three areas we're going to be concentrating one are the full implementation of custom play, adjusting several things in the match engine to improve stats generation for star players and defencemen and increase the effects of toughness and leadership, and getting facegen working. Those items are already in various stages of completion, but weren't suitable for inclusion in this update in a partial state.
Facegen ran into an aesthetics problem: when you take the baseball caps off OOTP's players and replace them with the hair options we have available, the results vary from funny to hideous, leaning towards the latter. So for now facegen players will get draft-day style portraits, with the ballcap on. (Update 8/27: I wrote that last night, and with today's delays and the amount of time needed to get the necessary art assets finished, it's looking like facegen is the top candidate to slide past the release date. Since it's cosmetic, I think it makes the most sense to cut there rather than lose func
The match engine work will also include some non-stat fixes, including, I hope, the return of the shot view screen (it'll be viewable by clicking items on the highlights list.) We'll also be recording some additional stats, including things that will allow us to calculate Corsi/Fenwick - you can see the beginnings of this in the bottom section of the player season stats screen, with some dummy values (PDO is there and calculated correctly, though.)
See the description of custom mode I posted a few days ago for the outline of what we'll be doing there.
Aside from those big-ticket items, we'll be continuing the usual database work and have time blocked off before the deadline to deal with last-minute issues, particularly stability-related ones. Sebastian worked out something today that will make one category of crash bug a little easier to find, so that should help on that front.