Are you dreaming? No, you are not! Today I have the pleasure to announce to you that we just released the first beta of our 12.X release series! You can find it in the "testing" beta branch on Steam!
With our release on Steam not even six months ago we got some excellent feedback from the community on what to improve next. One of the things that stood out: playing together is not easy for many players. So, in 12.0 we address this problem. Playing together is as easy as one of you starting a server, marking it either Public or Invite-Only, and sharing the newly introduced invite-code with your friends. They can join your server, just like that. No setup needed on your side, no port-forwarding, nothing. Sadly, to set expectations, no integration with Steam itself has been added. Integrating with Steam as GPL-licensed software has challenges, which we havent resolved yet. But we hope you agree that this new multiplayer experience is the next best thing. Next to this excellent new feature, a few other new things we introduced are:

• Brand new Online Players window to easier see who is in what company, etc.
• Maximum number of NewGRFs you can use in one game has been raised to 255.
• Our official Windows builds are now signed.
• Default vehicles are now compatible with almost all industry NewGRFs.
• Configurable subsidy duration, up to 5000 years.
• Press Ctrl to build diagonal rivers in Scenario Editor.
• Many bug-fixes (over 50 of them), tweaks, changes, and other additions.