We are a new team and we were wondering when the manual becomes available for next years event. I think at the end of worlds but I am not sure.
The new game and the corresponding manual are released at the world championship in late April.
It’s probably a bit early to start worrying about the new game…
Vex usually does not unveil the new game until Worlds is almost over. If you have not yet started on this year’s game (SkyRise), I think you still have plenty of time to get in the game this year. A lot of teams do total re-designs during the Winter break and, for them, it’s sometimes almost like starting from scratch.
We just had a qualifier this weekend and less than a month before we totally redesigned our robot. We know that lots of prep time is not required however we as a team wish that we would have had enough time to work on detail oriented things such as autonomous programming and getting the driver used to the robot.
Welcome to the club. 
I mentor a group of kids who started on SkyRise in May. They are now on total redesign number 3 (or 4???), and they will be working their rears off over their entire Thanksgiving “vacation”. A few weeks ago another team that I find amazing did an astounding job on their autonomous in a match and after it worked, their coach turned to me and said, “Wow, it actually worked. They finished writing the code for that late last night. This is the second time they’ve ever tried it.”
Moral of the story: you never have enough time to do what you want to do or what needs to get done. Everything always seems to require the very last minute. You just need to learn to go with the flow and never give up.