Timeline Until The Awakening Release

Due to the time taken to handle production, quality assurance and deployment, our internal progress is generally around a week ahead of what's on Beta. Aside from some continued balance work and bug fixes, most of the core content for The Awakening is almost ready. We're expecting no problems having that finished and tested for our expected launch date. Carl will give more information in his State of the Beta post tomorrow.

As you know, part of Act Four (the three areas after Kaom/Daresso, which include a whole lot of boss fights) has been excluded from the Beta so far. I'd like to confirm that we are planning to include it in the Beta. We expect to release it around a week before the final release. We're handling most of the testing of this content internally, but do want to get your feedback on its balance prior to release. While game systems like the Jewel system needed extensive testing over several months, areas and boss fights are much easier to get public feedback on over a few days. This also prevents player burnout on that new content :)

There are a bunch of skills and Unique Items that haven't been announced yet that we'll be including in the final release. Work on those is going very well.

Work on the upcoming challenge leagues is progressing well. The Standard one was basically complete, but we decided last week to add another layer of awesome to it. The Hardcore one (which is the one I'm supervising) is in a cool-stuff-all-over-the-place state, where we have to refine it down to set of content that we're actually releasing. It's pretty different to a regular challenge league, but has been a lot of fun to test so far. This one honestly doesn't involve dangerous bosses spawning out of nowhere.

You may have noticed that we haven't announced what the areas beyond Kaom/Daresso or the challenge leagues are yet. This is for marketing reasons - if we announce them together, with a trailer, then the game gets a lot of coverage and more new players to consume. You should expect to see a proper trailer, announcement of the challenge leagues, and a content update for The Awakening's website sometime late next week. This will also include a countdown to the final release date (which is probably sometime around July 10, between you and me).

The Beta will probably run until a few hours before the release of The Awakening.

We are confident that this will be our strongest release ever, both in terms of content and server stability. Having an extended Beta of this length has been extremely useful. Thanks for your patience and support. Once we've announced a formal release date with a countdown, please spread the word to friends!

(On a side note, the office move went well over the weekend! Everyone's set up in the new space and hard at work. I'll get some photos once it has settled down a bit.)