Initial testing is over. We have now moved on to a wide test with our normal whitelist server to get a better feel of how it all feels in a normal play environment. That test begins today. Barring any major pitfalls (which we don't foresee but you never know) i would say 2 or so weeks is a pretty decent estimate to start looking for a release date.
Our testers have been amazing but with so many balance changes and restarts we want to make sure play flows smoothly. I will say this, I myself have restarted about 8 times in the past week or so, and every single time I did the first 5 days were amazing. They were challenging, NEVER short on action or boring and most of all REWARDING. I love what we did here. This is certainly not vanilla, and it's not a tacked on mod. It feels VERY different in how you survive and where you go. Each restart was different depending on both my circumstances and my luck. I DO feel some may have a few issues with some of the changes but we all felt the changes we made were for the best in a world were the focus is on long term worlds and play and not on powering through the content. The changelist is going to be ...big. VERY big.
To this day I am trying to get as many new assets and models in as possible before we MUST release, just because i want you guys to have so much new material to experience.
Im very excited for you guys to get your hands on it as are our testers.