So! Here we are then, the moment we’ve all been waiting for:



You’ll be able to play City of Steam again on May 10th; in just two short weeks you’ll be able to walk the streets of Nexus once more!

It’s been a while since we’ve opened up the game to all you fantastic dudes and dudettes (cowabunga!), and we’d like to invite you to once again join us and test the game before the live version is launched. Now you’re of course all saying: “But hey, you said that you were going to do Open Beta next!” …we still are! This is a prelude to that. Think “early admission”. Let’s run you through some of the details:

• This is an exclusive ‘early access’ type of Beta; we’ll be using keys again and we plan to open it up as soon as possible. Newsletter subscriber? We’ll send you a key, guaranteed.
• Relax Collaborators, you will have your guaranteed spot, and a head start.
• This will be a continuous full-time Beta, except for some inevitable maintenance and patching down-time.
• This is a ramp-up to the Open Beta. Depending on issues and feedback, this could end pretty quickly after May 10th. (Though not within a week, you silly goose!)
• A character wipe is not planned; if there is something REALLY problematic that pops up we might have to, but we will try to avoid this at all costs.
• We’re going to start off with 3 classes (Gunner, Arcanist, Warden) and 4 races (Heartlanders, Stoigmari, Avens and Ostenians) and build up to the 4th class (Channeler) and the 7 other races throughout the early access Beta.

The reason we’re starting with 3 classes and 4 races is not because we hate your guts or anything; far from it! It’s because it’ll allow for more focused testing of content and that’s exactly what is needed right now. For you long-time vets reading this, think of how we gradually introduced each race back in the Alpha test. We’ll go into a bit more detail about what else we’ve changed soon but for now we’ll tell you this: we have a new skill/talent system, a new crafting system, new zones/suburbs, lots of new peripheral content, way more CoSmetics, improved the challenge dungeons, added an events system, introduced The Wilderness and there’s still a lot more that we’ll reveal later. During the Beta, we’ll also roll out some of those new areas and systems, you know, the ones we’re not going to tell you about yet. Soon though, soon we will reveal all (…most?) of our secrets.



So, TLDR:

• We’re launching our ‘early admission’ type of Beta on May 10th.
• This is a key supported ‘prelude’ ramping up to Open Beta.
• Newsletter subscribers will get keys.
• Collaborators will have guaranteed access.
• This is a continuous Beta, not just weekends.
• We’re starting off with 3 classes and 4 races and building up from there throughout the Beta.
• We’ll have more information about new content and changes soon (Dev Journals!)
• Do you want more of these TLDRs? (They’re kind of nifty, aren’t they?)

People who have tested the game with us before (Sneak Peek, Alpha, Closed Beta) will be invited into this test automatically. However, want in on the action and have not registered yet? Do it, do it now! Want a key for early admission? Sign up for our Newsletter, on the right-side of the page (just look over, it’s under a bar called “Get Email Updates”). Or if you don’t see it, you can also click here.

Thank you all for joining us in this wild ride we like to call “development and testing”. We hope to see you in the Forum, but most of all soon again in the grand city of Nexus!