Ten Ton Hammer continues to enjoy early access to all things Shroud of the Avatar, as their just-released preview of Release 3 demonstrates.

And from the sound of it, Portalarium have gone to great lengths to ensure a smooth experience for backers come Thursday:

…the team has put in a lot of work over the last several weeks to ensure players would be able to see each other correctly and to get the positional information dialed in super tight. Richard Garriott even joked about waving torches at Starr Long’s face in the game to ensure animations lined up correctly between clients. The result appears to be a very smooth and accurate experience, at least from what I was seeing with everyone playing on the LAN. We’ll see if doing it live with a lot more players online works as well in a few days.

That said, this is the first time I can recall Ten Ton Hammer expressing reservations about the game quite this openly or directly:

If a large number of players are talking to several NPCs in proximity to each other, or several attempting to converse with a single NPC, the resulting clamor could make dealing with NPCs difficult. I love the idea of what they’re attempting because it harkens back to the early days of Ultima Online and EverQuest, but there are a lot more players these days. That seems to be a concern the team had already thought of since chat filters are a part of this build. I hope their precautions are enough for it to work, but I have a feeling that there may be some design issues to work through before it does. Though I doubt it’s anything that can’t be handled with a little tweaking.

The good news is that the newest release should start to give us and the developers a chance to finally observe the new chat system in a semi-live environment. The numbers won’t be quite as high as at release, but the limited number of towns should concentrate those online enough for a decent test. That means one thing I’ll be looking for as I poke around Owl’s Head harassing NPC guards, is to see if there seems to be any extra confusion caused by more players online at once. The team is pretty proud of their emergent AI behaviors, but there’s nothing like a trial by fire to shake the bugs out.

And there are other new features as well:

Merchants are now functional after an easy double-click as well, so you can craft until your eyes cross and then sell the results to your local consignment shop. When you do interact with the traders, you’ll find that arrangements are finalized with a bill of sale that requires your signature. It would seem a small thing to many, but it’s a testament to this team’s desire to make the world feel immersive and their thoughtful approach to every aspect of the game.

Another addition this time around is the small village of Braemar. It has the calm air of country life thanks to the rural setting with lots of trees. Even the lots for player housing are dotted with trees until they’ve been built on. Starr Long tells me it’s because they want villages to have a sense of growth when players start populating the world. With the cool lighting effects the guys are using in Shroud, a walk through the shaded paths of Braemar is highly recommended for those who are lucky enough to have access to it.

Release 3 begins on Thursday, at 10:30 AM CST (9:30 AM according to the calendar here on the site, which is set for Mountain Time instead). If you still have the Shroud of the Avatar client installed, you should find that the Release 3 patches and gamedata will become available on Wednesday evening, so make sure to fire up the game client for an update then. Login access won’t be enabled for backers until the following morning, of course, but at least you can be sure that the game will be ready for you before then.

And if you don’t have the Shroud of the Avatar client installed at present, I observe that there is a functional download link in this news update.