The Kickstarter campaign for Shards Online, the player-run, Ultima Online-inspired MMORPG from Citadel Studios, isn’t doing all that well, and still needs to find its momentum if it is to succeed.

Hopefully, then, the event that Citadel Studios has arranged for this coming weekend will help in that regard. Called “Battle of the Backers”, it will see the release of a fully playable alpha build of Shards Online to a chosen set of backers (at the $20 level or above). And they’ll be streaming in-game events over their Twitch.tv channel.

Get a chance to play! All backers ($20 and above) will get a chance to participate in live streaming events during our campaign that will be streamed on the Shards Online Twitch channel. You could be one of our randomly selected contestants – sign up now!

Our first event, Battle of the Backers, will stream this Saturday, May 24th at 4pm EDT. In this game-show style event, we’re putting backers in our pre-alpha build for a head-to-head fight to the death with all glory to the last man (or woman) standing. There will be super sweet prizes for the victors. May the odds be ever in your favor. MORE INFORMATION BELOW!

And should the Kickstarter campaign succeed, the alpha build will be released to all backers at its conclusion:

Every $20+ backer will get to play Shards Online once our campaign successfully completes. This has NEVER been done before on Kickstarter for an online game.

All backers ($20 and above pledge-level) get a CD key when funding completes to participate in a series of pre-alpha playtests taking place for 2 weeks and starting shortly after the campaign. Members of the Immortals Program get these 2 weeks and beyond.

If you’ve been on the fence about this game, now is the time to pledge, in order to score a chance at participating in the Battle of the Backers. And if you’ve been meaning to encourage your friends to pledge…better get on that, too.

I’m not much of an MMORPG player, as some of you well know, but the concept behind Shards Online is one I find exciting. I’d love nothing more than to see an Ultima Dragons shard created, a kind of next-gen Ultima Legacy if thou wilt. Hopefully, we’ll get the chance to see that happen.