As noted in brief on the Shards Online website recently, the March newsletter concerning the game’s development was published last week; it can be viewed in full here. Citadel Studios’ cursory description of it:

March’s newsletter is officially out. It includes our upcoming Stress Test contest for Pre-alpha Playtesters, a letter from the project lead, an updated development roadmap and much much more.

…doesn’t really do justice to the entirety of its content, so let’s take a closer look at some of the actual items in it.

Hopefully some of you were able to partake of the Break Our Shard stress test that took place over the weekend:

We will be lifting the player limit on one of our shards to see how many of you we can cram into it before it dies.

…

The rules are simple, the last person to log on and break the server will receive a Shards Online t-shirt. If you can’t participate in this contest, we will have plenty more coming soon.

Additionally, project lead Derek Brinkmann took some time to pen a letter to the game’s fans and backers; his first in two months:

Every time a new feature goes in for our upcoming “Pre-alpha 2” release, I get giddy. The modding documentation is nearing completion and it is so cool to see all of the functionality we have packed into the engine on “paper”. We here at Citadel are constantly making mods to prove the system and find the bits that need improvement. Our last mod, “SpawnWaves”, sent waves of cultists at our playtesters and I won’t say too much about our next one, called “Infection”, but it involves a zombie plague.

Equally exciting, is the progress on our first true map, Celador. As you can see from the screenshots, the cultist ruins are taking shape. We also have spent some time on the AI for the animals that roam the map. Now they are smarter, they age and grow over time, and have rare spawns like the menacing dire wolf. To top it all off, we’ve added over 20 different harvestable resources to the map!

I’m happy to be able to say that we finally have an updated development roadmap for you. As you can see, we’ve added an additional pre-alpha release in between the Modding Preview and our official Alpha 1 release. This pushes Alpha back into later in the year, but it allows us to get our pre-alpha testers into Celador to hammer away on it before we release it to a much larger audience. Our Alpha 1 release is what we use to prove to the world that this game needs to be made. So we need to make sure it is completely ready, which means it is as solid and stable and packed with features as we can get it with the budget we are working with.

You can check out the updated development roadmap here. As of this writing, the project isn’t very far along it; the second pre-alpha (which concerns modding features) hasn’t yet gone live. But overall, the roadmap charts out a good course for Shards Online that the Citadel Studios team will hopefully be able to stick to (or at least keep close to).

Additionally, if you’re curious to see just how much of Celador — the main setting in Shards Online — the team have been able to build, you’ll want to check out this Twitch stream.

Finally, Brinkmann also let slip a few details about the resource gathering systems that will be used for Shards:

• Resource sources – A resource source is an object or location on the map that you can harvest resources from. Some only offer a single type of resource, others have rare resources that can be gathered if you have enough skill. There are many resource sources even on our first alpha map Celador. Currently there are over 20 different resources available. A resource source contains a finite amount of resources which is depleted as players and NPCs harvest from it. Some resources never run out like sand and stone, others like trees will naturally regenerate over time, and still others will disappear and respawn in another location on the map like wild vegetables and iron veins.

• Resource gathering skills – We are starting with the following skills: Mining, Lumberjacking, Foraging, and Butchery. Your skill level determine what types of resources you can harvest from a given source. It also affects how long it takes you to harvest one unit, how much of the source is consumed to retrieve one unit, and your chance at gathering certain rare resources.

• Harvesting tools – Each type of resource source requires a specific tool for harvesting. (In some cases, like foraging, it is your bare hands) Harvesting tools have different qualities. This quality affects how long it takes to harvest one unit and how much damage is done to the tool each harvest. For example, if you are using a battle axe to gather wood, it will take much longer to harvest a single unit of wood than it would with an axe specifically crafted for chopping trees. Also, a master-crafted axe will be able to harvest much more wood before requiring repair than a simple axe crafted by a novice.

That about covers it, but do click on through to check out the newsletter in full, as not all of its content has been excerpted here.

And may I just say that I continue to love the art style of this game? Because — and the screenshots above should tell the tale of why — I do. Really, I do.