The Shards Online community newsletter for July has been published…ahead of the end of the month, even. It’s a shorter update, but contains some pretty significant news. As always, it begins with a letter from Derek Brinkmann, the project lead:

This has been one of the most exciting months for Shards Online because we unleashed our army of Pre-Alpha Admins by officially launching Pre-alpha 2. We already have a bunch of community run servers appearing on the server list… and even better, the modders have been getting their hands dirty and creating some really cool mods.

To support these admins, we have already held three weekly Admin Roundtable events where we demonstrate the principles of running and modding a server live on “Hangouts on Air”. This is a platform where all admins are welcome to exchange ideas and ask questions with the developers directly. We have staggered the schedule to ensure that we have both European and US friendly times. These events are restricted to members of the Pre-Alpha Admin program since we discuss topics that are under NDA. However, if you sign up to join the program by pledging, you get access to all recordings of previous events.

I’m also really looking forward to the next public Community Roundtable event (August 1st at 1pm EDT). Since it has been two months since the last one, we have so much to talk about and show you! In addition to the admin and modding stuff, we have been making tons of progress on new items, content and systems. You won’t want to miss it!

They also managed to cross off at least one of the goals stated in the game’s Kickstarter campaign:

We promised our Pre-Alpha Admins ways that they could get testers for their servers. On July 21st we let them know they could request their 10 Single Server Access Codes. These codes will allow them to have testers specifically for their Shard, regardless of backer level. They can also redeem multiple codes on the same account for testing.

We also are allowing the Pre-Alpha Admins to have an approved modder assist them. Approved modders will need to be Founders level or above.

And if you’re curious about avatar customization in the game, there’s a bit about that, as well:

We are working on several updates to our armor for our avatars both player and NPC alike. We’re excited to announce we have had our first pass on a full armor collection for the female character. In addition to the armor we have introduced new hats and skin tones. There’s even a dress and plain clothes for all of you fancy roleplayers out there.

Click on through for screenshots, and to check out the rest of the update.