Jason Ely has posted an update to the Elderlands website:

Elderlands has concluded open testing and resumed closed testing with the current community.

What this means is until we no longer accept new accounts until we have reached a number of internal milestones. A large number of systems in the game have been revamped or totally redesigned based on our previous testing sessions. We also have a number of new features and content coming online that requires some level of controlled testing.

As the new patches roll out we will provide the entire community of our status and post screenshots, updates and as they become available.

We are entering a final stretch for ‘Feature Complete’ which means we are aiming to have a defined set of features for the game done and polished so we can bring the game out of beta and officially open the doors as a live game. This does not mean EL is ‘launching’ in the next few months. We have a lot of work to do and having controlled tests from community members who already know and understand the system is very important.

As well, Asylumsoft will be issuing pending rewards to all eligible testers. It would seem that some of these are a bit past due; the update makes mention of a Christmas-themed reward.