Citadel Studios have released the September newsletter to those who have subscribed to the Shards Online mailing list, chronicling the latest developments in their ongoing work on that game. As always, the opening remarks from Derek Brinkmann handily summarize the information in the newsletter:

September was a great month for us because of the success of our Pre-Alpha 3 Preview event. Over 100 people participated in the event and we received some great feedback on the current state of the game. If there was one thing those survey results told us, it was that you guys think we are on the right track to make Shards Online a massive success.

This month and the next we are continuing to focus on features and polish that directly improve the player experience. We are getting close to finishing up the core UI improvements and we are shifting our focus towards player progression and goals. We will be extending the new player experience to include combat, crafting, and player housing while also tweaking the controls to make movement and targeting more intuitive. Our goal is to make Pre-Alpha 3 as fun as possible and to get you guys coming back to Celador every day to find something new.

I’ve updated our Development Roadmap to reflect our recent changes to the development schedule. Above all, we are committed to delivering releases when they are ready and we are working hard to make sure we get them to you as quickly as possible. Don’t forget that when Pre-Alpha 3 launches, the doors will be opening to all of you 40$ Alpha backers. We can’t wait to get all of you into the game and get your feedback. The single most important thing you can do as a supporter of this project is jump into the game and let us know how you think we are doing.

Some of those UI improvements include the shiny new character screen, which can be seen above. There’s also an interesting section in the newsletter from designer Bruce Bonnick, in which he discusses the difficulty in finding balance between allowing open PvP and ensuring that new players — and/or players who aren’t combat-oriented, in general — aren’t turned off by the depredations of player-killers (PKs).