Citadel Studios have revealed the date of — and their plans for — Legends of Aria’s (formerly known as Shards Online, you may recall) second alpha test:

Shards Online has evolved and Legends of Aria will adopt a more conventional MMO testing platform. Future play-tests will now be conducted in phases of focused testing, geared towards specific areas of gameplay in preparation for final implementation.

To accommodate the need for extra testing periods, our Steam launch will coincide with the release of the Legends of Aria Beta instead of Alpha 2.

Please see our updated Development Roadmap.

Alpha 2 Focused Testing – Friday 28th April

Legends of Aria will enter into Alpha testing this April, available to existing and new pledges. Tests will come online for specified periods and will focus on specific areas of gameplay for final feedback and bug testing. We’ll be announcing a more detailed schedule closer to our first phase.

Shards Online: Alpha 1 will be ending on Sunday 26th March. We thank all who participated in the Alpha and in past tests. This means that the official servers will shut down and access to community servers will be limited.

Oh, and if you were in on the first alpha test and happened to notice that the Sanctuary server became unavailable ahead of schedule, this bit of news may be of interest to you:

Going forward we strongly believe in a single server solution for Legends of Aria in regards to our official servers. The reception & feedback from the community regarding the Sanctuary server has been phenomenal and has in many ways become a new source of inspiration for the team. Sanctuary will play an important role in our plans for Legends of Aria.

Make of that what you will.

I’d also suggest clicking on through to read the rest of the announcement; there’s some additional information therein about upcoming community events and planned information releases.