I'm sure there are a lot of players out there watching our site and the Twitter feed for signs that open Beta for 1.31 is on the horizon. Nobody wants that to happen more than the dozen or so Rats thrashing away on the last of our TO DO items. There is good news though, the last major code check-in took place earlier this week and we are now trying to build our first open Beta candidate. What does that mean? Keep reading to find out.

While we've had most of the features slated for 1.31 in closed Beta testing for a couple of months, we've been anxiously awaiting some major code which alters the way the terrain is populated when your game client is loading. This code should net some good results in reducing stutters while playing and reduce memory errors we've seen creeping into the game. It has been a long road to get this completed as it touches a lot of the game engine components. It also affects almost all the objects in the terrain and our artists have been scrambling to make changes to the objects so that they work with the new code. All this is a way of saying, we're closing in on the home stretch.

Our plan is to build an open Beta candidate this week and get it into testing as soon as possible next week. While it's tested in closed Beta, the final host support needed for 1.31 features like the new capture changes will be completed. If these both prove out as stable and (mostly) complete, then we'll likely announce a date for open Beta.

We had a meeting yesterday to determine our goals and plans for the 1.31 open Beta and have decided that 1.31 will first be available for offline testing prior to opening up a Beta server. GOPHUR, DOC and BLOO are writing up focus testing requirements that will be made available to all players for the offline client.

So rest assured, we are working hard to get the open Beta started and will post as soon as we can when it's ready. For those of you waiting on system specs for 1.31, GOPHUR and BLOO are putting together a 'budget build' test rig this week for a final check and then we'll publish the specs in time for you to upgrade your rig if necessary for 1.31.