Greetings!

Preliminaries:

#1 This is a FOUNDERS FORUM POST.  That means we are looking to divulge information to you that isn't generally known or share with you opinions, etc. that are not generally public.

#2 Reminder: This forum is covered under your NDA.

Where we have our engineering focus on right now:

#1 Ascendancy Wars campaign

#2 User Interface

#3 Army/Meta unit behavior

#4 Multiplayer robustness

Here is our tentative schedule

February

We will be releasing BETA 2 of Ashes.  This will have the multi-GPU features in it. To turn it on, you will click on "Enable Multi-GPU".  If you only have one GPU, the option will be disabled.

March

On March 3 we will be making a VIP build available to active testers (with a bias towards founders).  This build will have the Ascendancy Wars Beta campaign.

So what is Ascendancy Wars?

It's a story-driven campaign that takes place in the Arcturus sector of the Milky Way.  Players will see a map full of planets and choose how they go through them.  It's designed to teach people how to play the game, provide the story and give the player a lot of cool game play experience that aren't available in skirmish.  

Remember the game mode discussion we had? Well, this is where that stuff is showing up.  We don't have UI engineering time to make and test these game modes as part of skirmish yet but we can do it in the campaign.

On March 22 we will be releasing 1.0.  It will be BETA 2 + Ascendancy Wars.

Spring

We will try to clean up the map editor and give that out (for free).  We will also be releasing a DLC of additional maps we've made.  If a player doesn't have the map in MP, it will download it to them (it'll only be available to them in MP if the host has the map and they don't).

We will be releasing ASAP a way for people to easily make scenarios.  These are incredibly fun to make and once done, allow people to set up custom game play experiences that can be shared around.   In the near term, this will be a single player only feature.

Summer

Ascendancy Wars online.  This is where people can set up an empire with their friends and go and try to conquer planets from other people. Each time you win a game, that planet belongs to you and you gain the resources from it.

We will also be releasing the first expansion pack which will add a bunch of new units, a new map type, a new campaign.

All through this period we'll be making lots of little balance passes and generally improving on the game.

Let me know if you have any questions.