I was at PAX on Saturday shoulder surfing the DEMO's they were giving to the media and in a break between interviews I had a 20 minute conversation/personal demo from Fernado and Glin. They were both very nice and gracious and I learned a few things.
Aeolwind wrote on Apr 5
th, 2012 at 5:26pm:
Lookin slick. I'm hoping the beta opens soon.
They are targeting Alpha by Friday and Beta about two weeks out from there. The elemental forms for Druids are having some issues that they need to nail down.
As for looks they have added a bunch of overhauls to the engine to tie in DX11 shaders and etc and you can really see it in FR. It's cleaner and crisper; little things like the grass moving as you pass through it. They designed all new trees and foliage to make FR look and feel completely different than Ebberon. It really does look and feel like a different game never mind a different plane.
The explorer areas seem enormous. There are quests that you stumble on like the bosses in current areas bit they seem to have changes the behavior to act more like optionals... for example at one point we wandered into a Purple Dragon Knight being held captive and a message popped up saying we could try and save him. There was also a CR 27 Green Dragon that looked like a hell of a fight.
A few other interesting notes...
1) MadFloyd revamp of enhancements may or may not make the expansion. If it doesn't it will be in the August update.
2) All Pre's will be complete by August as part of the Enhancement pass. This was straight from Fernado's mouth. They plan on having them done as part of the enhancement pass which is why this may slip to August.
3) I saw 4 druid forms, wolf, winter wolf, fire elemental, and water elemental. They have their own special attacks.
...if I remember anything else I'll throw it in here.