"soon" ™

(actually i'd think at a minimum we're probably 6-9 months out from beta testing - you're gonna have prologue, land selection, KoE, MMUD, alpha 1 and alpha 2 before beta 1)

The Beta will start after the land grab and the both alpha phases, the ETA for that is not clear right now.

Based on things I've read, heard, and seen along with some supposition I think it will work something like this...

Kingdoms of Elyria will be where land selection happens and allow for some of the background fluff of the Kingdoms to be be fleshed out. It takes place 90 years before the beginning of Exposition and is only open to the Aristocracy/Nobility.

Between KoE and Exposition, probably starting shortly after KoE, will be ElyriaMUD for those that are not part of the Aristocracy. If you have a Surname as part of your package I believe this is where you will get to flesh out your family's history and the like. I believe ElyriaMUD is going to be open to all Founders though so even if you don't have a Surname you can play in a version of the world.

As the MUD part may suggest, this will likely be a Text Only "game".

At somepoint after KoE/ElyriaMUD the Elyria Prologue will be release to Founders. This is a stand alone game that will serve to familiarize us with came concepts, environments, etc. Given the nature of the procedural generation of the world and that KoE/ElyriaMUD will still be running it's unlikely this will be a "real" world experience. It will probably be based on the Town of Haven they have been using in their Pre-Alpha videos.

I've heard that KoE could start as early as March and Alpha 1 could start 3 to 6 months after that. I'd expect 3 to 6 months as a reasonable estimate for each state in Alpha and Beta and Exposition will be three months.

So, there could be some sort of Elyria type game as early as March/April of this year.

In reality, I wouldn't expect anything to start for Founders until late spring/early summer though and that's not going to be what a lot of people would consider a game.

On the plus side, as things gear up we will start to learn more and more and the world will become real, so to speak, for us.