Looks like you can join the Dark and Light beta in November, the so-called Settlers of Ganareth, with limited pre-orders available for the expected full release in April 2006:

This Dark and Light prelude will be free to access. Also a limited number of Dark and Light game keys will be available from November via pre-ordering, and this will give access to an inevitable pack of features. Keep your eyes open, Dark and Light, the genesis, is on its way!

What’s inevitable about the pack of features? We won’t want them, but hell, it’s inevitable and we should get used to it? And why limited? They’d refuse anyone’s money once the limited number is reached? Pfft. Must be a language issue going on here, but damn — if I’m gonna pitch something to a foreign market, I hire someone who is a native speaker to write the pitch, lest I end up with all your bases are belong to us.

Hasn’t been much buzz on this game in … ever … except one of the e-thugs who has been going on and on about how great this game will be. He’s been wrong before though, like the time he tried to talk people into buying Horizons and had to apologize for six months afterwards.

He didn’t trick me into trying that, but the ones that did haven’t been the same since. *twitch*