GOA's Friday News has once again been posted. Apart from a progress report on 1.75 testing, we have final confirmation that Excalibur and Prydwen will indeed be clustered shortly after the release of version 1.75 somewhere in the end of June.

The clustering of the servers has a few consequences. RvR areas of both servers will be merged, increasing population. For most other zones, you will be able to travel between the servers using a special NPC. On the downside, there will be severe restrictions to playing different realms on 2 clustered servers.

Population related bonuses have been adjusted for June. On Midgard/Excalibur the free level period has gone down from 7 to 6 days.

The first installment of 1.76 is now on the US test server, Pendragon.
They introduce a number of new guild options, a new repair system for artifacts as well as various other changes. Patch notes are available here.

Congratulations to Hexachlorbenzen (Jerelyn) on level 50 and RR3 :)

On a sidenote: 1.75 testing has finally been opened to volunteers. If all goes well the version should be going live somewhere halfway June, but it's too early to be able to say with much certainty.