Got no time to do a complex reply, so gonna drop a short one.
I can't say any launch date for this, as I'm usually never being correct with timing. Right now, I finishing reviewing the code, much of features which were made in latest updates, were pretty much dumb coded, as I had no time for a proper code. I can't continue working, before re-writing 'bad' places. I know, its some kind of work which noone gonna notice, but if I going to continue to write such a corrupted code, sooner or later server gonna start to crash/lag nonstop, and it will be pretty much hard to fix it.
About gameplay, I'm about to leave 'quicker' first levels, to let players join the world without having any serious problems; Lets say until level 100. After that, exp gonna stay as it was, making it slower than original Ascalon is not a solution. Currently, I'm thinking about removing(actually replacing) ability stones from game. At some point, ability stones were making game more linear. Most of the stones were never used, and actually 90% of end-level players were wearing the same stones, as they were counted as 'better than rest'. However gems gonna stay ingame, as upgrading your current items is cool(probably there must be some way to destroy(decraft) your items, to get back partially your gems. As noone was using his gems, everyone was trying to save them for better items). I going to customize current monsters(actually what I've started in latest updates), like more various attacks, abilities for monsters; Current monsters are pretty much same, aswell as having 1 same type of monster in each dungeon is also not a good call from me. Since now monsters going to be more dynamic, like they gonna have some special abilities and strategys, aswell as there may be more different monsters(like instead of having full dungeon of bloody skeletons, there gonna be some more undeads, undeads mages, rangers etc). Aswell as monsters gonna have some more randomed loot(not the way it were: monsters of same level wont drop same items).
You going to ask, what about items abilities, as I said I going to remove ability stones: atm I see it like that: Monsters going to have a specific items drop in loot, every item going to have a small chance, to have some random passive when dropping. Like monster can drop 5x of leather boots, and then drop enchanted leather boots with +5 dodge. I really didn't liked the situation when everyone had backpacks of non used ability stones, etc etc.
Crafting was also a bad step from me, imo it gonna be deprecated and players wont be able to craft items without receipes. Crafting going to be used only for crafting items with receipes(for sure I going to add more receipes, they maybe gonna be dropped from monsters rarely).
/\ Well, thats some minds I got not finished yet, they are just in my head; Feel free to change any of them, as they are not being implented yet.
Atm I working on combats/conditions. I going to make sure that there are just 2 types of damage in Ascalon, physical and magic damages(ofc there is true damage and manadrain which are counted as additional damage types). This is made to make game more clear, get magic resist = you're getting less damage from any magic, etc. Actually this were done on Ascalon already, but were very 'timidly', like there were still some values like fire damage, earth damage, etc. This is just messing stuff around.
Conditions: thats what I'm going to change a lot. Every damage condition(fire, poison, freeze, energy), deals magic damage(if only creature is not immune to this condition, f.e. dragons are immune to fire condition, while fire spells going to hit them still, but they wont be affected by fire condition). Every condition going to have bigger damage and some effect. Like fire condition going to burn % of your armor, freezing condition going to lower your speed, or so.
Thats all what I am able to reply for now, have a nice day