"I’m really looking forwards to having a complete, polished tier 1. Each additional tier after tier 1 essentially adds one new major gameplay changing feature. Many of which are almost done. It also adds a bunch of new items, armors, etc. All of which are already done. So it puts us in a great position to finish up the game. I’m also super excited to be meeting a bunch of you at i49 and hearing your feedback."
from the recent August 18th update
so it sounds like tier 1 is just about done, and they plan on wanting people to be able to preview it at i49. in previous updates tiy has mentioned that they continue to add more efficient ways for themselves to add content to the game, so i imagine they're trying to make it as easy as possible to slip as many other tiers in to have a good flow before they decide the beta is ready.
i'm not implying anything, just trying to let you reform your expectations if this happens to be different from what you originally expected.
Poll