The Closed Beta does last for a long time (started in August) and they're fixing a lot of issues players complained about (about 300 fixes and tweak in a recent patch).
Big recent news is that the Passive Training system, that was worked on for years, has been obliterated in exchange for a item-based progression (disciplines and belts).
Mounts, caravans and refineries were added to the game. Performances improved quite a lot, thanks to the Unity engine optimization.
There still are gruesome elements in CF, namely the necromancy, grave digging and frankenstein-like mechanics.