ATHENA

Dear players,

we hope you had a great day and are excited about the Athena launch this Saturday! As we promised, here is everything you wanted to know about the first few weeks of Athena!

Launch time

Based on the survey results, we have decided to launch the new realm at 18:00 server time (UTC+1), to accommodate the various time zones you live in, ensuring the the majority of you won’t have to stay late at night not to miss the launch! Mark this time in your calendars, and be ready for the grand launch!

Pre-patch

While we initially picked the lengths of 4 and 11 days for the pre-patch (level 80 cap) for the survey, there was no clear winner between these two. In order to meet the demands of both our dedicated quick levellers as well as those who prefer to enjoy the game at their own pace, we have decided for the following:

• Pre-patch (content 4.0.3a) will last for 7 days, i.e. until November 18th. During this time, you will have plenty of time to enjoy reaching level 80 (as well as the associated Realm First achievements).
• On November 18th, patch 4.0.6 will roll out, with the usual Cataclysm content and the level cap increased to 85. The raids will not be open initially.
• On November 22nd, PvP Season 9 will begin!
• Lastly, November 29th will see the opening of Tier 11 and your favourite raids Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four Winds!

Content schedule

Like for the pre-patch duration, the survey was undecided between 4 and 6 months per Tier. After our internal discussion, we decided to lay out the durations of the next patches as follows:

• 4.0.6: 3 months
• 4.1: 1 month
• 4.2: 4 months

Please be aware that these intervals are not set in stone ‒ if the situation and your feedback requests it, we will adjust them accordingly.

Other details

• The XP rate will be 3x by default for all levels, as requested by almost 60 % of you in the survey. You will be able to lower it via the .mod xp command of course. The XP bonus event will be enabled one week after levelling Realm First achievements are taken.
• New raids will be opened at 19:00 server time, as more than 70 % of you voted for.
• All players will start with one free Racials Swap on their account.
• The new realm will be purely international, with only English enabled in the world channel. For other languages, there will be channels worldcz and worldes. Anyone not following the language rules will be muted.
• Until the update to 4.0.6 content on November 18th, the following other features will be disabled: guild experience and reputation gain, cooking/fishing/jewelcrafting daily quests in capital cities, and archaeology training.
• Level 80 and profession Realm First achievements will be available, but not Realm First achievements from WotLK raids.
• Reforging (with the 4.3.0 updated interface) and transmogrification will be available at launch.
• Guild challenges will be disabled until 4.1.

Tomorrow, we will finish our full graphical content schedule, and announce more features we will have ready on launch! Stay tuned for more news and see you on Saturday!

Athena Team