In less than 24 hours, at 13:00 server time May 20, 2017, the gates of Outland shall be opened and our Burning Crusade realm will be released for the general public. Over the many months of development, we have poured passion and experience into this project to make it the best we can but the work does not stop there. With the launch of our most ambitious realm to date, we will be marking a milestone of our work. April 01, 2017 was not just a kindhearted reversed-joke but also a day that signified 2 years of Warmane.
Rest assured that we will not falter in our development and will only continue to provide the best service we humanly can. With that in mind, the word 'humanly' is important as usually realm launches are the most challenging things we've ever done and unfortunately the human counter-parts to our cold machines can only do so much to suppress possible negative effects of waves of people joining to play.
Players can expect some undesirable effects which will be resolved as soon as they're noticed. We have years of work that we invested into the core that's running Outland but as long time players very well know, crashes can be sudden and surprising. Such things can be expected to be fixed nearly immediately. There's also a possibility of unexpected delay, downtimes and other unexpected similar issues. In such cases, we will monitor the realm and apply hotfixes or modify existing systems to enable the best possible gameplay experience. Despite having large confidence that it will something of a non-issue, the population cap remains an unknown figure. There's no real way to reliable test other than to actually launch the realm. Our team will monitor the realm and increase the cap until it proves to be a negative effect on the gameplay.
As announced previously, the realm design is the following:
x5 experience rate.
Trainer costs will be lowered to 20% of original cost.
All other rates will be x1.
The realm will be progression based, emulating the 2.1 patch on the beginning, with all respective attunements.
The following raid content will be available at the beginning: Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair, Serpentshrine Cavern, Tempest Keep.
Isle of Quel'Danas will be closed until the realm reaches that point in progression. The isle itself will be progressive as it was designed, once released.
PvP gear will be Season 1, Gladiator gear.
The marketplace will not be implemented for at least a month and on release it will only contain items that were already obtained by the players. The marketplace itself will be progressive.
Quality of Life additions such as Dual Specialization, Faction Change, Race Change, Experience Lock might not be present immediately on launch but are planned to be implemented.
Our team will be here in the truest sense of the word. We usually have people assigned for night and day so there's always someone who can intervene but in the case of this launch we will have everyone on board. We ask the players to understand the responsibility and the great burden we will bear for the next few days. If the gameplay experience is undesirable at any time, take a break and rest assured that we're pulling through in the backstage. Updates will be served through our website, in-game announcements and our social media, be on the lookout for any information.
And at last, the most important thing. Have fun! It's a fun game with fun people. Have fun with it. Enjoy it. Make others happy. Be happy. Avoid being negative. Heed the admonition of Oscar Wilde: some people bring happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go.
Trainer costs will be lowered to 20% of original cost.
All other rates will be x1.
The realm will be progression based, emulating the 2.1 patch on the beginning, with all respective attunements.
The following raid content will be available at the beginning: Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair, Serpentshrine Cavern, Tempest Keep.
Isle of Quel'Danas will be closed until the realm reaches that point in progression. The isle itself will be progressive as it was designed, once released.
PvP gear will be Season 1, Gladiator gear.
The marketplace will not be implemented for at least a month and on release it will only contain items that were already obtained by the players. The marketplace itself will be progressive.
Quality of Life additions such as Dual Specialization, Faction Change, Race Change, Experience Lock might not be present immediately on launch but are planned to be implemented.
I don't know if it has been answered before and if it has, I do apologize for it... I've been trying to look for that information.
Is the 20% reduction of trainer costs also include riding trainers?