ATHENA

Dear players,

we would like to bring you some more details about the merge of our two realms which will happen on Wednesday, the 17th of November.

The process will start after the server reset in the morning (6 AM server time) and we approximate it will take several hours. During the merge, the realms will have to be offline, as we have to operate on their databases, like making a backup and launching the scripts that merge them into one. We will keep you informed during the process about its progress, and do our best to ensure that you can start playing as soon as possible.

There are several details that also have to be explained:

• We have decided to go with a character purge on both realms, to clean up the database and reduce the number of some of the collisions that will happen. The criteria for the purge are as follows:

  • characters with played time lower than 4 hours which are offline for more than 1 year,

  • characters with level lower than 70 which are offline for more than 4 years (does not affect Apollo 2),

  • characters on accounts that are permanently banned for 3 months or more.

• Name collision won’t be completely avoided by the character purge. The character with more played time will keep their name while the other one will be offered a rename for free.
• Merged accounts that have more characters than allowed due to the merge will not lose any of them, but they will not be able to create another character until the count decreases.
• There are many guilds on both realms that also share the same name. In this case, the guild that was created earlier will keeps its name, while the more recent one will receive a new name. After the merge, our Game Masters will offer a name change to the affected guilds, via the in-game ticket system.
• Premium functions like rename, character customization, race change and faction change, will be disabled until the merge. You can still purchase them, but it will only take effect after the merge. We will also cancel every character auction right before the merge, and return every character to their original account.
• We recommend you to cancel all your in-game auctions and take everything from the mailbox before the merge. Tickets created before the merge will not be retained.
• We have already unified the rules for both realms, so there will be no adjustments to them after the merge, with the exception of the languages allowed in the channels. The languages allowed in “/world” and “/characterauction” will be EN/CZ/SK, and we have also decided to create a new “/global” channel strictly for EN. Going forward, we would also like to allow the various communities that have come to Apollo a chance to have their own channel in their language, based on the demand and our ability to support and moderate such channels. We will share more details regarding this after the merge.
• The merged realm will be kept at 3x experience rate like it is now. The 3v3 event will be retained as well, on the same days like it is on Apollo 2 now.

Lastly, we would also like to say something about the current PvP seasons on Apollo 1 and 2. We would like to apologize for informing about it on such a short notice, but we are only human and we have underestimated what it entails.

The PvP seasons will end on Tuesday, the 16th of November, in the morning, and we will spend the day evaluating it. The rewards will be sent in the evening via mail. We highly encourage you to retrieve them before the merge, but (unlike previous merges), we will try to preserve the mails as well, due to this unfortunate situation.

The arenas and rated battlegrounds will be closed until the next Wednesday, the 24th of November, when the new season will start on the merged realm.

Apollo Team