The official launch will be at 3PM Pacific, Wednesday, May 1st. A new client can be downloaded, or you can patch the beta client. The new client will be released later today, with mirrors and torrents coming up early next week.
The level cap upon launch will be 50. At level 50, you'll be able to enter Baphomet Garden, raids, etc. New raids will be implemented every month or two. You'll also be able to explore Union quests and the monster collection system at level 50 (I'm not sure if these are already implemented or not. Pretty sure Unions are, not sure about the latter). They're expecting that there will be players hitting 50 within a day, and getting TO level 50 is primarily for the storyline, whereas when you hit 50, you can play however you want.
The Union system will be using a token system.
The Abyss of Despair and Culvert raids will happen around 2 months in, and the next one a month later. They won't be available upon launch. This is because they're "Tier 2" and "Tier 3" raids, whereas Baphomet is "Tier 1". By the end of summer, there'll be 4 raids for level 50 (Normal + Hard versions). They're hoping to be right behind Korea for the summer.
There is an expansion planned later on for higher levels, but this isn't for going from level 50 to 60-- it's a different system. I'm assuming it's probably a system similar to Rebirth (although from what I've read at other sources, you probably won't be starting from scratch).
Third-classes aren't going to be added anytime soon, but it could happen. A marriage system is in the talks, but it probably won't make its preview this year. It's definitely getting worked on, though.
The coliseum wasn't supposed to even be in the beta at all, and it was really bugged. It'll be properly implemented mid to late May. As for other content, the ETA on the Noel race and WoE is the summer. Noels will come first, fully voiced and all. The next big update following Noel will be WoE, and they had a video for it, but they can't show it since it pretty rough.
My notes got pretty bad here, but this is what I have down as for what Heimdallr saw in the WoE video:
- Siege Engines: Apparently you can place them and defenses however you like.
- Emperium: There was an Emperium on a raised platform, shooting a beam of light into the sky. As you get closer to it, there are guardians.
- Guardians: Raid-boss toughness.
- Apparently it's more like the RO WoE2 system.
We are going to be the main RO2 version, since we encompass the largest territory, and eventually, other versions will be based on ours. As we make requests, changed will happen in Korea and then spread out. Apparently they're main focus is the western audience.
We're currently using the SEA version of the game, but with a lot of work done for localization and on fully voicing over the game. Cutscenes will be dubbed for the official launch, and the video showed a bunch of voice acting for NPCs. Apparently they had 15 voice actors/actresses, a lot of which are well known for games and anime voice acting, though they aren't allowed to disclose names by contract.
In terms of region locks, as has been stated numerous times, the officially supported regions are Oceania, EU and NA, with the restricted areas being SEA, Korea, Japan, Brazil and the Phillipines.
They've requested a bunch of fixes, especially on Resurrection's cooldown. Pandora boxes will be less plentiful, and chances are that they'll be event drops rather than regular drops. They've also requested a toggle for the VIP icon above your head. WarpPortal themselves can't make changes, but they can definitely request them. They've also received a lot of font complaints, so they're requesting a lot of changes. It won't be in time for launch, but it's on the to-do-list.
In terms of servers, they've already been wiped and all event rewards will be distributed prior to launch. So, upon launch, you'll get all the prizes you qualified for. They're also planning for one big server, with upwards of 20 channels, rather than a bunch of other servers, just so there won't be problems such as "I made my character on the wrong server", etc.
GMs have been hired for the game, and if more are needed, more will come. As far as community volunteers go, it'll depend on the community. As far as the EU server goes, if one does arise, they will try to accommodate players, but at the moment, nothing's happening yet.
As for permanent mounts and costumes, these may come from events. Random boxes will hold permanent costumes, which are tradeable, while there will be a Random Mount Box which has a low chance of holding a permanent mount. Card albums are intended to be 30-day items, and will stay as such. Hats and wings are costume items and are considered accessories.
Costumes are also in plan for 2nd class. They aren't ready, but it's being requested. The mounts and costumes in the beta won't be available for quite some time, but they will come back.
They don't have plans to change Super Large Bags, as they're a luxury and not a necessity, although they may hold an event to lower the pricing and such. They have a custom mount for NA: the Rickshaw. It's got a faster speed, and there might be faster mounts in the future.
In terms of catering to time zones for events, there usually won't be a problem. For 1-hour events, they'll probably schedule a lot of them, so that neither NA or EU users are left out.
As far as UI goes, they've made requests for font size and text display changes (as I said earlier), and they're also requesting some camera work so it won't be obscured as much by leaves and the environment. They've also requested the ability to block whispers.
Typos are also being worked on, as they've spent the last week on it. If you see any, screenshot the NPC with the typo and it'll be fixed within the next patch.
Morroc is currently a planned update for the fairly near future, and, reading the history, apparently Geffen doesn't exist at the moment. It got blown up or something.
