It's hard to believe that ~730 days ago this all began. Today, EchelonedWoW is officially two years old, having begun its operation as an all-GM server on the last day of February 2008. Last year our first birthday passed without mention - we'd like to take the time out to do something nice this year. So, for all of you who've been voting, voting rewards have been drastically reduced in cost for the next 24 hours.

Discussion here.

Our new Blizzlike realm is now live for live development. Before you begin playing remember this is a very young alpha release starting at v0.1. More than half the world is not scripted and will only be scripted as we progress.

The success of this realm rests not just on myself, but you, the players. As I've said, it's very important you report what needs scripting on the bug reports Blizzlike forum. If any issues arise out of scripted areas, mobs etc have no hesistation in reporting it no matter the priority. If it's an issue it's an issue that will be fixed - that MUST be fixed to perfect the ongoing development goal.

Let's turn Avari into a mirror image of retail!

By the end of next week I will be launching a base Blizzlike server. The goal of this project is to fulfill the wish I have cherished from EchelonedWoW's inception in March 2008 to present day - to run a mirror image of retail for the purposes of fun, and to pose a challenge to my ongoing self-learning of programming languages. For all intents, a funserver will never surface on EchelonedWoW. I consider the GM Servers to be perfectly suitable funservers as they are. I do not believe malls and other time wasting (for the developer) funserver attractions are interesting to develop, nor do they remain fun for very long. Spawning a mall is not only a menial task, it is an utter waste of my time and productivity.

You will begin the experience as you would on retail. As you progress it is an absolute certainity you will discover that the base set of scripted areas, mobs and objects do not cover what you are currently attempting to accomplish. At this point, I leave it up to you to report these unscripted points of interest either on this thread or on the pending Blizzlike realm bug reports subforums to be scripted and subsequently implemented in rolling version updates.

Contrasting the current mentality of the GM Servers, I will care if X spell does not function as intended, or if Y door does not open when Z boss is killed. As the thread title indicates, the Blizzlike realm will be an ongoing live development project; I have no intention of scripting everything then releasing it. This is not only impossible, but demoralizing in the long term as you realize the project has no feasible end.

Now, to answer the inevitable questions:

• We do not need GMs. If you ask you will not receive a response.
• The Blizzlike realm will be donation free unless it becomes impossible to pay the bill. Remember, donations were only introduced on the GM Servers to cut the abuse of commands.
• A lot of stuff will be scripted initially.
• It will not share the same derivative codebase as the GM Servers. It'll be a fresh fork with parts which are necessary ported over.
• Yes, I will be posting publicly viewable changelogs as we progress. Updates will be batched into versions as is the case with the GM Servers.
• There will be a very limited extent of custom stuff.
• I would LOVE a graphic designer to design us a logo.
• The realm will be marked as "PvP" in the realmlist. Ganking is allowed as it is on retail. If the realm is successful we may open up a second one that is PvE if so desired.

Despite the live development of the realm your characters and progress will never be wiped or deleted. If the day ever arrives that the realm enters a "beta" or "release" phase your progress will be retained. Don't be afraid to develop a bond with your characters; they will be here for as long as EchelonedWoW is.

Discussion, feedback, suggestions etc can be made at this forum thread.

The Account Management portal is now available! You can modify your account settings and redeem voting rewards for the moment. When it's finished everything outside of the game will take place within account management.

Please post your feedback, opinions and possible improvements at http://forums.echelonedwow.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10251.

See http://forums.echelonedwow.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10055 and yes, you do need to register a separate account on the forums. Your server account will not work.