Blackwing Lair Arrives November 1st

[Somjies]

Will the new PvP ranks and gear be coming with the BWL patch?

[Syige]

Im interested in that aswell. Will the PVP'ers be able to inquire new Gear/Higher Rank Ceiling?

[Rocksmash]

I feel this is too soon

[Swyp]

Will new pvp gear also be available? Rank requirements?

[Rook]

BWL will raise the max rank to 12 and open up the pvp weapons to be purchasable
The epic pvp gear will be out with AQ40

Our roadmap will be updated will all the pvp information soon.

[Askin]

BWL will raise the max rank to 12 and open up the pvp weapons to be purchasable
The epic pvp gear will be out with AQ40

Our roadmap will be updated will all the pvp information soon.

Thanks for the news!

The ilvl 72 pvp weapons with +heal are currently missing from the database, while the spelldamage dagger is already listed. For example "Physician's Warhammer" and "Physician's Battle Mace". Since Paladins cannot use daggers, will these be added, too?

[Delaiwen]

#### Background

>
> UTC time
>
>
> - Europe (CET/CEST: CEST = UTC+2 during European daylight saving time, CET = UTC+1 standard time)
> - US East/West Coast:
> - US Eastern: EDT (DST) UTC−4 / EST (standard) UTC−5
> - US Pacific: PDT (DST) UTC−7 / PST (standard) UTC−8
> - Asia (China/Hong Kong/Taiwan: UTC+8)

Original plan: **UTC 17:00**

- Europe CEST(+2): 19:00; CET(+1): 18:00
- China UTC+8: **01:00 next day (1 AM)**
- US East EDT(−4): 13:00; EST(−5): 12:00
- US West PDT(−7): 10:00; PST(−8): 09:00

Pros of original plan: **Both Europe and America get daytime / afternoon hours, good experience**
Cons: Asia gets 1 AM, which is very unfriendly for Asian players; they can barely play at launch.

---

# Objective: Find a UTC time that balances the three regions

Core conflict: **The Americas use negative UTC offsets, Asia UTC+8, Europe UTC+1~+2. The time difference range is enormous. It is impossible for all three regions to have prime evening hours, trade-offs are mandatory.**

>
> Prime time definition: **Local 18:00–23:00 (evening after work / school)**

We enumerate candidate UTC times, prioritizing daylight saving time (most game launches reference DST):

## Candidate 1: UTC 12:00

- Europe CEST(+2): 14:00 (afternoon), CET(+1): 13:00
- China UTC+8: **20:00 (8 PM, Asian prime time )**
- US East EDT(−4): 08:00 (8 AM before work)
- US West PDT(−7): 05:00 (very early morning, poor experience )

Perfect for Asia, afternoon for Europe, terrible for US West Coast.

## Candidate 2: UTC 14:00

- Europe CEST: 16:00, CET: 15:00
- China UTC+8: **22:00 (10 PM, acceptable for Asia, not excessively late)**
- US East EDT: 10:00; US West PDT: 07:00
US West is 7 AM; players can log in if they get up early, not prime time.

## Candidate 3: UTC 15:00 (Recommended balanced option)

- Europe CEST(+2): **17:00 (early evening, good)**; CET(+1): 16:00
- China UTC+8: **23:00 (11 PM, late for Asia but far better than 1 AM)**
- US East EDT(−4): 11:00; US West PDT(−7): 08:00

>
> US: Midday for US East, 8 AM for US West.
> Benefits: Europe enters early evening; Asian players can stay up to join launch; US West players do not need to wake up at 5 AM.

## Candidate 4: UTC 16:00 (Secondary balanced option)

- Europe CEST: 18:00 (prime evening ); CET: 17:00
- China UTC+8: **00:00 (midnight)**
- US East EDT: 12:00; US West PDT: 09:00

>
> Asia gets midnight, slightly better than original 1 AM, still deep night.

## Candidate 5: UTC 18:00 (Biased toward Europe & America, poor for Asia, similar to original plan)

- CEST: 20:00; CET: 19:00
- China: 02:00 next day, worse than original, not recommended

---

# Final Recommendations

## Option A (Prioritize Asia, sacrifice American evening): UTC 12:00

Asia prime time at 8 PM, Europe afternoon, US West 5 AM. **Terrible experience for US West Coast**. Suitable for games with a large Asian player base.

## Option B (Balanced compromise across US/EU/ASIA, TOP RECOMMENDATION): **UTC 15:00**

表格

| Region | Local Time (DST) | Rating |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Europe (CEST UTC+2) | 17:00 | Early evening, good |
| China (UTC+8) | 23:00 | Late night, much better than 1 AM |
| US East EDT UTC−4 | 11:00 | Weekday morning |
| US West PDT UTC−7 | 08:00 | Morning, requires early wake-up |

>
> Trade-off explanation: **There is no single UTC timestamp that allows US, Europe and Asia all to have evening prime time.** The time gap spans too wide (US West UTC−7 ~ Asia UTC+8, a 15-hour difference).
> If the game’s player base is predominantly EU/US, pick UTC 16:00. If the Asian market is critical, choose UTC14~15.

## Alternate candidate UTC14:00

Asia at 22:00, more player-friendly; Europe 16:00 afternoon; US West 7 AM.
Use if you want to avoid forcing Asian players to stay up until 23:00.

# One-sentence summary

If you want a relatively balanced schedule covering US/EU/Asia and avoid forcing Asia to start at 1 AM, **UTC 15:00** is recommended.
If Asia is your core market, prefer UTC12:00 (cost: very poor experience for US West Coast).
If EU/US are primary markets and Asia secondary, UTC16:00 is acceptable (Asia at midnight).

[Doaksie]

Regarding the Blackwing Lair release and your feedback

“Too soon” on the PvP server
We understand that some guilds haven’t finished MC, especially with the DDoS attacks. The PvP server has been running for five months now, and many players are ready for more and would prefer it even sooner. We have to balance both groups. BWL is not going away, and progression will be around for a long time, so there’s room to catch up. (advantage of horizontal progression right?)

Login issues
We know it’s frustrating to be locked out while everyone else progresses, and we don’t want anyone left behind because of technical problems. We are working around the clock to get everything sorted, but as Kestrel has stated many times. Its not easy, while also staying anonymous.

What’s next
Custom content is in the works. The DDoS attacks and server problems have taken up most of our development team’s time, and still are. We’re putting it all back into stability first, and we appreciate your patience while we work through it.

Thank you for sticking with us. We know it hasn’t been easy.

Regarding the pvp server specifically, please also look at the recent poll on our forums about XP rates:

https://octowow.st/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2946

Many of us are genuinely worried about the realm's health, especially after the ddos, and even if it's not 2x exactly (or permanently) I think there are genuine concerns that really need some urgent attention.

I'm grateful the devs have continued sticking with Octo and very much want to see it continue growing <3

[Berdal]

Regarding servers "dying off", and player base/active population in general. I think it would be really interesting, and nice from a transparency point of view, to get insight in these trends over time.

One real nice indication and statistic, to either back up the Y'Shaarj doomsayers or give reassurance regarding the organic fluctuation of the popularity/player base, would be to get a daily peak population (per realm) here: https://octowow.st/player-census

Preferably in graph format. Maybe interactive so you find choose to get peak population plotted either by day, week, or month.

Implementation of this should be incredibly rudimentary (considering AI tools), as long as "players online #" are retained and recorded in a database.

[Cope12]

is there a chance of maybe 2x to coincide with this for Y'shaarj so we can have our guild raid rosters filled up in preparation for bwl?