At the time of writing, there are 24 hours to go until we enter Open Beta. This post briefly explains how that transition works and what to expect. Please click through to read the whole post.
The countdown timer on the game login screen and on the website news page is counting down towards the time when the deploy will be finished and the game will be playable. It is not counting down towards the start of downtime.
We will bring the game servers down for deployment of the 0.10.0 patch two hours before the start of Open Beta. The website may be down for approximately 10-20 minutes while we perform database migrations. At this point, access to the game servers will be disabled until the countdown hits zero and the patch will be available to download. Just run your existing Closed Beta client to update to the open beta version. We're sorry that this doesn't give much time to download the 1.5gb or so, but we'd rather have some people playing than leave the servers off while giving people on slow internet connections a chance to patch fully. (EDIT: To clarify, the patch is available two hours before the counter hits zero).
Once you're patched, if you try to log in, you'll be put in a queue. At the point the servers open, you should then be logged in.
All characters will be reverted to level 1 and moved to new Default and Hardcore leagues. Their items will be destroyed, other than Demigod's Presences and pets. This is the final wipe the game will ever have.
Note that due to a bug in the current version of Beta where it's possible to create more characters on your account than you are allowed, any additional characters over your allowance (which defaults to 24 unless you purchase more) will be deleted. If you are over this limit and have special names that you want to keep, you should manually delete characters to get under the limit. If you are truly paranoid, please move your Demigod's Presences to your stash so that they're not accidentally stored on characters that are deleted.
There will be a further news post today with full Patch Notes, explanations of our reasoning behind balance changes and information on how the new cosmetic microtransactions work.
Traffic to the site has been absolutely insane over the last few days. We've been aggressively ordering more servers, but it's quite possible that we'll have long queues and general server unstability on launch day. We may be operating under player load levels far above what we've tested to. Needless to say, there are a team of dedicated people here who will try to make sure you have the best possible experience.
Kiwi packs become unavailable two hours before the countdown hits zero (i.e. when the servers go down). If you want to upgrade yours while it's still possible, you should consider doing that as soon as possible. Thanks again for your continued support!