Path of Exile News

In addition to watching developer presentations and meeting our team, special guests and fellow community members, ExileCon attendees will be able to check out and purchase a variety of Path of Exile merchandise we've made for this convention. Today we'd like to give you a glimpse of the goodies that are available.

ExileCon merchandise includes a selection of clothing (T-shirts, hoodies and caps), very cute plush Path of Exile monsters and various small items, such as vinyl decals, iron-on patches and even Celestial Cat socks (the most popular item amongst our team)! Have a look at some of the goodies below:







As we mentioned before, the easiest way to purchase our merchandise for now is to attend ExileCon this weekend, but in case there is any leftover stock, we will find a way of making it available for the wider community online.

ExileCon, the first official Path of Exile convention, is in a week! We have updated the ExileCon web page with the schedule for the event. We'll continue to tweak the schedule over the next week if various presentations or speakers change. This news post is primarily aimed at attendees. If you're interested in just information about the ExileCon announcement livestream, then we've been slowly updating our Livestream post over time.

Apply for an NZeTA before travelling!
The first and most important reminder is that New Zealand has introduced a system where you must apply for an "NZeTA" online before arriving in the country. As far as we can see, almost all ExileCon visitors from overseas must apply for one. We recommend doing this as soon as possible. Thankfully, the process does not look difficult. Full details and the application form are on this page.

VIP Dinner
For attendees with a VIP or Ultra VIP pass, the weekend kicks off with a VIP dinner on Friday evening at the Wildfire Churrascaria. It's primarily a meat restaurant but vegetarian options are available. The 250 player VIPs will be joined by 50 Grinding Gear Games staff members, intermingled at the same tables. The dinner starts at 6pm on Friday November 15, and the restaurant is located at Shed 22, Auckland. That's seriously the address.

Registration
In the Aotea Square (next to the Aotea Centre where the event is taking place), we're building a big registration tent where you can pick up your badge. In order to do so, you'll need to show the QR code that is visible on your Path of Exile account page on the website. We'll also email you a copy of this code for convenience.

The registration tent is open during these hours:

• Friday: 2pm - 8pm
  
• Saturday: 7am - 5pm
  
• Sunday: 9am - 5pm
  

You must show photo ID that matches the name on your ticket, and because we need to check your age (the event is a Restricted 16 event). You'll also need to carry your ID for the whole event because we will be spot checking that people's badges match their name when they enter the venue.

When to Arrive on Saturday
The keynote presentation (with the big announcements) starts at 10am, but there's an hour of seating time and pre-show speculation (streamed both to the internet and the main theatre) beforehand. We recommend picking up your badge on Friday and then arriving around 9am to get seated and comfortable before the big show. Regular badges will indicate either "Stalls" (bottom floor) or "Circle" (middle floor) for seating, so that attendees know which floor has room for them on.

Cosplay Weapon Policy
All cosplay weapons brought to the venue will be checked to make sure that they are not capable of harming anyone.

Race Finals Rules
Four racers have qualified for positions in the ExileCon race finale. Important rules for this event are as follows:

• Event Goal: Kill Kitava in the Cathedral Rooftop in Act 5
  
• Winning Criteria: Fastest time
  
• Game Version: 3.8.2b
  
• This event is not hardcore, but when your character dies, they won't be able to move for 60 seconds. You also won't be able to select 'Revive at Checkpoint'.
  
• This event is fixed seed. Every player is contending with the same layout. The minimap won't be revealed.
  
• Macros: no third-party programs of any kind may be used. Copy-pasting commands (e.g. /hideout) from a notepad file is okay.
  
• Screen-watching: As the event will be on a stage and it is fixed seed, players will not be allowed to look at other players' monitors or the screen behind you on the stage. Players will be warned if seen doing this. Multiple warnings will result in a disqualification.
  
• Muling between characters on the same account is allowed.
  
• The provided accounts have the Scion unlocked and a default hideout provided.
  
• We will pre-load the competition computers with racer-provided config files and item filters.
  
• GGG's decision is final but we'll attempt to be as fair as possible.
  
• Prizes are US$10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second place and $2,500 for third place.
  

Twitch After Party
The Twitch After Party runs from 8pm to 11pm on Sunday evening. It's a Restricted 18 event, so you need to bring ID to get in. Your ExileCon badge has a voucher on the back for one free drink, which you can redeem at one of the bars in the venue. We recommend having dinner before the party, but some light food will be provided during the party.

Sponsors
We'd like to thank HP OMEN, Twitch and Twitch Prime for sponsoring ExileCon!

Discord Server
We have created a Discord Server for ExileCon attendees. You can join it with this link. This is the best place to ask questions during the event.

We're very excited to meet everyone at ExileCon! See you all in a week!

There are only a few weeks left until the current Blight Supporter Packs leave the store and the ones for the next expansion become available for sale. Normally, we'd do this replacement alongside the announcement of the new expansion, but with ExileCon coming next weekend, we've decided to slightly change our plans and release the new Supporter Packs approximately a week after the convention.

There are two pairs of Blight Supporter Packs available in the store, the Sentinel and the Lich. Each of the two pairs is designed in its own style and has different contents, so you can choose whichever one you prefer (or both). You can upgrade from the smaller one in a pair to the larger one. All of the microtransactions from the Supporter Packs are exclusive and will not appear in the store again.

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If you're interested in getting one of the Blight Supporter Packs but you're not sure you'll be able to do so in time, we'd recommend setting up a payment plan which can reserve a pack for you for up to three months after the commencement of your plan. Just email us in advance at [email protected], we'll be happy to help you!

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Additionally, if you have purchased any plain points packs since August 21st (PDT), you can use this in an upgrade to one of the Blight Supporter Packs! You can credit up to 80% of the value of your desired supporter pack towards an upgrade. For example, if you purchased a $10 point pack you could then upgrade to the Sentinel or Lich Supporter Pack for $20. You'd then receive the remainder of the contents of the pack, excluding the points you already purchased before the upgrade.


Thank you so much for your support!

In just over a week, we'll be hosting ExileCon, the first official Path of Exile convention, in Auckland, New Zealand over the weekend of November 16-17 (NZ Time). Approximately half of the content of the event will be streamed live for free online, with the rest recorded to be posted in our news later. We're planning to post a full schedule for ExileCon later this week, but today we wanted to give a rundown of the type of content you can expect on the livestream if you're watching from home!

The livestream kicks off when the big countdown on pathofexile.com ends with an hour of pre-show hosted by some streamers you'll definitely recognise. As they'll have had a chance to look around the venue, their speculation about what we'll be announcing should be pretty interesting. After the pre-show, we'll switch over coverage to the main theatre where Chris, Jonathan and Erik will host the keynote presentation, which includes various Path of Exile announcements including the massive 4.0.0 mega-expansion.

After the keynote, we'll cut back to the same streamers who hosted the pre-show, so we can watch their initial reactions to the announcements and see how accurate their speculations really were. We'll get a senior developer to join the streamers after a while, to answer specific questions about the new expansions.

After an hour of post-keynote discussion, we're going to have a streamer play a gameplay demo of 4.0.0 while a developer answers their questions.

Once the gameplay demo is over, we'll be hosting a deep dive into the 3.9.0 expansion in the main theatre, which will also be livestreamed. This presentation is the same type of format that journalists usually see on the Press Tours that we host for upcoming expansions and leagues. We'll present a lot of details about the new expansion and league mechanics as well as information about new skills, support gems, unique items, etc. If there's time, we'll field questions from audience members.

After the 3.9.0 deep dive, we'll head straight into a similar deep dive for the 4.0.0 mega-expansion, going into a lot more detail than we covered in the keynote earlier in the day. We expect to also be able to answer questions from the audience in this presentation.

Once the 4.0.0 deep dive is over, there are two more hours of streamed content on the first day as well as another seven hours the second day (culminating in the Racing Finale). We'll post a detailed schedule of these sessions later in the week!

While attending ExileCon in person is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that we are really looking forward to bringing to players who can make it, we have tried very hard to make sure that the free online livestream is also as interesting and informative as possible.

We can't wait to show you what we have been working on!

Last week we announced the winners of our recent Fan Art Competition. Due to a high amount of submitted artwork of great quality, we have decided to reward more entries with runners-up prizes.

a3person



DragonClaudz



Leucoma



Kassiopea_M



Check out more runners-up in this thread!

We're very happy with how this competition turned out and want to thank our players once again for their amazing talents and creativity. Until next competition, Exiles!