[A SotA Public Forum post by Starr Long]
Greetings Avatars,
Please read this entire message, as well as the linked instructions and known issues.
Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 25 access for all backers at First Responder level and above begins this Thursday, December 17, at 10:30 AM US Central Time (16:30 UTC).
As 2015 comes to a close with our final release of the year, we are making major strides forward and gaining more momentum every release. The Story continues to march across the map with multiple new scenes every release. Agriculture completes the final major missing component for Crafting. 
Customizability increases with multiple dye options, and PVP expands to include Guild Warfare. We are also making steady progress with Localization thanks to our player translators. While there is still much work left to do on areas such as performance, service hardening, game balance, and a handful of missing features, we feel pleased with the progress we are making. Thank you for helping us not just progress, but progress the right way. Your feedback and guidance is helping us make the game we all want to play. So ring in the New Year by playing Release 25 and congratulate yourself (not us!) on a job well done!
Yet again, I want to express a huge amount of gratitude to our Dev+ backers who tested all of the items below on the QA server and uncovered lots of bugs. They also provided editorial feedback on this post, so they are a big reason that this post actually matches what is in the game, and that it is easy to read.
While we are getting closer to launch, we are still in a constant state of change, and we do not yet have in-game systems to inform players of these changes, or to share ways to help them to explore new content and systems. This means we rely entirely on this message, and the linked instructions and known issues to convey the current game state. We regularly have to answer questions or filter bug reports because some players elect not to read this valuable information. By taking a few moments to read through this information, a great deal of our time and efforts can be redirected to focus on new “unanswered” questions, and 
addressing critical issues impacting each release. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to review this post, and for all the truly valuable feedback you continue to provide.
Also, remember that while we are providing new content with each release, our community is working overtime to make new events for you to enjoy. So, be sure to check out a couple of the Community Events Calendars run by our community members (via in-game book or the player run websites Avatars Circle Community Events and Events of the Avatars calendar).
Without further ado, here are the R25 deliverables.
