I think the leveling up contests - get to certain level and win a reward - should be CANCELLED!! That would include the weapon rewards, forum titles AND the pet owl!
To begin with, although the game was officially announced to go live at a certain time, it actually went live about 12 hours earlier. That means anyone with a real life who was waiting for the announced time to begin arrives in game with many players already level 20+.
On top of that, there was the stat glitch, which many players didn't know about and therefore didn't relog to improve, so those players that knew about the glitch were able to level up faster. That means they also got a ton more gold in game and could enhance their equipments making themselves a lot stronger and faster too.
Add all that together and it's definitely NOT FAIR for the community as a whole! Since it's now harder to level up fast, there will probably end up being people who won't get to level 30 for example and therefore won't get the permanent owl pet. Of course the players who didn't know about early game online didn't even have a chance to compete for the ++weapons.
Perhaps the contest would be better to do when open beta starts??
I'm sure there will be some player(s) that disagree with me - perhaps because they themselves abused the glitch or got information to start the game earlier than officially posted and I say to them and everyone "Give me REAL reasons why this contest should be allowed to happen or just don't speak".
Have a great day everyone!  

I think the leveling up contests - get to certain level and win a reward - should be CANCELLED!!  

We have more than a week left for closed beta[/color]  

It's nice to know that everyone who started playing at 'the time officially posted' on the Aeria website WILL be able to get to level 30 and 'adopt a cute little owl pet'. So thanks for clarifying that.
I do still have a distaste for making the game go live 'unposted' and therefore allowing some players to be rewarded while others who were planning to start playing at the official time were left out. I guess Aeria doesn't think it's a legitimate complaint, so there ya go...so be it. The Gods have spoken! heehee
Oh yea..thanks so much to Terracyrax for your spew of non-real reasons after I asked for real ones. :Quote: "as for the server opening up a little early it tends to happen when enough people ask lol". DUH - doesn't every game you've ever started in Beta have players in forums, facebook, etc begging the company to hurry up and start the game? For me, this is the first one I've seen that officially posts one time yet starts it early, especially when they have a leveling contest attached to it. Nuff said.