Plenty of news tidbits

Today we invited sixteen more Alpha testers to become forum/chat moderators. If you're interested in becoming one, we ask that you prove yourself as a trustworthy alpha member first. If you're still interested in applying for access to the alpha realm, please PM me. We will hopefully be inviting the first wave of new alpha testers tomorrow (probably only 20-25 people at a time, so that we don't burn them out too fast). There's no guarantee that every applicant will get in, but it's great to have so many people to select from.

Our Closed Beta supporter packs include digital Kiwi bird pets. In real life, Kiwis are a very endangered bird native to New Zealand. Several of our users have been donating to the Kiwis for Kiwi charity. To thank us, they tweeted us a very adorable photo of one of the Kiwis they have been helping. It's a great cause if you're looking for a charity to support.

You may have noticed we updated the forum avatars last week - there are plenty of new ones to choose from. You can select an avatar on your My Account page.

Tomorrow we'll probably be posting a pretty dense schedule of race events. If you enjoy participating in these, there should be plenty to choose from.

XvXReaperXvX is running a giveaway where he's allowing other users to win an opportunity to design a diamond-supporter Unique item or a custom forum avatar. If you're interested, check it out!

There's only 20 hours left in the IndieDB "Indie of the Year" competition. Please vote for Path of Exile if you haven't already.

I would also like to take the opportunity to confirm once again that the January 23 realm wipe (when we enter Open Beta) will be the last ever wipe.