Homesteading the Noosphere

Homesteading the Noosphere (ノウアスフィアの開墾) is the name of the twelfth expansion pack (追加パック) of the extremely popular MMORPG Elder Tale, which was released at midnight on May 3, 2018. Soon after its release, it caused an event that trapped 700,000 players worldwide—including 30,000 from Japan—inside of the game.

The Homesteading the Noosphere expansion pack was a large update that added new items, quests, zones, monsters, and battles to Elder Tale. It also increased the level cap from 90 to 100. The monster bodies used by the Genius are raid bosses meant to be introduced by the expansion pack.

By the end of Log Horizon 10: Homesteading the Noosphere (around May of the year after the Catastrophe), no server besides Yamato has received the expansion pack's updates.

Opening Text
Mamare Touno posted the opening text for the Homesteading the Noosphere expansion pack on his Blogspot around the time of the first light novel volume's release. Due to the complexity of the language used in it, there is no completely-translated version available yet.

Trivia

 * The expansion pack derives its name from "Homesteading the Noosphere", an essay written by open-source software development activist Eric S. Raymond.
 * The noosphere is a concept about the sum human consciousness, mental activity, and their effects on the biosphere and evolution. ノウアスフィア is the official Japanese translation of the word, making the term "Novasphere" an incorrect translation.
 * The Catastrophe happened after the release went live; Shiroe mentions that after he updated the game, he was playing regularly with Minori and Touya when the Catastrophe struck.