I have a feeling that those last ten days from November 1st through 11th will be used for some sort of final end-of-the-world event. With the "final character data save" happening on Nov. 1st, those of us who log in after that won't be expecting to make any sort of progress with our characters. That gives the devs the freedom to do things that would otherwise be game-breaking. Want to uproot all of the aetherytes? Fine. Want to put a crater where Hyrstmill used to be? Go for it!

Of course, I could be completely wrong. Those final ten days after our character data is saved might simply serve as time for us to say our final goodbyes before the servers go offline. But I like the armageddon event explanation better.