Cryptic "offers" players to merge their Cryptic Account, with a PWE Account. Players who merge, get a 1-time special reward ingame, and upon merging, your old Cryptic Account will become essentially worthless.
The result of this "offer", is a loss of access to all your old forum posts, all your subscribed threads, as well as a change of "display name" on the forums. A name which CAN'T be changed. Add to this, a reset of both avatars and signatures, and the available avatars is pre-defined. Players can't choose "their own" avatar.
Lastly, this "offer" will eventually become non-optional, so players will be forced to merge their accounts sooner or later.