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They aren't releasing with a season, that's after 1.0. At least from what I've seen. They definitely said 0.9 chars are moving to offline on release when asked in one stream. 1.0 will be the start of standard.
I'm the person you are saying said that. I didn't say that.
Offline characters will stay offline. Online characters will stay online.
You might be thinking of how I said that CT characters (closed multiplayer alpha testers) won't be moved to the main population when general access is released.
The plan is to have 0.9 characters move to a "standard" style environment when 1.0 launches.