Thanks Karyuu - I understand that of course it's sometimes necessary to do a wipe. Secondary question then - would these wipes solely be a "technical" wipe? I've seen some games where they build the wipes into the storyline, like changing the world to a different world, armageddon etc, and as a result everything from before - character names and personas, kingdoms and clans, friends and so on are lost and forced to be discarded for roleplay reasons.

I guess my question is - if a wipe does happen, would players be able to just re-make their old characters and continue as before? It's much less of a hassle to just recover the technical aspects, training, gear and so on than it is to be forced to write off a character/concept totally and start afresh. I get attached to my characters.