i've been tossing and turning over the issue of a character wipe and debating what side i was on for some time. I have decided, however, that i dont really think there should be a wipe. I will explain why, and i am sure someone will raise counter-arguments. First off, a wipe would really destroy the hard work the long-term players have done with their characters. Even though some power leveled, and some didn't, it would still destroy any progress [leveling wise] the player did with his character since the last wipe [talking about the people who have been here for a while], and that is a long time and a lot of work, more work for some than others. This will however, help new players catch up leveling wise to the old players, which is a pro, however, If the new player just learns to RP well and just level up casually he can catch up to the long term players' IG status rather quickly.
However, I had an idea that may be neat to do if it is at all possible. I was thinking there could be a quest or somehting you could get ingame that would reward you with an item. This item would be similar to something like those rings we got from when we recreated a character from the Molecular Blue release to the Crystal Blue release way back when. Also, this item, when used, the character can choose 1 skill [red way, swords, metallurgy, strength etc.] and the item will be imprinted with that skill's level. Then after the wipe, the item would be transfered to the first character created by the account the previous character was in. This character can activate the item, which would then dissappear, and the character's skill will increase to that of the item. This idea could better be geared towards the longer-term players if this quest was a winch quest to get the item.
And if there is a wipe, i would vote for everyone creating new characters, just to change things up and start the whole experience of meeting people [IC] over again.
For now, i'm going to vote for No.