Wipe y/n?

[Xanthan]

People have only been able to become that strong by abusing bugs. That needs to be corrected.
- It is not as if a bug caused half the players to jump to Crystal Way 150 in a wink of an eye, is it?

There was a GM action that caused this to happen in two different magic ways per player for many people ("Xiosiamass").  Much to the chagrin of those of us who've spent years of effort working on getting our magic training to half this level.  Bugs are minor causes of imbalance by comparison.

I've put a lot into building up magic levels for my mage character just so that when magic finally does something I'll be able to work with it and base roleplay on what my character can actually do.  If all that effort is made naught by a level wipe, I am certainly not going to put myself through so much grinding again.  I will probably explore and admire the new parts of the world, and then leave the game.

On the suggestion that formerly power characters can just roleplay instead:  Perhaps, but I want to roleplay an experienced mage NOT someone pretending to be a mage but not actually able to cast spells.  I feel like I am finally almost at the point where I can begin to do this properly, and I don't want that to go away.

So: wipe if you need to for bugfixing, BUT please consider how to keep some character continuity.  If not based on the exact stats and so on that people have now, perhaps by giving accounts (not characters) character creation points based on their existing characters and allowing them to construct new equally powerful characters.

Wipe bugs, not people!!!

[Mordraugion]

What counts as an old player? 6 months? a year? with effort most stats/skills can be maxed in a couple of months. I've been playing for 5 years through a full wipe (not as many people left as threatened to before hand) through a couple of partial wipes (once again more threatened to leave than actually left)

Wipe now and you lose x stats/skills, wait and you lose x plus the extra trained since now, players really ought to remember its a game in development wipes are to be expected and accepted as part of that development process.

[Ironstark]

I know this is strange to ask but how does a wipe help out?

[luckeley]

Those that play the game for it's intended purposes will not leave.

So are you the game creator? I thought the purpose of the game was to have fun. And if you are a Realm 7 mage or a 300q crafter, exactly how is having to do training for those all over again "fun"?

 yet if they play for the right reasons this will not be the deciding factor in their leaving.

Please explain to me what the "right reasons" for playing this game are. I didn't realize I had the wrong reason to play, please enlighten me.

This from the PS website: (http://www.planeshift.it/about.html)

Here are 10 reasons why you should become a player and a fan of PlaneShift:

   1. Planeshift is a great place to find new friends from all over the world!
   2. PlaneShift is a virtual world where you've always dreamed of living.
   3. PlaneShift is the first 3D MMORPG to be fully free for players.
   4. Thanks to our open development process the game will be expanded endlessly for years to come.
   5. Planeshift is a game made by roleplayers to bring you all the immersion you need from a virtual world.
   6. A unique setting, realistic combat rules, great magic system.
   7. No budgetary constraints will stop development of the world or prevent the addition of new ideas.
   8. You will be able to build your house, your castle, your realm.
   9. You have the option to live as an adventurer or as a normal citizen - both paths will be rewarded in the game.
  10. You can submit comments, ideas, bugs and the dev team will take those into account in future releases.

and furthermore:

Game features

      The following list represents some of the features of the final product. Please remember that today PlaneShift is still under heavy development.

      12 playable races with unique traits!
      Unlimited professions through a skill system,
      Original magic system with six Ways of magic,
      Hundreds of spells,
      Numerous huge worlds to explore,
      A great number of quests to test your wit and skill,
      Monsters and NPCs with good AI that produce game events,
      A world that evolves with or without player interaction,
      Create your own house or castle,
      Politics and economy,
      ... and much much more!

Hundreds of spells that you will now be wiped of!

A wipe is nonsense, count me as against it, and I will quit playing if it happens.

[Timmothy Perriwinkle]

not as many people left as threatened to before hand

This.

[Elvors]

My first knee-jerk reaction to the prospect of a wipe was "NOOO!"
That surprised me. I had thought I were relatively unbiased about a wipe.
Then it dawned on me: I just spent over half a year just grinding away at becoming a competent crafter. The wipe would come just as I'm finally reaping rewards.
Of course, that should not count into whether a wipe should happen or not - there will always be somebody who just finished some lengthy task.

BUT: do not wipe until some better way to balance training times has been found. It would suck to have to spend another year just to get back to even moderate crafting competence.

Oh, on further thinking: wiping should not happen before at least an honest effort at balancing in general has been done. Right now, the game is not even near to 1.0 state - magic spells get "disimplemented", the Various and Other skills aren't even started, you still can't craft many weapons, etc. etc.
What good would be a wipe at that stage?

[Samelson]

Imagine that we have a wipe out and that everybody starts over from scratch.

Imagine the first day in the sewers with everyone hunting rats for hides to resell and experience points. There will not be enough rats for everyone...

Samelson

[Drukok Geed]

Look I have spent many months getting my stats and skills raised. Wiping my character will mean I have to start all over from scratch. I think the wipe should not occur.
If it happens  I may not play this game any longer. Too much blood, sweat and effort has been spent achieving this. Other mmorpgs do not do character wipes. Why must PlaneShift be the exception? This is crazy. I voted to not do a wipe.
 

[ravenrise]

Samelson is right, not everyone will be able to train right away, it would be a huge mess of kill stealing and people scrambling to find other places to hunt, and in that sense a wipe would be chaos.
 I voted yes, with a few conditions. If a wipe were to happen, and I know eventually one will, the only logical way of preserving some kind of order is to instantly rebalance the system. The reason we don't have millions of people hunting at once, rats or otherwise, is because there are other skills that people use. In the case of a wipe I think giving every player 50(or a different number I'm not sure) progression points so they can plan out their character would help a lot.

An example would be:
A warrior would spend all of their points on fighting skills, helping them skip right over the rat killing phase, while a crafter would focus on crafting skills, leaving them in the rat killing phase. This will not stop the insanity of a wipe, but it may help with the player complaints and will (hopefully) make even less people leave.

oh and Drukok, the reason other mmorpgs don't do wipes is because all other mmorpgs that are open to the public are not in alpha testing stages. 

[Kieve]

Why must PlaneShift be the exception?

Because those games are finished, complete products?
Voted yes because I understand the technical need for one.
However, I too am reluctant to part with my character's accumulated skills and wealth.
If it helps PS advance in the long term, if it cleans up the server for better playability, or in some other way improves the game's workings, I'd say that takes precidence over selfish desires - however reasonable they might be.

[Sarras Volcae]

why don't the devs just go ahead and wipe? this isn't a democracy. and i really don't think anyone needs compensation for lost levels. sure, may be annoying, but a total wipe is for the greater good. players can work for it again if they care so much.

to all the whiny nerds: why did you join a game in alpha if you knew this could happen? you're all testers, this is what happens when you join an incomplete game. suck it up.

lol @ threats to quit. you'll see it's not so bad. not as many people as you think will leave, and if they're solely on laanx for leveling they'll move to that other server.

[Samelson]

By the way, can we move back and forth from one server to an other. And if so, how?

Samelson

[Timmothy Perriwinkle]

No.

[verden]

I have always been in favor of a reset of the database, I have posted many times my basic reasons for supporting this and they have not changed. However, saying "wipe" does not indicate what it is, how it will be accomplished, for what specific purposes, or how the team will learn from it to improve the game.

[luckeley]

why don't the devs just go ahead and wipe? this isn't a democracy. and i really don't think anyone needs compensation for lost levels. sure, may be annoying, but a total wipe is for the greater good. players can work for it again if they care so much.

to all the whiny nerds: why did you join a game in alpha if you knew this could happen? you're all testers, this is what happens when you join an incomplete game. suck it up.

lol @ threats to quit. you'll see it's not so bad. not as many people as you think will leave, and if they're solely on laanx for leveling they'll move to that other server.

The game will always be in development, I guess we will all be testers forever (as is the case with most open-source software). The game is already 6 years old, and will continue to evolve forever. But to say that people against a wipe are "whiners" is ignorant. Some people have spent years leveling crafting and magic. If there isn't a way to transfer the data from the databases yet, then perhaps a method should be developed.

And I am in no way anywhere near max levels but I know quite a few who are, and who will quit playing if you wipe. I don't understand why it seems many people are so closed-minded about this. Hard-core RP'ing could be done in a chat room, where nothing exists, or even in your basement with dice and cards. This isn't D&D, people, PS is much much more than just an RP experience. A wipe without at least exploring options is a bad idea.

Many people assume that anyone who levels is not an RP'er. Totally not the case. Myself and many others who enjoy leveling also enjoy RP'ing. But not all the time. They both can get boring if you do one or the other all of the time IMHO.