Character Wipe at end of Beta ?

[meldor]

Will there be a character wipe at end of your beta guys ?

I know lots of peoples been working hard on their characters but I see some imbalances here and there from peoples having items they acquired on hazardous way.

Would be great if everyone start on the same page when you finally make this beautiful world open and ready. (end of beta)

[shorn]

I have to counter that. I think that the players who contributed to the beta deserve to keep their characters if they wish, as opposed to us newcomers being on the same level as them. They put in their time, hard work, and contributions, and deserve it.

So, unless they want it, I see no reason why we should even be attempting to argue this.

[broham2]

Yeah this has been discussed before and im fairly certain it wont happen.

Some people may have some nice items, but none that I've seen/heard about that are not deserved through good RP or event play.

[driderman]

Still, new players might not be that interested in joining a server where the old guard already has a dozen characters in epics.
I'd suggest the middle road: Beta players get to keep 1 character each, the rest are wiped. That way their hard grinding work isn't completely ignored, yet the abundance of epic levels isn't quite as extreme.
I'd suggest removing all items as well, so that said high levels had more incentive to adventuring again, but I'm not sure whether that's viable

[broham2]

I think we've been fairly successful so far getting new players.

We can't wipe the board clean every time a new player comes online, its just not feasible. What items are you concerned about anyway?

[meldor]

Well yesterday I did a DM event and the DM spawned a blue dragon, peoples there killed it within 2 sec.

This make none sense to me.

we should all have died within a few second. anyway thats your world.. but it's stated as a beta. I think when you guys make it to release some balancing will need to be done else there are no fun.

Now DM giving away items is kinda weird to me, where can you keep the control over that ? XP & Gold is fine but powerfull magic items um.

I'm waiting to see how the crafting will be implemented and dont take me wrong I really like the world and the challenge so far. Just giving out my opinion on some of the things that dislike me. it's a beta after all.

[DM Sir Carnifex]

Based on where this discussion has gone many times before, there will be NO character wipe after beta. There have been two or three other threads about this pointing out reason why it would NOT be a good idea.

One reason: We would have 20+ people farming wolves and the rest of the area empty for quite some time.

I suggest perhaps the old topic that had all the reasons be stickied so the arguments do not have to be repeated time and again.

[DEV Akavit]

Really now. What is the thing about wanting to be on an equal footing as everyone else? Part of the fun about starting new characters is the fact that one is weak. Is it really that important that no one else have a character that is rated as impossible to one's own PC? Is it important that no one else have any items better than one's own items?

Meeting epic characters is all part of the fun. Back when I first started playing I had a newly-created Flail involved in RP with two of the most powerful and villainous characters on the server. One wrong word and he would have been squished in two seconds. Fast forward four months and Flail became one of the most notable epics as the earlier ones were either retired or put aside in favor of new PC's. Now I've put Flail on the back burner and a new group of epics are taking his place.

As a further note, a vault wipe punishes the RP'ers more than anyone else. Those who simply enjoy grinding for eight hours a day will reach epic again in just a few weeks anyway. The players who enjoy writing biographies, making journal entries and interacting with others will often take a couple weeks (for low level PC's) just to gain a new level.

I hope that the topic is stickied as Carnifex suggested as it is becoming rather old to see it pop up every few weeks. The developers have already stated in the older threads that they have no intention of a vault wipe. I suggest that people be less concerned about balance and reflect on how boring the game would be if everyone were perfectly equal. Hasn't anyone ever had a PC facing certain death only to be rescued at the last second by a chance meeting with a helpful epic? I've been on both sides of that situation and such encounters are great fun.

[driderman]

I think the reason people want "an equal footing" is mainly because lite servers such as this are usually fraught with epics. In my case, I find it actually ruins immersion for me, but of course I'd prefer it if every character stayed within a say 5-15 level range, for the most case.
On a server like this, you encountered Drow Warlocks blasting away on the trade way, yesterday I encountered an epic-level cleric in the Hilltop kobold ruins and generally, wherever you go theres an epic level that can destroy whatever a DM spawns as part of a quest in a single blow.
It cheapens the experience when Horned Devils are oneshotted by a random gathering of adventurers who just happen to meet up by the temple of Bhaal. The dangerous isn't dangerous anymore and the esoteric monsters are just more heads to hang over the fireplace.
Which is alright as a story in itself, but when DMs run quests on the server it will naturally mean that high levels will participate. As these high/epic levels can kill most things with a toss of their hair, the DMs have to step up the challenge, which means instead of bandits extorting road taxes it'll be Dracoliches demolishing the entire Coast region.
This is all very well for high level characters of course, but for the lower levels it means that most DM events will be next to impossible for them to attend, except as expendable redshirts that'll need to be raised several times during the event, by DM or players.
As the higher levels are usually the most active players as well, DMs will automatically tend to run events for those, which leaves out the lower levels to grind xp to catch up or stand about an epic DM event hoping for some RP xp or getting some friends that will powerlevel him/her later.

This is generally speaking, I haven't been on this server long enough to really make a proper observation of this, although I have certainly seen some signs of it.
Not saying it's a bad server, I like it here, even though the RP seems to happen mainly inbetween kills. I've yet to see anyone in any bar, except for people respawning...

[davidb]

I agree there's a problem with level, but the wipe would really be against the will of most players here, so it will never happen; I wouldn't oppose it myself, really. But I am not epic.

Oh, and I was there when the dragon was killed, I doubt it had nothing to do with magic items, it was more likely the level 9 spells raining on him.

[DM Cephas]

Dec 7, 2008 14:23:17 GMT -5 DM Sir Carnifex said:

Based on where this discussion has gone many times before, there will be NO character wipe after beta. There have been two or three other threads about this pointing out reason why it would NOT be a good idea.

One reason: We would have 20+ people farming wolves and the rest of the area empty for quite some time.

I suggest perhaps the old topic that had all the reasons be stickied so the arguments do not have to be repeated time and again.

I second SirC's comments.

Bottom line is that there will never be equal footing when it comes to PC population. Even if everyone started afresh, some people will grind and some won't. In a very short time, you'll have the level disparity again. (By the way, there's a low-level bard that my PC loves RPing with. She does not grind much so her level is pretty low comparatively speaking but is a favorite part of Nahum's RP experience)

My recommendation is to find like-minded players and have PC's that will stay within each other's level range. Perhaps even join a guild that are known for their RPing.

And DM's don't always go towards the active players. We've "signed" guidelines in which we welcome new players. I know I tend to look out for logins I don't recognize and then teleport there to see if I can do a minor event. (That's how I got hooked to this server). Actually, this sometimes means that the active players are the ones getting neglected.

And DM's here WILL give xp for those that RP. (If I find people in a bar just RPing, you can be certain that I'll teleport there and start rewarding RP XP.).

[DM Sir Carnifex]

Dec 7, 2008 15:44:00 GMT -5 DEV Akavit said:

As a further note, a vault wipe punishes the RP'ers more than anyone else. Those who simply enjoy grinding for eight hours a day will reach epic again in just a few weeks anyway.

This is so, SO true! I know that some people will get up to level twenty in ONE week. So a vault wipe will clear all those mid-level RP characters that took months getting there. They will have to rebuild taking months again and the power-levelers will be up to epic in a week. Fact is, any vault wipe will cause more imbalance in characters than anything else.

Not being able to participate in events because of level diversity is, in my opinion, not a good reason for a wipe. For one, the level disparity doesn't make one shred of difference for who can and who can't be involved in an event. My latest one had a VERY low level PC along with some high levels and that one low level added a LOT to the RP (which is really why we do events, right?). Only if the events are pure grinding will they exclude anyone.

[borton]

hhhehe took me 3 weeks to get to lv 20 but i got plenty of item to burn

[DEV Jlf2n]

Hehe these threads always get folks fired up. Its good to the passion though.

And sorry, we won't be wiping the player files out. Trust me when I say the world will be big enough for everyone. Now that we have a new and awesome server I can finally get back to building areas. As a matter of fact, I pieced together 9 underdark cave areas this weekend as well as built a new Farmlands area that will transition into the Fields of the Dead.

[DEV Akavit]

Dec 8, 2008 10:47:24 GMT -5 DEV Jlf2n said:

Hehe these threads always get folks fired up. Its good to the passion though.

And sorry, we won't be wiping the player files out. Trust me when I say the world will be big enough for everyone. Now that we have a new and awesome server I can finally get back to building areas. As a matter of fact, I pieced together 9 underdark cave areas this weekend as well as built a new Farmlands area that will transition into the Fields of the Dead.

Hurrah! The new areas are probably the additions that I was waiting for the most. That along with the addition of some custom item haks and maybe something like XP craft, randomized spawns, improved monster ai, mountable horses, pack animals, deep dungeons with resettable traps, ambushes, custom prestige classes,backpacks and uh, uh, uh..... Will the list ever end?