New player with questions before ordering and playing

First off I started my MMO love back in the early 90s with Ultima Online and EverQuest. Than later Dark Age of Camelot. Now I get the opportunity to play one of the originals... though greatly improved IMHO.

If buying the game now and playing it will there continue to be more character wipes? I do not have the time to playtest and then have all my hours of work deleted. That scenario might work for some players but not me.

Also, how complete a game is it? I mean, are there entire chunks of the game missing or incomplete that will be added when released?

Speaking of release...when?

thanks

 

there will be no character wipes. they have spoken of a quest-progress wipe so people can play the story from the beginning again at launch, but that wouldn't take anything you've already accrued from you.

 

The last character wipe was over a year ago, they needed to stop it to get a start on balancing the economy.

And it is significantly playable, most major systems are in, though some of them aren't tuned very well. They are well into installing the main story line quests right now, as well as focusing on the new player experience and performance enhancements. After release they will NOT stop development, there will be continual improvement, and eventually new Episodes (expansions).

Some people aren't playing right now because they want to play the quests all the way all at once. They might be in for a surprise, since they're not designed that way. After you go through two or three major steps, you have to go through areas where your character needs to be a much higher level than before, and you can't even go as a party with other players to power you through.

Right now, half the fun is seeing what gets added each month. Darkstarr and others made the correct decision a long time ago to always release on a schedule, even if things they planned weren't ready to include. The biggest problem the game has is not enough people actively playing, because there are not enough people for them to play with.