Episodic Eternia

[Jumpy]

As someone who's seen a lot of the wipe structure being employed, be it very fast (weekly/bi-weekly), fast (monthly), and lengthy (5-6 months), I feel like I should put in my thoughts.

Oddly enough out of all of those formats the very, very fast paced weekly/bi-weekly wipes of BLH were genuinely fine because everyone knew there would be a wipe soon. Death wasn't as dramatic as you kept your stats and basically got a race+name change and that was it. Of course we were all kids and this may be nostalgia as well as innocence playing into it but incredibly fast wipes does work.

That being said every other length sucks. Monthly or so wipes end with the same few people rotating into the spotlight every wipe and because they don't really have a downtime when they die, as another wipe surges soon, they go back into the spotlight. It's unhealthy and only thrives off of offshooting wipe ideas and settings.

Five/Six months wipes are horrible. People play for the beginning of it, they have fun, they have goals, they apply for something and proceed to not get it, or not get enough over a timeskip they expected to get a lot from. And quickly quit, knowing that there'll be a wipe if enough people quit. It kills motivation and invites people to only play if they've made Day 1 characters. It sucks. It's episodic and can follow its own canon but it'll always suck to join 1-2 months in because you'll just never be as important. Any dip in population means it's the end because everyone knows there'll be a wipe. No one clings on, no one perseveres knowing that things will just pick back up eventually. People don't just 'come back' as a group after they've had a new idea.

tl;dr wipes suck.

If you introduce episodic stories you end up with people literally just quitting whenever they dislike an IC situation rather than finding a solution around it or fighting it back. Vampires? If they're not the story of the wipe people quit. Demi-Angels? Same story. And you have to make those races an open race if you remotely want people to play your episodic story, because why would I want to play a normal-ass human in a 2-3 month wipe where 7 chosen people play quarter angels, only for two of said chosen ones to AFK right off the bat. It's a common thing to see on Eternia for people to apply for something, get it, and AFK.

Episodic Eternia would introduce people literally deciding they'll come back in 4 months because they were told that their application for X hidden would be better for Y hidden, and that they're approved for the latter.

Coming from a place where I've seen wipes go from 70 active players in 2 factions drop down to 30 active players because a third faction of 8 players was made (mind you 4 of those were still actively in their former faction RPing and no one knew they had betrayed) I fear people mass-quitting because they don't like an idea, or a leader, or a new spell, or something being strong, or someone having something that they weren't even going to go for but the idea of that person having something at all makes them so mad they just don't want to play.

Episodic Eternia as an idea saddens me. I'd much rather have a race plopped down as an arc ends so that my character who's seen all tons of shit gets to experience more. Length lives promote this feeling of "this is my story" rather than "I am a henchman in this setting". Going from seeing wraiths and nethradins to meeting a literal angel to watching nations go at war, betrayal happen, demons be kinder than you'd think, quarter angels being born, miracles happening, and so forth makes anyone feel like they've experienced a real life when their character dies or drifts into afk.

That's my opinion.