I know the EA issue. I guess there will be a couple of wipes-resets or similar every mayor change and sure for 1.0.
The reality is that most of the people buy the game for fun or different reasons and don’t care about supporting developers or feedback. I trust moon’s developers, so if they make new realms after updates may be because it’s the best experience to have.
But the reality is that wipes-resets or being tagged as “legacy” could create a lot of toxicity regarding the playerbase, even review bombing or massive complains and refunds within platforms.
The less of those issues, the better. So I think that a public test realm could be really helpful. The game is in development and urges content. Even after The Breach (or whatever upcoming update), we will be on a situation of EA and balancing-testing-iterating.
Some players are making 6-7 characters, exploring new builds to lvl 30 because there is nothing more to do after nuking EK. Fanbase would be really happy to test new systems and explore possible changes, lots of them are already giving tons of feedback. Test realm could be wipped or changed without playing with the overall sanity of the playerbase, could have fast paced patches whilst an army of players help finding bugs, improving balance and accelerating the release of 1.0. Perhaps reducing to the bare minimun future resets-wipes or legacy issues with realms.
I know Moon Studios want to deliver quality and finished products. But could be a win-win while we wait.