[Animayhem]

I would argue that, Option 2, while seemingly more popular, would be relatively more unfair than Option 3 to older players on the basis that:

No matter what investment in the server that players did or did not make prior to February, Option 2 treats actions taken over the past 7 months differently. For new players, it says: "your actions over the past 7 months are worthy of being recovered" while for older players, it says "your actions over the past 7 months are irrelevant just because you should be happy with what you had before that" etc. Why not treat all actions affected by the server crash most harshly (those which were unrecoverable having happened after the backup) equally?

Thus, I would say that if we wanted to treat new and old players alike - fairly - that Option 3 (or something more similar to it if not exact), would be the better compromise here.

I agree. I only have two active characters. Cara would need very little to get back to precrash. Rimeth was a major character and worked hard to achieve where she was considering she is a pure elf. As I mentioned earlier I would be willing to get Rimeth back to where she was level wise and could even replace some of the things she lost as I have cara saved and can copy the same quest items cara has that Rimeth earned. Naturally Cara has things that Rimeth would not and would not be copied which a dm would have to provide. The bic can be sent to be added to the server. Or I can just get her back to her level.

Eventually down the line I plan to make another character when I get the note to do so.

With respect to all, the one option I would not like to see is a total reboot.