What will happen to the current player accounts when the new client is implemented? Will the player need to start their characters from scratch or will it be a "seamless" implementation where the player's character/s information is intact?

I can see a rush to get the best names and who will be the first to bust out the best "toys" if there is a reset of the server for the new client.

I'm sure it will be seamless

There will be no reset. Resets only come along when things get totally out of balance from a money or XP bug. And, resets have always been preceded by announcements from the Devs for the need for a reset.

Nothing like that has reared it's ugle head.

seamless

the new client is nothing more than a userside change to how the game handles cerain events. If you dont want to use it you wont even have to at first, since it will NOT be a mandatory download. From my understanding of it I dont even think the 'regular' universe will be changed at first.. the new client will only work on the test server.. (thats how i'm reading it anyhow based on incarnates comment that.

We're shooting, tentatively, for releasing the client into open testing within a week (so say, roughly next Monday).

I could be wrong however, But since the new client supports new graphics in the GUI, and the server has to tell the client when those graphics need to change i'd assume that the client update will require a server update as well, and the best place to do that is on the test server if they are expecting lots of bugs.

Man, one has to hand it to the mainstream MMORPG companies if regular people immediately think "major update = chara reset"; those people do excel at screwing their player base over and over. Another reason I love Guild over the rest of the bunch out there.

As for the best toys, I want to be the first paying player to acquire the Bunchies UFO :P

I do not have any character resets planned at all.

The new client will work concurrently with the existing client, and both can be used to connect to either the test server or the production server. I'm assuming that most people will use it on the production server. The "testing" I was referring to was just client-side. Ie, does stuff not work right.

I thought someone said there was a protocol change?

The devs have said there are a number of things that they've wanted to do recently that would require a protocol change, but since they want both the new and old clients to work at the same time until the new client has been thoroughly tested/tried they can't make any protocol changes. Also a protocol change still wouldn't require a character wipe.