sorry but before January it was very easy to get to next generation: gen 1 lvl 15 5k gold, gen2 lvl 16 10k etc ofc if you stayed with the main group the gold wasnt a problem
yeah but you speak of old gold value, it was harder to make gold at this time, we won 100/200 gold for one round (in the best case), the grind was not that easy, i don't remember seing every cav with a plated charger and everybody with a tin can (and i remember post of ppl saying they had the first plated after many month).
I never make more money that after upkeep patch, gold was a real pain before, you had to choose wisely what you wanted to buy.
I think a wipe will impact even more casual player, i guess in a month hardcore players will have approximatly the same thing that before, but for casual they'll have to wait many month to achieve the same goal as now.
For some ppl, items and gold don't represent anything, but their chars have an history, if you wipe this you wipe their pleasure