although, I wished for a wipe

What's the deal with this 'new client'?

First, lets clarify a few terms;

The client is the actual game you install on your computer. It is the program you start to play the game.

The server is the program that the client communicates with, it stores all the game data including accounts, quests monster data and much more.

The current client is quite old, it dates back to 2001 and hasn't seen any major updates since. For quite a few years now there's been talk about this mythical 'new client' which is supposed to replace the current one. A lot of people started thinking that it would never, ever be released or that it was only imaginary. However, lately Zer and Wu have been making a lot of progress in developing this new client (see the Development Forum for details).

In short, the new client is coming...

To answer some of the questions you may have;

Will we have to start over (wipe)?
No, you will KEEP your current characters and items. You can think of the new client as a browser, a page (the server) can be viewed by different browsers (clients, current and new) like FireFox, Opera, Internet Explorer etc.

When will it be released?
Unsure, make sure you read the Development Forum for the latest news.

Will the game change?
The game itself will not directly be affected, all the maps will stay the same. Additionally a lot of bugs and cheats will be gone so it should be more fair.

Will there be new skills, spells, items, monsters?
The new client itself will not bring any new content, however, it will make it easier to add new content as there will be more art available and it'll have better support for new features.