What is the best way to handle world wipes?

[Kaios]

Garry's Mod on Steam is enough on its own, players make ALL of the content. That is the dream of a sandbox.

While you're not wrong, I don't think they are the same type of sandbox game. With something like Garry's Mod there are virtually no limitations on what you can do or create and the ways in which you can affect the world. However, in Haven & Hearth this is not the case.

There is still certainly plenty you can do in the world of Haven that affects other players and the world around you but that doesn't automatically make the game interesting. In my opinion, that doesn't make any game interesting just on its own. Except with a game like Haven there is a reason it is the way it is. It's inevitable that there will be certain limitations set on specific activities within the game, otherwise it would cause an imbalance between the players.

This reason alone might cause others to be inclined to believe that this makes Haven & Hearth a game which is not totally 100% sandbox and I'm okay with that because that means it's alright to discuss interesting additions like world and region events, because they add fun despite the player-driven sandbox elements of the world.

[Kathdys]

If something is totally 100% sandbox, it's not a game anymore! Games have to have meaningful rules, limitations, conflict, and challenges, even if that means something as simple as 'Build the coolest thing you can using only 75 parts' or 'try to build a functioning city despite flaming balls of death raining everywhere'. So... making something '100% sandbox' is not usually a good objective.

Games that are too sandboxy tend to experience a phenomenon called the 'quicksand box', where the player is so free to do anything and to set their own objectives that they... don't do anything, and don't care enough about it to decide what to do. This'll happen in RPGs, simulations... especially FPS games. H&H starts out with survival-based gameplay, and becomes more and more sandbox-like as the player advances and builds things, so it gives a guiding hand, and even if the player has no interest in sandbox-style play, they can continue to obsess about survival-based goals long after this is no longer necessary, for as long as they want. This works better than most sandbox game designs, I think.

[kitsune121x]

People have different opinions. Throughout my career playing Haven, I had a love/hate relationship with world wipes.

How often should world wipes occur, in your opinion? Do world wipes scare off everyone except the most hardcore? Why do you play, despite knowing that everything you make will be deleted shortly?

shortly my ass the world's been running for 2 years

here's the reasons why people ask for wipes
1. most of the resources are depleted
2. number 2 they're too weak against other players are bullying them other words they want a chance to play
3. the world stale/boreding
4. no real estate (bs)
5. lack of high quality clay
6. mass graveyards/abandoned claims ( fuck those people i love abandoned claims hnh archaeology lot of fun)
7. massive stampedes of cow and pigs and sheep (I personally think that's funny)
8. lack of challenge
9. lack of player population
10. built a giant dick on the world map what am I going to do now running out of stuff to do

for me built my penthouse and tiled my claim with gold and pillage seven villages by myself depleted 7 iron mines and 3 gold mines and 1 silver mine and I have everything I want but stuff to do so I'm bored and if there was more stuff for me to do I would not complain about the world

[NOOBY93]

People have different opinions. Throughout my career playing Haven, I had a love/hate relationship with world wipes.

How often should world wipes occur, in your opinion? Do world wipes scare off everyone except the most hardcore? Why do you play, despite knowing that everything you make will be deleted shortly?

shortly my ass the world's been running for 2 years

here's the reasons why people ask for wipes
1. most of the resources are depleted
2. number 2 they're too weak against other players are bullying them other words they want a chance to play
3. the world stale/boreding
4. no real estate (bs)
5. lack of high quality clay
6. mass graveyards/abandoned claims ( fuck those people i love abandoned claims hnh archaeology lot of fun)
7. massive stampedes of cow and pigs and sheep (I personally think that's funny)
8. lack of challenge
9. lack of player population
10. built a giant dick on the world map what am I going to do now running out of stuff to do

for me built my penthouse and tiled my claim with gold and pillage seven villages by myself depleted 7 iron mines and 3 gold mines and 1 silver mine and I have everything I want but stuff to do so I'm bored and if there was more stuff for me to do I would not complain about the world

"Lack of challenge" and "they're too weak against other players" don't go very well together...
I believe there's 2 reasons people ask for world wipes.
1. They think that somehow they will "this time" be stronger than the main groups even though they're completely casual in playing, so every time a couple of weeks passes they realize they are at the bottom of the food chain and just want a new world again for a "second" chance.
2. They're still playing after a long world and they want a world wipe so people from reason 1 will play again so they can have more fun interacting with them in some way.

[verybakedpotatoe]

It's not just a sandbox game though, is it? There's a heavy survival element involved that wouldn't be straying too far from the original spirit of the game if it also involved "nature" elements.

I agree. It's clear that this is a survival game, but different people interpret that description differently. Many seem to think that means you have to survive in a game where everyone wants to kill you and that's it. But one can also see that as a game where you also have to survive against the environment, dealing with hunger, weather, decay maintenance, and so on.
Better hunger mechanics and actual scary weather events like droughts and plagues would make the PvE side of the game more interesting. Having to store food to survive the winter, for example, or suddenly finding out you can't plant tea for a month - that would be neat and would not deviate from the game's description.

I like the way that adding to the PvE elements as you described would could create a greater depth to the way that players would have to plan commerce and combat. If a cart had trouble traveling in winter, or moving a bettering ram in snow were even more difficult raiding would have to be planned accordingly. If you had to build small shelters just to keep warm, or stay near your hearthfire for a time, it would create additional survival elements.

Having seasonal yields for crops sounds like it could be rough, but interesting at the same time. I am conflicted because it seems right to have it but i am not sure how well it would work.

How many Potatoes must die before I can get this right?