The emptiness of long-running sandbox worlds and the nuke option

[abrocator]

(This beta is about the world post-CC so this topic is about what the end game (not late game) should look like)

It seems that I get this feeling in sandbox-type games after a long while like the game is empty. You’ve conquered the world and you have figured out the routines of everything. It’s just a husk now. It’s not a sudden realization but builds over the last tens of hours of so where you walk around and do god-like things (or collect twigs and grass and kill Antlion in my case in DST).

You end up never officially ending the run. You just leave it one day. And then never come back.

It’s not even bittersweet. It’s just

void

Another option is to take a weatherpain to your base. (Which at that point might take two hours and twenty of them…) I guess that’s catharthic to some people.

The original DS way to “move on” (before SW and Hamlet) was to use the teleportato. You had to gather everything that you could and move to a new world. Couldn’t take your base with you.

I was just thinking that a non-sandbox way to finish the game would be for the world to fundamentally change, or to be destroyed. And then you maybe move on to another world, either NG+ or a totally new kind of world: the post-CC/post-FW world.

Let’s just for the sake of argument say that you get a brand new world since that’s more exciting than a NG+

Given the choice, would you want either of these:

1. The world doesn’t end after “completing” the game; it’s a sandbox
2. The world has an end, it gets destroyed (maybe you can take things with you), and you enter the post-CC/post-FW afterlife

Whether this “afterlife” has an end or is an eternal sandbox is left open-ended for now.

[MondayNight]

To me it seems you're asking the game to goad you into something, to make the choice in your stead, in the context of a Sandbox end-game setting. It's antithetical to current DST's spirit. Just.. start a new world, maybe? Or play a new pub - I saw that's the thing most pub-goers do. The social aspect of the game, be it co-op or competitive. For now game can do so much to entertain you in solo manner, more-so if you rush things or are avidly into fighting than anything else. If you do, and don't fancy base-building, is understandable why. And perhaps your real problem is with the Sandbox genre. I for one wouldn't like if the world am playing has a self-destruct build-in, would demotivate me. A lot of people play casually and wouldn't desire that either. DS had a story/Adventure mode, to make "hopping" worlds desirable. DST doesn't. "Your world, your rules" was the motto. Choosing for yourself is better.

[Evelo]

I play for like. idk 200-300 days before I just stop playing the world because I "beat" it and start anew. I still have fun. Even now, all alone with no one to play with.