Well, in digging around in old posts (I want to punch 14-year-old me in the gut for being such an idiot), I figured out that the last time I played this was world 5.
I imagine a lot has changed in 8 years.
Also, I realize now that in that post I mention that I wanted to start playing it again, rather than just start playing it. Meaning that I must've played it even earlier... which would date all the way back to when I was on the Minecraft forums.
The horror.
That was when I last played, was world 5. That was the best world, because the map was so huge I made an entire SOLO city by myself and a few other people (but they never played except to log on for a few minutes, so I still had to do everything solo) without worrying about PvP. All the maps after (as far as I know) were a ton smaller to make PvP. Which is fine I guess since they want HnH be a pvp game...but world 5 was like the first only sandbox MMO I enjoyed since I never had to PvP. 99% sandbox MMOs (survival games can be PvE optional which is nice, but not sandbox MMOs sadly) are always pvp, so it was a really nice change of pace.
I remember on world 5, I ran to the furthest reaches of the world (almost, I avoided the invisible barrier since people would be likely use the barrier to travel). But I ended up in this massive metropolis but it was all ruins, and the only neighbors were the friendliest chinese (or maybe they were japanese) people I ever met in a game. There was a few of them who took care of some of the city, and let me live there. Never seen such friendly people in a pvp MMO lol.
Worlds after that weren't the same at all, and never met anyone friendly like I did on world 5. That world was really the best. It had the best co-op feel, because even running to the middle of nowhere I met so many friendly people on the way there. I never had that experience since in haven and hearth, so I probably won't bother with the new world either. I just wanted to share my experience of taking up ruins (which was cool), and meeting the friendliest people I ever met in haven and hearth. And not only friendly people where I took up residence, but there was so many friendly people on the way there. Granted I do remember being chased a couple times, but I never died and they gave up when I got on my raft. Still, was a really great experience.
I do remember the lag and movement controls though. The only thing I've personally played that could have been worse or at least as bad was shores of hazeron from back in the day before they fixed it. But I probably got 100+ hours on world 5 despite that, so guess had a good enough time to play through the lag and movement.