confusion and suggestions about the current Moon Line story

[aoka404]

       ·The main clue to the entire moon line is Wagstaff's research process on the moon's energy. But at first, he just suddenly appeared in the Moon Storm and asked the player for help without saying anything. This beginning feels a bit stiff. I think it could allow players to activate the power supply system of the underground archive and meet Wagstaff. Then, he would show an interest in the moon's energy through his research on the facilities in the archive. After that, he hopes that players can find three Lunar Altars. When players learn to make Astral Detector, Wagstaff will show up and say that this is the key to finding Lunar Altars. After collecting all the Lunar Altars, Wagstaff will remind players to place the three Lunar Altars close to each other on the Moon Island. When the Moon Storm occurs, Wagstaff will appear at the player's base and import the production methods of Astroggles and Lunar Siphonator into Alchemy Engine.🙂

     ·The connection between the research contents that Wagstaff conducted after collecting the energy of Celestial Champion is not clearly explained, and players do not understand why WARBOT, which is obviously a weapon device, was eventually created through these studies.😕

     ·Before being caught by Celestial Scion, Wagstaff should have intended to capture energy with a collector as they would with Celestial Champion, rather than just standing by and watching without considering the threat.🤨

    ·After Wagstaff disappears, the details of the player redoing the moonline mission are strangely arranged, such as not needing the correct tool to make Restrained Static. WARBOR, Abandoned Junk and Junky Fence are directly generated without the arrangement of Wagstaff. Spark Ark drops directly from the BOSS... There are too many unreasonable arrangements.🤔

    ·Could Wagstaff personally hand over the map marked with Moon Quay to Pearl? The plot where players clearly know that Moon Quay is not a good place but still hand over the marked map to Pearl is too unreasonable.😢

[lowercase skye]

2 hours ago, aoka404 said:

    ·Could Wagstaff personally hand over the map marked with Moon Quay to Pearl? The plot where players clearly know that Moon Quay is not a good place but still hand over the marked map to Pearl is too unreasonable.😢

The survivor does not know that the moon quay is marked on the map, they trust Wagstaff that he's sending Pearl to the mainland. Pearl herself says that Wagstaff tricked both of you when you visit her on the moon quay.

Edited July 7, 2025 by lowercase skye

[aoka404]

1 hour ago, lowercase skye said:

The survivor does not know that the moon quay is marked on the map, they trust Wagstaff that he's sending Pearl to the mainland. Pearl herself says that Wagstaff tricked both of you when you visit her on the moon quay.

In fact, Wagstaff deceived Pearl by saying that the moon quay was an "uninhabited island". Even though the player knew that the island was full of annoying monkeys, the official still asked the player to give Pearl the marked map.This is just like forcing players to deceive Pearl along with Wagstaff.

Pearl's words indicated that she believed the player had also been deceived by Wagstaff, but this was on the basis of a good relationship with her. If you don't have a good relationship with her (a normal game process won't trigger this situation), she will also say that the player has deceived her.

[Uedo]

8 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

The survivor does not know that the moon quay is marked on the map, they trust Wagstaff that he's sending Pearl to the mainland. Pearl herself says that Wagstaff tricked both of you when you visit her on the moon quay.

If you hand him a map without Moon Quay on it he'll ask you to provide him one with HIS island on it - so the player does, and if they didn't, they will.

[Pet Rock]

I'm wandering why moonstorms only occur before fighting celestial champion and not after the rifts open. It seems like the moon's influence becomes stronger after the rifts are opened, and yet storms are not present. 

Not just for lore but also for gameplay, I would love if moonstorms modified to contain rift-level dangers would appear with rifts active. Perhaps a new possessed boss being surrounded by a storm would be an interesting gimmick too

[aoka404]

54 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

I'm wandering why moonstorms only occur before fighting celestial champion and not after the rifts open. It seems like the moon's influence becomes stronger after the rifts are opened, and yet storms are not present. 

Not just for lore but also for gameplay, I would love if moonstorms modified to contain rift-level dangers would appear with rifts active. Perhaps a new possessed boss being surrounded by a storm would be an interesting gimmick too

Is it like Sealnado? I think it's one of the most oppressive bosses in Don't Starve.

[Primalflower]

9 hours ago, aoka404 said:

Pearl's words indicated that she believed the player had also been deceived by Wagstaff, but this was on the basis of a good relationship with her. If you don't have a good relationship with her (a normal game process won't trigger this situation), she will also say that the player has deceived her.

you cant get this far without having max friendship under default settings so you're only ever supposed to see the max friendship lines

Edited July 7, 2025 by Primalflower

[aoka404]

50 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

you cant get this far without having max friendship under default settings so you're only ever supposed to see the max friendship lines

Under normal circumstances, it is essentially still forcing players and Wagstaff to deceive Pearl together. It's just that Pearl herself, due to her high favorability towards the players, only thinks it's Wagstaff's fault.

[Primalflower]

5 hours ago, aoka404 said:

Under normal circumstances, it is essentially still forcing players and Wagstaff to deceive Pearl together. It's just that Pearl herself, due to her high favorability towards the players, only thinks it's Wagstaff's fault.

No, you're missing the entire idea. As stated before, you yourself are not the one who chooses the moon quay. Wagstaff does. it's a situation where agency is implicitly removed from the player just as much as it is removed from Pearl. Wagstaff is tricking the both of you and you can make up for your mistake later with rehomer. 

[aoka404]

1 hour ago, Primalflower said:

No, you're missing the entire idea. As stated before, you yourself are not the one who chooses the moon quay. Wagstaff does. it's a situation where agency is implicitly removed from the player just as much as it is removed from Pearl. Wagstaff is tricking the both of you and you can make up for your mistake later with rehomer. 

Isn't this forcing players to make mistakes? the first time the player gave Wagstaff a map, he demanded that "the moon quay" must be on it. Then Wagstaff marked the map and asked the player to hand it over to Pearl.

So, may I ask, before players hand over this map to Pearl, won't they take a look at the moving address arranged by Wagstaff? The official has either asked players to hand over the map to Pearl or forced them to go bad and team up with Wagstaff to deceive her. Either the player is a loyal slave of Wagstaff and will blindly follow his instructions.

Logically speaking, players should not have made such an outrageous mistake at all. However, the designer still allowed this mistake to occur, which indicates that the game characters are either stupid or evil.

rehomer is merely an item that the official added in the subsequent updates to calm the anger of the majority of players. It has nothing to do with the stupid arrangement of forcing players to help Wagstaff deceive Pearl.  Why not arrange for players to directly expose Wagstaff's lies when handing over the map to Pearl, and then use rehomer to help Pearl find other residences? In this way, there would be no need to go to the moon quay.

[Primalflower]

Just now, aoka404 said:

isn't this forcing players to make mistakes?

Yes? this happens tons of times in video games, sandbox ones too. Tons of video games have places where narratively your character makes mistakes, or a figure betrays you. i don't know why this is such a big deal, this genuinely does happen all the time, and it adds to wagstaff's character that he blatantly tricks both you and the person that you spent so long gaining trust with. it's such a clear dichotomy to me and it makes me feel like you people must just not play any other games that this has been such a big (negative) deal to you narratively, when it's literally just a story plot beat. this happens all the time in any video game with characters in it. they trick you or they interact with you and things happen in the story and the world as a result.

1 minute ago, aoka404 said:

Why not arrange for players to directly expose Wagstaff's lies when handing over the map to Pearl, and then use rehomer to help Pearl find other residences? In this way, there would be no need to go to the moon quay.

why couldn't we have just told wilson to never make the portal? things happen in a story in part because there would be no story otherwise. wilson should never have made such an outrageous mistake as to trust this random voice he heard in a box. It's a ridiculous point to bring up

10 minutes ago, aoka404 said:

rehomer is merely an item that the official added in the subsequent updates to calm the anger of the majority of players.

the initial build that included the Nightmare Werepig placed him on the surface with random spawning mechanics after you killed him. People campaigned for him to be in the caves day in and day out, and a few updates later, Nightmare Werepig was moved into the caves. People rejoiced as a result of this, thinking their suggestions were what moved him into the caves, but later context (Scrappy Werepig, dreadstone mechanics and such) prove that this was always supposed to be the case. You seeing a world with the rehomer not existing only because this game has an open development in the form of betas.

Disregarding any thought towards the fact that this beta was incredibly rushed due to very visible circumstances with Klei Fest that push towards a certain conclusion, We cannot prove or disprove that the rehomer was supposed to be there from the start. These things are planned far longer than you think, and i'm inclined to side with the idea that this thing that makes complete narrative sense was meant to be here from the beginning.

[cybers2001]

Why does Wagstaff care whether Pearl goes to the mainland or the moon quay, though? Unless pearl didn't want to go to the mainland and Wagstaff had to lie about it being unoccupied (though Wagstaff should already know where the Moon Quay is without the player's help, since he was the one who created the unstable portal there, but that's beside the point). It does make me wonder, though, does Pearl letting you relocate her to the mainland just her basically giving up at that point? lol...

[aoka404]

46 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

Yes? this happens tons of times in video games, sandbox ones too. Tons of video games have places where narratively your character makes mistakes, or a figure betrays you. i don't know why this is such a big deal, this genuinely does happen all the time, and it adds to wagstaff's character that he blatantly tricks both you and the person that you spent so long gaining trust with. it's such a clear dichotomy to me and it makes me feel like you people must just not play any other games that this has been such a big (negative) deal to you narratively, when it's literally just a story plot beat. this happens all the time in any video game with characters in it. they trick you or they interact with you and things happen in the story and the world as a result.

why couldn't we have just told wilson to never make the portal? things happen in a story in part because there would be no story otherwise. wilson should never have made such an outrageous mistake as to trust this random voice he heard in a box. It's a ridiculous point to bring up

the initial build that included the Nightmare Werepig placed him on the surface with random spawning mechanics after you killed him. People campaigned for him to be in the caves day in and day out, and a few updates later, Nightmare Werepig was moved into the caves. People rejoiced as a result of this, thinking their suggestions were what moved him into the caves, but later context (Scrappy Werepig, dreadstone mechanics and such) prove that this was always supposed to be the case. You seeing a world with the rehomer not existing only because this game has an open development in the form of betas.

Disregarding any thought towards the fact that this beta was incredibly rushed due to very visible circumstances with Klei Fest that push towards a certain conclusion, We cannot prove or disprove that the rehomer was supposed to be there from the start. These things are planned far longer than you think, and i'm inclined to side with the idea that this thing that makes complete narrative sense was meant to be here from the beginning.

Come on! Wagstaff didn't deceive the players at all about providing the map to Pearl. He was just deceiving Pearl, who had no idea about the actual situation on the moon quay. the game characters were just forced to be delivery guys. It would be acceptable if they didn't understand the moon quay either, but in fact, they clearly knew the real situation! Pearl said "The player was also deceived" because she trusted the player, but what's the truth? The player is merely an accomplice of Wagstaff! The designer's arrangement has made it very clear that he merely regarded Pearl as a tool to obtain pearl. In the end, even the forced occupation of her small island employed such a illogical and perfunctory plot.

11 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Why does Wagstaff care whether Pearl goes to the mainland or the moon quay, though? Unless pearl didn't want to go to the mainland and Wagstaff had to lie about it being unoccupied (though Wagstaff should already know where the Moon Quay is without the player's help, since he was the one who created the unstable portal there, but that's beside the point). It does make me wonder, though, does Pearl letting you relocate her to the mainland just her basically giving up at that point? lol...

The official story logic is now completely messed up. I guess even they themselves don't know what they are doing.

[Primalflower]

4 minutes ago, aoka404 said:

"The player was also deceived" because she trusted the player, but what's the truth? The player is merely an accomplice of Wagstaff!

this game previously housed an event (The Forge) in which we literally did charlie's bidding and we were referred to as the nightmare throne's lap dogs. So many of this games plot beats involve doing some higher beings bidding without knowing any better or even better, having good intentions. You are very lost if you do not understand this and this should not be a new or really very offensive thing to you at all

[lowercase skye]

1 hour ago, aoka404 said:

So, may I ask, before players hand over this map to Pearl, won't they take a look at the moving address arranged by Wagstaff?

They don't. It is very common for there to be a disconnect between the knowledge players have out of universe, and the knowledge that game characters have within the universe.

[aoka404]

7 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

this game previously housed an event (The Forge) in which we literally did charlie's bidding and we were referred to as the nightmare throne's lap dogs. So many of this games plot beats involve doing some higher beings bidding without knowing any better or even better, having good intentions. You are very lost if you do not understand this and this should not be a new or really very offensive thing to you at all

Don't think that the official side has done everything well. You are just brainwashing yourself. This plot is very clear: the designer is forcing the player to help Wagstaff deceive Pearl.

1 minute ago, lowercase skye said:

They don't. It is very common for there to be a disconnect between the knowledge players have out of universe, and the knowledge that game characters have within the universe.

If the game character has never been to the Moon quay, then how could they provide the map requested by Wagstaff? Then Wagstaff also marked the Moon quay and explicitly stated that Pearl should move there. Both players with a God 's-eye view and game characters know that this is wrong.

[Primalflower]

1 hour ago, aoka404 said:

If the game character has never been to the Moon quay, then how could they provide the map requested by Wagstaff?

That's not what anyone said. The context of giving the map to wagstaff is that you just give him a map of all of the world that you've explored so far and he marks a (to the player/survivor) undisclosed and explicitly uninhabited point in the map. again, Pearl and the Player are in the same boat. They are both being tricked. 

[aoka404]

11 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

That's not what anyone said. The context of giving the map to wagstaff is that you just give him a map of all of the world that you've explored so far and he marks a (to the player/survivor) undisclosed and explicitly uninhabited point in the map. again, Pearl and the Player are in the same boat. They are both being tricked. 

The game characters were not deceived by Wagstaff. On the contrary, they had been to the Moon quay and knew the situation there. However, the game character still handed the map marked with "Moon quay" to Pearl and asked her to move there, which was actually deceiving her along with Wagstaff!

[Bumber64]

4 hours ago, Primalflower said:

why couldn't we have just told wilson to never make the portal? things happen in a story in part because there would be no story otherwise. wilson should never have made such an outrageous mistake as to trust this random voice he heard in a box. It's a ridiculous point to bring up

Besides the fact that the player doesn't have control over Wilson at this point, he was much more naive then. He is much less so by the time he reaches Maxwell on the throne. Even if they have little choice, Wilson and most other survivors would at least give close scrutiny to such a task. (Wurt and Wormwood could likely be fooled.)

1 hour ago, Primalflower said:

That's not what anyone said. The context of giving the map to wagstaff is that you just give him a map of all of the world that you've explored so far and he marks a (to the player/survivor) undisclosed and explicitly uninhabited point in the map. again, Pearl and the Player are in the same boat. They are both being tricked. 

Wagstaff explicitly mentions the "primate island" if you give him maps without it. The survivors know exactly what the islands they've explored contain, as there aren't that many of them.

Edited July 8, 2025 by Bumber64

[Uedo]

10 hours ago, Primalflower said:

No, you're missing the entire idea. As stated before, you yourself are not the one who chooses the moon quay. Wagstaff does. it's a situation where agency is implicitly removed from the player just as much as it is removed from Pearl. Wagstaff is tricking the both of you and you can make up for your mistake later with rehomer. 

I think you're missing the entire idea. @aoka404 is making complete sense.

5 hours ago, Primalflower said:

That's not what anyone said. The context of giving the map to wagstaff is that you just give him a map of all of the world that you've explored so far and he marks a (to the player/survivor) undisclosed and explicitly uninhabited point in the map. again, Pearl and the Player are in the same boat. They are both being tricked. 

I think you're just not understanding, if the player has not discovered the island you can't. If you discover the island, you know full well what is there - therefore the player knows that the island is full of monkeys.

[cropo]

Pearl was by far the worst addition to this game; not only did she curse us with an annoying fetch quest to access the later stages of the game, we now have to treat her like a decoration and can't move the story forward without people complaining about her dumb island no longer being able to be turned into a resort theme park, or that we have to be the bad guy and relocate a useless cranky lady in between butchering werepigs that we tricked into transforming to harvest their skin and desecrating their houses and graveyard sites.

[Primalflower]

10 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Besides the fact that the player doesn't have control over Wilson at this point, he was much more naive then.

a large part of wilson's animated short appearances in recent time have been him blindly following wagstaff because he looks up to him as an inventor

[Primalflower]

7 hours ago, Uedo said:

I think you're just not understanding, if the player has not discovered the island you can't.

11 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Wagstaff explicitly mentions the "primate island" if you give him maps without it.

That's the thing though. he doesn't at first. he specifically avoids mentioning the specifics of the island that you're sending her to in all but one of his quotes, trying to make whats happening sound better to the player/keeping the player & survivor in the dark as much as he can.

The only time he mentions the specifics of what he's trying to do is when you fail to give him a map with what he wants on it, and he only has a 33% chance of running the quote where he lets that detail slip. he's only ever giving you as many details as you absolutely need to do his dirty work for him and keeping you in the dark in the process. It's not really a plot beat harder to understand than literally Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 .

Again, this quest line is entirely in line with the way that the survivor/player works with higher forces without really knowing whats going on at all, this isn't a new paradigm of interaction, I don't think the survivors ever knew truly the extent of what wagstaff wanted to do when they were building up any other of his machines and unleashing the moonstorm and mutating tons of innocent animals in the process, or actively helping charlie rebuild the portal by uncovering the archives. This is another point in time where the survivor accidentally/unknowingly help a force get exerted in the constant, for one reason or another, without truly understanding the consequences of the decision. Whats nice about this decision is that there is a specifically built in ability to make up for your mistakes with pearl after with the rehomer. Come on guys. 

[Uedo]

1 minute ago, Primalflower said:

That's the thing though. he doesn't at first. he specifically avoids mentioning the specifics of the island that you're sending her to in all but one of his quotes, trying to make whats happening sound better to the player/keeping the player & survivor in the dark as much as he can.

The only time he mentions the specifics of what he's trying to do is when you fail to give him a map with what he wants on it, and he only has a 33% chance of running the quote where he lets that detail slip. he's only ever giving you as many details as you absolutely need to do his dirty work for him and keeping you in the dark in the process. It's not really a plot beat harder to understand than literally Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 .

Again, this quest line is entirely in line with the way that the survivor/player works with higher forces without really knowing whats going on at all, this isn't a new paradigm of interaction, I don't think the survivors ever knew truly the extent of what wagstaff wanted to do when they were building up any other of his machines and unleashing the moonstorm and mutating tons of innocent animals in the process, or actively helping charlie rebuild the portal by uncovering the archives. This is another point in time where the survivor accidentally/unknowingly help a force get exerted in the constant, for one reason or another, without truly understanding the consequences of the decision. Whats nice about this decision is that there is a specifically built in ability to make up for your mistakes with pearl after with the rehomer. Come on guys. 

I disagree, the first quote on not receiving a map with Moon Quay I would take to be referencing what the player would already know, or would soon discover upon mapping the island.
So we're at a 66% chance of wagstaff directly indicating the issues on Moon Quay to the player (referencing he caused it by calling it 'my' island and then distancing himself from it, lines up with his ego as a character.

I'd still like to ask how the player does not discover the island is full of monkeys whilst mapping it. It's almost as if you're saying that if you had every 'island' mapped but Moon Quay that would line up with what he's saying, but that's not quite representative - the player will always have to discover what is on the island before being able to move Pearl. 

The player will ALWAYS discover Moon Quay and the issues it has before being able to actually get her to move.

[Primalflower]

1 minute ago, Uedo said:

I disagree, the first quote on not receiving a map with Moon Quay I would take to be referencing what the player would already know, or would soon discover upon mapping the island.

he almost says what he's talking about but then specifically backtracks on the details so as to hide it from the survivor while still functioning as a gameplay hint for how to progress the story