Electroely

I don't think the server should be kept going at such a high count. There's already high demand for fresh public worlds. Klei official servers in particular, since they usually have good connection. Whether done intentionally or not, an AFK script player is in fact keeping the world hostage. Public survival servers normally reset when a player joins to die when it's empty to start over on a fresh world. Survival mode has been like that for as long as I've played. A public server might go into a year or two through the players' decision to keep playing rather than starting over, but it's generally very rare for it to beyond that. Everyone would acknowledge that to have a long-lasting server, you should host it yourself. ESPECIALLY if it's going into the thousands. Rather than using an AFK script, which is arguably cheating, to keep a survival world from resetting, why not just host your own server in Endless mode, the mode MADE for hosting servers that go into the thousands?

I think that's outdated information, if not a misinterpretation. From what I know, you can spawn the Malbatross at any shoal by fishing in it. But, there is another mechanic. You can spawn the Malbatross if you just get near some specific shoals in the world. That might be what you're talking about. It's a mechanic from before the Hook, Line & Inker update and used to be the only way you'd ever be able to see the Malbatross. It made it quite rare, actually. You basically only had a 25% chance of finding the Malbatross every time you visit a shoal. Hardly anyone I know had ever seen it, let alone kill it.

It'll keep following you for as long as you try to fish in its shoals. You can kill it (it's not too hard to do alone, it's arguably easier than Deerclops) but it'll be ready to come back in 5-15 days. I personally enjoy fishing and killing the Malbatross. 2 Fish meat and 2 monster/regular meat (or just 4 fish meat) makes surf n turf which heals off battle wounds pretty easily, and the blue gems, feathers and bill feel like a good enough reward for the difficulty of the fight. If there's one thing I dislike about the Malbatross, is that it can break my masts even if unprovoked. Though, to avoid that, I always fish with my boat anchored away from the center of the shoal, and I leave my boat ready to escape whenever I fish. What I like to do is sail from shoal to shoal, usually going to 3 of them in one trip and fishing out all the deep bass they have. I get tons of fish to store in Tin Fishin' Bins and the time away from hound attacks (and Antlion attacks in the summer) is something I appreciate.

The bulk of your post is a bunch of ideas on how the game can get progression. There's many well written suggestions in the subforum, and I don't think it's fair to say that your ideas shouldn't go here because others write something that seems like "add Squirrels" to you. Maybe your post looks like a long "Add Squirrels" to me, and I'd have my own ideas that I would think need a lot of players to see. (I do have an idea that I think would make the game objectively better (see signature) but I didn't post it in general discussions because that clutters it) I do think that the sub-forum has a bit of an issue regarding attention, but I feel like the main reason for that is that it's too far down the list of sub-forums. Maybe if it were to be moved to be right below the bug tracker, it'd get more traffic. I think those who are interested in giving feedback would probably frequent this sub-forum. And Klei does look at the sub-forum to see feedback and suggestions. Here's a bit of a recent example: 163 views, 1 reply (at the time of writing). Yet Klei did notice it (one of the reactions to the post was from a developer) and did add Koi as event fish for the lunar new year, probably because they found it to be a good suggestions. I think the general discussions sub-forum is more suited for general discussions of the game, as in things like balance, strategies, game mechanics, etc. A lot of the posts in the sub-forum currently are player suggestions/feedback that should be in the sub-forum, and I think it makes general discussion topics harder to find. 9 out of the 20 unpinned posts in the front page (at the time of writing) belong in this sub-forum.

I think if new challenges were to be more intrusive, there should be a separate game-mode for them. Kind of like how Survival and Endless are two different game modes, maybe a fourth game mode could be added to give the game the kind of challenge some players would like. Separating it into an optional setting in world generation would allow the players that enjoy how the game currently is to keep playing it as is, and would allow Klei to make major changes to the game play to introduce extra difficulty. A server's game mode is visible on the server selection screen, and filters exist to make sure you join servers with the game mode you want. I don't personally think the game has any problems considering difficulty or progression. I've been having fun playing on various worlds, new and old, and playing around with all the content updates have added over the years. I've seen a lot of people complain that the optional content is optional, but the way I see it, the majority of the game is optional if you play a certain way. I think a lot of people stick too much to the meta, and unless new content becomes part of said meta (like stone fruit), they'll basically pretend it doesn't exist. Not to say that balance isn't important or anything, though. I think all the content in the game should be balanced so that even if it's not part of the meta, it's at least good enough to be viable. Ocean fishing is an example of viable, optional content. You can get more than enough food while out in the sea if you go fishing, especially if you find deep bass shoals. You can come back with lots of fish, about as much as our boat can hold. And the lack of hound attacks, giant attacks and antlion attacks let you fish with relative peace (Skittersquids and the Malbatross being the few things that disturb said peace). An example of something that's not good enough to be viable and should probably get buffed is salt crystals. Saltboxes are good as-is, but the spoilage restoration and seasoning salt effects are way too weak to be worth the effort. I've only ever made use of them in very specific situations. Also, for discussing ideas, suggestions, and feedback, there's the Suggestions & Feedback sub-forum.

I had this issue recently as well. I ended up breaking the nearby fences to place the gates with the proper orientation.

It isn't exactly clear how his relationship with the spider works exactly, but it's not that he eats monster meat or stays with spiders against his will. We've seen that he can interact with others just fine (he doesn't even mention anything about wanting to eat them, like a spider would want to do). There's a lot of room for interpretation, so it's hard to say who's right and who's not, so I'll just mention my point of view on the matter: I think he's been with the spider for a long time, as of the events of DST. He's probably went through a lot with it. He might've had to (or wanted to, or was told by the spider to) try monster meat and found out it's not that bad. It's possible that he never even saw monster meat before being with the spider, hence why he doesn't understand why others hate it so much. It's not like he loves it, though: Monster Meat: "Smells foul." Dried Monster Meat: "It's really chewy." I think he's just never had a strongly negative opinion of monster meat, so he doesn't hate it now that he can stomach it well. And about hanging out with spiders, I think it's a bit of a similar thing, except he's clearly had experience with spiders before he was eaten by one (since, well, he was eaten by one). But my interpretation is that enough time has passed for him to get used to spiders as friends. We know that he can communicate with the spider, too, so it's possible that the spider let him know that spiders aren't going to kill him. Either way, I don't think eating monster meat or hanging out with spiders is something he's FORCED to do. And I don't think any of his own personality was lost, he just changed in some ways after his experiences with the spider - growing up, as kids usually do.

Well, yeah, he does accept the spider as part of him, but his original identity was never lost like you said here:

Except that's not the case. He almost always talks for both himself and the spider (saying We most of the time referring to both persons that compose him). You don't see him acting like an animal or anything, either. As far as character interactions go, his relationship to the others seems to be just a regular boy with the look of a monster (which others do use against him when he's being dangerous in the case of PvP examinations). It's implied that Wickerbottom gives him some form of education and he does say he wants to be friends with and play with Wendy. His examination line for twigs asks if anyone wants to play stick swords with them (since like I said, he's talking about both himself and the spider). If anything, he's more human than spider. He acts too much like a person to be considered a monster. He still very much has his human identity and many memories of his old life. I don't see how "almost all of human identity is lost to whatever the spider has made him now." That being said, I hope the rework involves him strengthening his bond with the spider, letting him make better use of his relationship (much like how Woodie started to understand and control his curse better to make better use of it). Also this exists: https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/forum/76-dont-starve-together-suggestions-and-feedback/

The way I personally see it, it's not that They fear Bernie or anything. I think they targetted Willow because life left her no one she can be close with. The only thing keeping her from feeling completely alone is Bernie, since she considers him a very close friend (even if he isn't real). With Bernie, she isn't vulnerable enough for the shadows to go after her. Or at least that's my interpretation of the short.

The cobblestone road doesn't always lead to Pig King. It only does when the world has 2 pig villages, I think. I'm not sure, but I've seen many, many worlds where it didn't lead to Pig King. You can actually just use the keyword "false" (no quotes) instead of "math.random() >2". It has the same effect and doesn't make the game generate a random number.

I haven't been able to download it either. It's a shame, I really want to listen to these especially considering how many times I've played some of these shorts on loop just for the music. I am really glad to know that they're adding them to the DS soundtrack, though. It's something I've wanted for a long time. Doesn't seem like it has the Hamlet soundtrack, though...

I like both the floppy straw hat and the cowboy straw hat. I'll make either one to wear during summer depending on which character I'm playing. Eyebrella is better, but it doesn't look as fresh. And while log suits are a commonly used item, I find myself picking them over football hats or battle helms mainly because of the look. I could wear both, but if I'm limited on inventory space for a short trip I'd probably just bring roman wood armor.

I don't know what looks about strange in the mini signs in that bug report, but here's an image of the same setup so you can see for yourself if it's been fixed:

Warly has a downside where he gets less hunger from food he eats repeatedly. Also, 2 meatballs would require 6 filler as opposed to 2 for a monster tartare. I don't think OP is trying to say monster tartare is better than anything, just that it's not bad, especially for Warly who values variation in the food he eats. It gives a decent amount of hunger and its penalties are easy enough to heal off.