With Return of Them finished, the question is what should be in the next update season when it eventually rolls around? In my opinion, the next DST update season should be for porting most of the Shipwrecked and Hamlet content to DST.
Why?
1. Having to pick between playing DS and DST for content reasons is less than ideal, the real reasons to play DS over DST should be if you don’t want lag or prefer adventure mode and character unlocking as opposed to endless survival and weaving. Also, DS isn't updated anymore so to leave all that awesome content behind with it is a shame.
2. You added seafaring to the game last update season but at the moment the only big thing its used for is the lunar island, it has so much more potential than for just that.
3. The Tropical Experience mod proved that its possible to fit all of it in one world quite comfortably, but it lacks the Klei level of polish along with having some other issues, for example: they added the op shipwrecked boat system instead of adapting shipwrecked to the dst boat system, and it doesn’t have the unsailable clouds around the hamlet islands making it possible to sail to places that you shouldn’t (for example pugalisk island and bfb island)
4. RoG was released in 2014, and was ported to DST in 2015. Shipwrecked was released in 2015/2016, and Hamlet in 2018/2019 (the slashes are depending whether you consider the early access version or the full release), and now it is 2021, so if we use the RoG port as an example they've spent enough time as DS exclusives.
5. Such a large amount of content being added in what would be the most ambitious update season yet and will generate a ton of hype and attention for the game. And hype means revenue, especially with 6 more characters to sell skins for (it would also be smart to make fan-favorite wilbur into a “own-the-dlc-or-weave” character like wormwood but with shipwrecked instead of hamlet). In addition, all this new content would come at less of a time investment than it would to make completely original content, specifically in the asset department.
That was why you should, and if you're convinced you can stop reading here. But I’ll also include some ideas as to how to resolve apparent design conflicts below, just to prove that elegant solutions are not hard to come up with:
1. No more shipwrecked boats, everything should be adapted to DST’s boat system, all the different types of boats should instead just be different materials for DST boats that change the boat’s properties like momentum, HP, and maybe size. Any boat upgrades like sails and cannons should be placeable structures on DST boats. (sails are already placeable in dst so you just gotta add the remaining sail types from shipwrecked as placeables) (for cannons you should need to load a cannonball before firing to prevent opness (use gunpowder and iron to craft a cannonball)) The one boat that would break a few conventions of DST boats would be Wailani’s surfboard. It still would need to be controlled like a DST boat: it would still have momentum and need to be paddled (albeit with your hands since its a surfboard you don’t need an oar), but it only has space for one and can’t be built on. In addition it can’t spring leaks, it just takes durability damage instead, because its a surfboard of course. Finally it can be picked up unlike other boats. Woodlegs would no longer have his own unique boat to craft but instead have access to the seafaring tab right off the bat without a think tank (kind of like Wickerbottom and science recipes) and have a few sea-related unique crafts. (He'd still have his hat and his special sanity loss conditions though)
2. Waves just push objects and boats in the direction that they are moving, suspicious bubble whale hunts should give you more time to do them, given the slower and harder to control DST boats.
3. When adding the hamlet islands, only make what would be the spawn island in singleplayer DS surrounded by sailable water, make the rest surrounded by impassible clouds so you have to use the proper routes to travel between them.
4. BFB should only be summonable with the bird whistle, and only follow and pick up the player who blew it. If you think the feet would be an issue (like how you didn't add bigfoot), you can have it not land but instead scoop you up while hovering (aka add wing sounds and visuals like its still flying)
5. When on the shipwrecked islands, its seasons should apply, but they should be the same length as the main ones and thus occur at the same time as their corresponding season (not only for balance but to simplify programming, as internally you wouldn't need to add extra seasons just change the effects of the season based on location): autumn > mild, winter > hurricane, spring > monsoon, summer > dry. The same should occur on the hamlet islands: autumn > temperate, winter > (create new season to occur on hamlet islands during winter), spring > humid, summer > lush. Weather effects only occur on/ in the vicinity of (if sailing) their respective landmasses. Hay fever is a semi-exception, you can only catch it on the hamlet islands but even if you leave it still takes 2 days after you leave for it to wear off.
6. Volcano only erupts in local area, aporkalypse can be temporarily avoided by leaving or not traveling to the hamlet islands, but you still need to stop it if you want anything from the hamlet islands as it will continue until someone comes to the hamlet islands to stop it (aka how it works in hamlet)
7. Swinesbury should spawn more than one slanty shanty (the amount is up to you) but to build additional shanties you still need the key to the city.
Thank you for reading and I hope you consider letting us experience the awesome content in these expansions with our friends!