LadyWYT

The little greenish blue particles are phytoplankton; you'll find them in areas that are sufficiently warm.

Like @williams_482 noted, those trees are further to the south on default starts. Redwood you shouldn't have to travel far for, as it's in the warm climate band and easy enough to find with a day or two of traveling south. You can also buy redwood seeds from agriculture merchants, if you'd like to skip the travel. Also found in the warm climate are bald cypress trees, which are found in swampy areas specifically.
Ebony is in the tropical zone, which will take several days of traveling south to reach. It tends to be found in drier areas, much like acacia, and the two look similar but ebony trees are much bigger. Purpleheart is only found in the jungles, same as kapok, but unlike kapok is quite rare. They don't drop very many seeds at all, so if you want to replant it make sure to shear all the leaves first. Kapok and acacia seeds can both be purchased from agriculture traders as well, but ebony and purpleheart you will need to physically find.
Larch trees you can find in colder climates; the best place to look for them is on top of mountains or climates of the far north.

Welcome to Vintage Story! To my knowledge, hares cannot be domesticated(currently), so they aren't affected by generation.
For a pet hare, you might try one of these mods, although bear in mind they are outdated so they may or may not function correctly. I would test them first before using them on a more permanent world.
Cuniculture: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/22231
Cuniculture - Rabbit/Hare Farming: https://mods.vintagestory.at/cuniculture
Pet Hare: https://mods.vintagestory.at/harepet

Yeah, can confirm that wild crops will mature, and keep cycling through growth stages after--I've seen mature crops revert to seedlings before my very eyes too(right before harvest, doh!). It is, however, a very slow process, if you're after seeds best to just pick all the crops in the patch instead of waiting on them to mature.
As others have noted, crops don't grow unless it's above 0 C; otherwise they are dormant. If the weather gets too cold, the crops will take cold damage and eventually die. I will note that only applies to cultivated crops--wild crops are unaffected.
For grass, the grass plant itself won't grow back in winter if harvested. New grass will spawn on fallow farmland though, and grass will grow on bare dirt blocks, so that's likely what's happening here. And as @Professor Dragon noted, the scythe has two different modes for cutting grass: the harvest mode will harvest the grass but leave the plant intact so it can grow back later, while the cut mode will destroy the base plant so the grass won't grow back.

I've never seen higher than Decent for Chromite. I would say dig a little deeper on the current shaft(like, close to the mantle deep), dig a few branches around just to make sure you didn't miss anything, and then look for another prospecting point if you still find no chromite vein in that shaft. Chances are that if you went through all the above and found nothing, then the ore didn't actually spawn.
Chromite is also one of those minerals that's rare enough, that I'd say it's worth checking the Poor/Very Poor readings too, if you've got no other Decent reading spots to search.

Absolutely.
 
1.21 has a stable release now, which should be fine for starting a new world without major issues. It should also be fine to update existing worlds to 1.21, but you might want to make a backup just in case. For updating a pre-existing world to 1.21, @Professor Dragon gave a great rundown on how to do so here: 
If you created a world in a pre-release or release candidate of 1.21, that world is most likely no longer viable, and you should start a new world on the stable 1.21 release. You could always try playing one of these worlds anyway, but keep in mind that it's likely there have been major changes/bug fixes since the unstable releases. Starting a new world on a stable release will ensure that everything has the best chance of generating and working properly.

There are mods to reduce spawns in general, or make monsters spawn only underground, but I'm not sure that there is one to limit monsters to story structures and ruins only. If fighting monsters is the issue, you might have better luck either using a mod to reduce spawns, or setting creatures to "neutral" so that they'll only attack you if you attack them first. 

Welcome to the forums! Are you using any mods? Sometimes mods can interfere with standard gameplay processes, either by causing code to function improperly or by making changes to the processes that you may not have been aware of(like adding extra steps to make it harder). If running mods, try disabling them and testing the vanilla game on a fresh world to make sure everything functions properly, and then add mods back one by one, testing as you go, to figure out which is causing the problem. You could also double-check mod descriptions to make sure they aren't making vanilla processes more complex.
I would also check your game version. If you are playing a release candidate, those are unstable and usually contain several bugs. If you aren't playing a stable version of the game, it's likely you've encountered one of those bugs, in which case you'll want to head to the bugtracker on github to report it: https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues

To my knowledge, story locations are generated at the world's creation. When a new story update drops, the new content is automatically added to old worlds, as long as lore content was enabled. I'm not sure that the game will prompt you to let it place missing story locations though for a world that was created with lore content disabled, hence why I figure you would have to place the locations manually.
Ruins and traders don't quite operate the same, to my knowledge, so I would expect those to just generate in unexplored chunks if you switch the lore content on.
In any case, you can always try it, and see what happens, but I would make a backup of your world first in case of unwanted results. The easiest way to tell if the story locations have generated automatically, aside from a prompt telling you it needs to remap certain areas of the world, is finding a treasure hunter trader and completing a short quest. The quest reward is a map to the first major location, and if the map doesn't give you a marker, then the story locations haven't spawned and you would need to either place them manually, or start a new world.
By starting a new world with lore content enabled though, you would need to go through the steps of progression again, but you could also rest assured that everything generated as it should, where it should.
EDIT: I tested this myself just now, creating a Homo Sapiens world, enabling lore content via /worldconfig loreContent true, reloading the world, and teleporting to a few of the story locations to make sure they spawned. The game doesn't prompt you to remap areas at all--it looks like it will just generate the structures automatically.
I would still make a backup of your world, just in case, but otherwise it looks like you should be able to enable lore content in your current world without issues! 😁

Welcome to the forums! As others here have already noted, there is a limit to how long temporal storms can last(4.8 game hours) and how strong they can be(light, medium, or heavy). Heavy is the strongest a storm can be, and generally means that more monsters will spawn in addition to having the most distorted visuals and audio. How long the storm lasts is random, but it's never going to last longer than 4.8 in-game hours, unless you either changed something via mods, or encountered a bug.
As for the interval between temporal storms...it also varies. By default, the interval is 10-20 days, which means that on default settings you can expect to encounter a temporal storm every 1-2 months in-game.
It depends...keep in mind that Vintage Story is very early in development; of a planned eight story chapters(the game being considered "finished" when all eight are fully implemented) there are currently only two implemented. Things could change. The developers take old worlds into consideration when they release updates(only the stable versions--never play a cherished world on an unstable testing candidate!), so as a general rule old worlds will remain playable in new versions of the game without issue. Sometimes the game needs to do some remapping, but it only takes a few minutes and you will be prompted to do so the first time you load that world in the new version. The game also adds story locations to old worlds, so you don't need to worry about missing story content as it releases.
All that being said...it's also possible that a future update could potentially require creation of a new world, for some reason. If you are playing with mods, creating a new world for a new version is almost a given, although not always. It depends a lot on what is added in the new version, and whether or not the mods update/still function if old.

Are you playing with Hydrate or Diedrate? This mod disables the drunk effect by default, but you can re-enable the effect in the mod's config.

I would try checking in colder regions, either high altitude plateaus or somewhere between the temperate zone and the arctic. The few times I've seen wild elk in the game, they've always been in one of those colder taiga regions.

It's a bug: https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues/6533

Welcome to the forums! I don't know if you can force client-side mods to download, but you could just package them all up into one folder, send that folder to the users, and have the users copy/paste everything in that folder into the proper location. They aren't having to go mod-hunting that way. 

I think your view distance needs to be 300 or better for Dave to appear. Also keep in mind that he does move around, so he won't always be in the same place, and if there's mountains, forest, or other terrain nearby it may be very difficult to spot him even with an appropriate view distance.

Oh, that's no bug. That's a will o' the wisp, from Primitive Survival. To my knowledge they don't do anything except look pretty/mysterious; you can't catch them for display and they will despawn after a while. They're just a neat bit of ambience.

Welcome to the forums! Do you have a screenshot to share? Otherwise, my guess is that your house isn't lit up enough to stop rifts from spawning inside. A few lanterns should fix it, though make sure you light up the area around your house as well. Rifts that spawn right outside your house can still sometimes spawn a monster or two inside.
Depending on how far you've progressed in the game, there is also a device called the rift ward. It's a late game tech item that will stop rifts from spawning in the nearby area, provided that it is kept powered with temporal gears.

Terra preta is terra preta--there's no functional difference there. The advantage to using high fertility soil to craft it though, if I'm not mistaken, is that you get two pieces of terra preta for each set of ingredients you input, instead of just one, making it a more efficient crafting choice if you have it available.

Welcome to the forums(and the game)! The biggest piece of advice I have to offer is that the handbook is going to be your best friend, and the best place to start is reading through the Guides section in order to get a general idea of what you need to pursue in order to progress. A good time to read through the handbook is while waiting for the night to pass--just make sure that you hit the Unpause option in the handbook so that time will actually pass while reading.
Vintage Story is a very meaty game, with most gameplay loops overlapping with one another in some way. The learning curve, as a result is very steep, and the game isn't very forgiving of mistakes, so it's best to take things slow and cautious, even if you have prior experience in similar games. There are three basic difficulties: Standard, Exploration, and Wilderness Survival. Standard offers a good balance of everything the game has to offer, but if it feels a bit too harsh you might play Exploration until you have a better grasp of how the game works. I don't recommend Wilderness Survival for new players given that mode has increased difficulty and is incredibly unforgiving of mistakes, but that being said, some players enjoy that kind of challenge right out of the gate. There is also Homo Sapiens mode, however, this mode removes all lore from the game and reduces the experience to pure survival, which I will note removes a lot of content from the game.
There are also several individual settings that tweak various aspects of the game world and difficulty, so you can also customize the world and experience to your liking. Most of those settings can be changed at any time after the world's creation, though you will need to familiarize yourself with console commands to do so and may need to reload the world for the changes to take effect. There is also a plethora of mods that can further customize your experience, however, I recommend picking one of the premade gamemodes and learning the game basics first, so that you have a better idea of how things work and what you would like to change.
It's a good idea to stop every once in a while and take a good look at your surroundings. Doing so allows you to spot potential threats, or resources that you may have otherwise overlooked.
Regarding the main story content, be on the lookout for a treasure hunter. They offer a special quest to start you on the game's story.
Last but not least, if you have questions or need additional help figuring out something, don't be afraid to ask about it on the forums. There's a variety of players here who've all been through the same trials at one time or another, who are happy to help newcomers learn the ropes. 😁

Just to rule out this possibility--I know it's not due to some tracks being seasonal, as the issue isn't limited to seasonal tracks. 
The only solution that's crossed my mind is backing up files and doing a fresh install of VS, but that's typically the last resort method to fix a thing. 

Welcome to the forums!
They function the same. You just need to make sure the slab is flush to the inside of the greenhouse, and not the outside, in order for it to function.
 
There's no functional advantage to it; at that point, it's a purely aesthetic choice.

Hmmm...good question. My best rough guess is around 15-20 blocks, maybe 30 but I think that's pushing it. Shivers and bowtorn are a little easier to notice, as they make harsher noises than drifters do.
In any case, I don't think you'll need to dig very far in order to find whatever cave they're lurking in.

Welcome to the forums! Looks like a bug, or at the very least a typo. I would submit a bug report on it, if the issue hasn't already been reported.

Lamellar in a nutshell. The other metal armors will cost you two ingots per unit of metal armor pieces, whereas only one ingot is required to make one unit of lamellar. You also don't need leather to make lamellar armor--you just need a few pelts.
Chain offers great protection while allowing you to retain more accuracy and healing ability. If you plan on focusing on ranged combat, chain is probably going to be the best armor choice in most cases.
Scale is similar to chain--it offers a bit more protection than chain, but less accuracy and healing as well.
Brigandine has the worst stats of the late game metal armors, however, the main advantage to brigandine is that it's a lot cheaper to make. If resources are a bit thin, brigandine is a good choice. Personally, brigandine is what I make as soon as I acquire iron since it's cheap but protective, and I upgrade to something better later once I have steel.
 
Gambeson is the best armor for surface exploration and general daily use. It's lightweight, so it won't slow you down or penalize your healing and accuracy much at all. It's also decently tough and protective, being tier 2 armor, so you'll be safe from most threats you encounter, and it'll buy you enough time to escape should you encounter something really nasty.
I'd really only recommend leather armor or other similar non-metal armor if you really need the protection but don't yet have access to anything better. It's better than nothing, but it's not going to hold up in a fight; it'll just buy you enough time to hopefully escape.

Welcome to the forums!
It depends on how much content is slated to be added, what kind of content it is, and how much trouble there is in implementing it. I would say that generally it's only a few weeks from a pre-release to a stable release, but the mileage varies depending on many issues the devs have to sort out.
The current pre-release for 1.21 is still unstable, as far as I'm aware. It is playable, but updating old worlds or creating new permanent worlds isn't recommended, as it's very likely you will encounter major bugs and that some major changes may occur that may not translate well to a newer version.
I would say no, what you see teased in the 1.21 pre-release news is the content that is slated for that update. Aside from bug fixes and particularly troublesome content being potentially pushed back to a later update, there shouldn't be any changes to what's planned for the release.