Maelstrom

It would make those low copper starts a little easier.

Hrmmm... Not sure more realism is needed on this one, UNLESS chopping down all trees results in a uniform time to chop (which should be shorter since you're chopping logs instead of the tree).

No blood no foul. I may have injected inflection that was not your intention (sorry for the alliteration).

Consider that there's 1.5 coders making all this happen. There's not exactly a modest team of developers like mc has.

Check the roadmap. Much of what you mentioned is in there. https://www.vintagestory.at/roadmap.html/

Got my spawn info from the wiki. I don't know how far raccoons will travel to raid beehives. Worst case scenario would be whatever your render distance is.

Raccoons spawn near naturally spawned logs, not grass like da li'l bunnies. I assume the only logs in your build was placed by you?

Alternately you could dig a one block trench next to the fences. I suspect there's a different reason for them getting at your bees. Is there a way for them to get on top of the wall in your screenshot?

Crafting instructions should be in the hand book to show how to configure the fire clay.

It's probably more of a player frustration mechanic to motivate advancing to an actual door that doesn't break. Personally, I used the gate equivalent until I had a saw to make proper doors. Looks like I'll continue that practice after I've upgraded to 1.15.x (looks like x.3 is the final release).

It's not a case of checking success against a static percentage each time a leaf block is harvested. The percentage chance of success steadily increases until success is guaranteed. For example, the first block harvested is 0% the second block harvested could be 4%, then 8%, 12%, 16%, 20%, etc. A random check against that increasing percentage for each harvested block will mean that eventually a seed will drop. The only random part is when will it drop, no longer if. As with everything, it depends on the parameters set by the devs, but it could make it easier for them to tweak seed generation and even provide a default initial success to 100% to guarantee a seed drop regardless of the scarcity of leaves on a tree (but that could be exploited too.)

Another option is have an increasing percentage chance per leaf block broken. When a seed drops the percentage resets to zero. Once the percentage equals or exceeds 100, a seed is guaranteed to drop. The percentage increase can then be set uniquely for each tree making some harder to obtain than others. The first leaf could be set to 100% to guarantee at least one seed drops. For instance: a pine tree having 100 leaf blocks has a seed bearing percent of 4%. After the first seed drops, the counter is reset to 0 yielding no seed. Next leaf block goes to 4% then 8% and so on until either a seed drops or leaves are not harvested anymore. In our fictitious pine tree it may yield as much as 8 or 10 but at least 4 or 5 if the original drop percentage is 100.

Sounds like a restart, but at the risk of opening old wounds... What does worse from there look like?

Glad I didn't give up on this start. I serendipitously built my initial highlands home literally on top of a vein of rich hemetite! Managed to find enough tin to create a bronze pick and anvil (plus a little left over). Mined over two stacks of iron chunks to smelt before relocating to a more preferable location. Still interested in hearing the horrors of bad starts (and if/how circumstances changed).

I don't think that's necessary at this point in development. Take a look at the roadmap to see what is currently planned for implementation. Remember that there's 1 full time coder and 1 part time coder to do all the work.

THIS is how seed drops for hard to propagate trees should go.

All of these also needs to be considered carefully as it may present an unfun factor to most players. Maybe these pests become a more prominent problem after copper or bronze age since there's enough existing chores to accomplish in the stone and early copper ages. It should definitely be optional.

Additionally, helve hammers can create the numerous copper, bronze, silver and gold plates for lanterns.

Maybe add poisonous spiders as well? I routinely have to eradicate black widows from my living area.

Agreed. ALL trees should drop AT LEAST 1 seed so that the tree can be replaced without reproduction/propagation. But that goes against nature. ALL living things seek to increase their population, some are just really picky about what it takes to thrive. To mimic that real world experience the devs could keep the seed drop rate to slightly over 1 per tree for the ones that they don't want to see massive forests. Creating a declining population of trees only discourages players from trying to utilize the bright shiny new block just introduced. Seems counter-productive to me and potentially chase off players.

Could have spent that time doing some other quick and easy feature that would be more appreciated (like an initial quick, easy tool repair mechanic?)

Something I forgot to mention. IRL wind that has a significant impact on someone is very rare - hurricane, tornado or even wind storms are not very common events. Still don't understand why it was so important to implement this feature at this time.

I'm flummoxed why wind should be an effect that affects player at all. Yeah, IRL wind can push someone around; but there's lots of things in life that just should not be added to a game.

With my limited knowledge of programming, every seed would have be checked regularly to see if it changes state or not. This would likely expand to all the trees visited to see if they would drop a seed. Confining your idea to only player planted trees would keep the game from getting bogged down in processing all of the individual trees and seeds. Of course, the devs (or mod makers) could show how ignorant I am (which would be appreciated).

Sounds like escaping spawn on 2b2t. I'll admit that would have been a restart for me (until I get more experience playing the game).