Some Ideas for a Multplayer: When they would add my suggestion with the colony, maybe they could add a multiplayer, where you can build up your colony with up to 20 others. Each starts on a raft, each have to get to some islands for the map so that they can meet each other on the land.
Another Idea would be a Coop, so that you start with 1 friend on the raft and have to do the stoy/ campagne.
Another Multiplayer idea would be to have a creative server, where you have a specific area on the sea. max. 20 areas are on the sea in a circle. (in the server options, you can choose for how much areas you want on the sea, and you can check a box, so that the less areas you want, the bigger they are). This Server is only for building the best and most functional raft. You can come on the server as a visitor, and you will spawn in the middle of the circle, where the visitor raft is. The visitors can go from one area to another by choosing them in a menu, to walk on the rafts and look around. They can vote for the best looking and functional raft. after each week the most voted raft will be displayed, and everybody can import it in their creative mode to have it as their own, If you import it to your game, you can't change it and the builder is displayed on a sign.