Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to having boats, but what I really want are more government/kinship options.
What I am looking forward to / Hoping for:
Inter-village agreements (of varying levels) and governments allowing people from one village to use resources from another village (crossroads would be a big one).
Satellite outposts. An object that has the same effect as a village banner or a statue, but does not need to be placed within the village's influence. (This should probably be destructible and expensive to prevent abuse. Perhaps it could even decrease village max influence.)
Levels of kinship that allow some kin to access claims, but not all.
Allow players to see which kin are dead, and allow decedents to inherit kin lists.
Multiple claims, and non-linear claim size costs.
Again, I look forward to boats, this isn't meant to start a pissing match, but I think this kind of update would improve my experience more than boats would (I guess that in fairness I should say that I don't have problems with swimming).