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[Vino]

That being said, your enemies need a lot of improvement in their design.

Half the fun of the enemies is that they're sneaky, so you have to be paranoid and constantly look over your shoulder.

Yeah I don't mind that so much, I was really talking about mainly the fighting mechanics. Having the creeper be silent until just before attack is an interesting mechanic and it wouldn't really work if the creeper was louder, he'd be too easy to avoid. But once it starts feeling cheap and unfair it hurts gameplay, it needs to be something the player can eventually stop having to worry about and either focus on building or bigger enemies or something else. Otherwise there's no sense of progression.

Also I do hope "Dear Notch" catches on.

[Notch]

I agree that the skeletons need a tell when they're about to attack, but not that creepers need to make noise.
It's possible to kill skeletons without taking any damage and without taking any risks by placing blocks and attacking them from around a corner, but I still want to give them a tell because they can be ANNOYING.
Creepers are overpowered, but still fun, so I won't change them. :D

[Curseman]

But once it starts feeling cheap and unfair it hurts gameplay, it needs to be something the player can eventually stop having to worry about and either focus on building or bigger enemies or something else. Otherwise there's no sense of progression.

Also I do hope "Dear Notch" catches on.

Creepers should always be dangerous to the unaware player no matter how far they've "progressed."  This isn't an mmo.  You don't become invincible to half the game's monsters because you've been playing for a while.

You should already be able to survive a creeper explosion if you're wearing armor.  There's your progression.

Personally, I think the sound of the skeleton's bow is enough of a tell.  Maybe I won't mind weakening them as much once stronger monsters get added in.

[Notch]

My issue with the skeletons is when spelunking.. I can hear them somewhere nearby, and I get really tense. Then a skeletons pops out, there's an instant "TWANG!", and I shriek and fall down a cliff into a large pitch black cave.

It was memorable the first couple of times, but it's starting to get annoying, honestly.
Giving them a short aiming bow+attacking animation would make it easier to dodge (especially if I make them lead their shots), and would feel more fair.
Then, to make the game harder again, I add skeletons riding spiders. While on fire.

[Titch]

Dear Notch

Please add some kind of tuning fork like item that you can tap walls with to find out how thick they are to make it easier to find adjacent caverns. Also please continue being awesome.

And Creepers are fine they way they are. Wear armour, carry some healing items off hand and build a 2 tile wall all the way around your residential area to they can't get in (Actually, you can build 1 and 1/2 high as long as there is a big enough gap in front of the wall).

Now I'm going to resuming building my GIANT BASEMENT LIBRARY!

[Guard]

Dear Notch,

Add achievements/badges, yes?

[Notch]

Heck yes.

[Guard]

Are you saying yes to me or Titch? 

[Nugsy]

I think everyone should just let Notch do what he wants to do. Having loads of people rave on at you about your game isn't perfect and it needs x so you go away and add x and then have another load of people start ranting that x is stupid and needs changing/fixing (half of them being the ones who wanted x in the first place) can't be very pleasant or satisfying.

This isn't anything against you guys, it's everyone. The comments on his blog, the forums, everywhere you go there are people bitching about something. I've been playing Minecraft for just over a year now and i'm really happy with the way it's progressing. I think people forget that Notch is only one man, and therefore can only do so much.

Rant over. As you were haha.

[Notch]

Are you saying yes to me or Titch? 

To you!

The tuning fork is less obvious.. How would it work specifically? It could just measure wall depth in a straight line from the face you clicked, I guess, and that would be trivial to implement.

[Guard]

Let's say you are standing like this:

A [][]
B [][][][][][][][][][][][]
C [][][][][][]


At position A, there are 2 blocks in front of you.
At position B, there are 12 blocks in front of you.
At position C, there are 6 blocks in front of you.

When you use the tuning fork, from position A, it would be a light green dot (to indicate range)? From position B, the dot would be a dark red to indicate far away. And from position C it would be an orange shade to indicate a medium range.

I think that is what he is saying... (is that logical to you, notch?)

[Notch]

Makes sense.

In fact, I can imagine some prospecting tools working similar to that, as long as it's clear to the player that they only check a single straight line into the rock.

[Guard]

OK. good.
One more thing: Minecraft should have a free-cam toggle so people can make machinima (otherwise called.. videos!). :D

Eh?

[Landshark RAWR]

Dear Notch

Please add skeletons riding spiders while on fire.

<3

[Titch]

Dear Notch,

Add achievements/badges, yes?

I've been wondering if you could achive that serverside in some ghetto way. It would be pretty cool.

As for the prospecting thing. Yeah, I was just thinking of a tool that made a different sound or showed a different result (like the width of vibration) base on the number of blocks it has to travel in from the opposite face of the block to reach a hollow area. More awesome if it could make a diffent noise for coal/iron/redstone deposits. So a few blocks would cause a high pitched noise, many would be low pitch. If it can't find anything or hits bedrock/obsidian or just reaches it's max distance you get a dull thunk.

[Vino]

Dear Notch,

Thanks for listening!

The prospecting idea is kind of interesting. Reminds me of a divination wand. If I may add my own little suggestion to it:

1. [][][][][]_[][]
2. [][]_[][][][][]
3. [][]_____[][]

The signal from 3 would have to be larger than the signal from 2 and both would have to be larger than the signal from 1.

Also, flaming skeleton spider riders, gogogo

[Notch]

I'm not so sure about this Dear Notch thing, haha. I'm trying hard to integrate myself into the tig community (so I can destroy it from within!! MUOAHAHA), and that's not helping.

[Massena]

On a slightly off-topic note, I don't think a game such as Minecraft can ever be challenging or difficult. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but in a setting in which the player is given so much freedom it's almost impossible to make an AI that can challenge human ingenuity.

My point being that, because of the limitless nature of minecraft, an experienced player will always be able to overcome whatever difficulties you throw in his way. The only way to change this would be to add unfair mobs, and I guess it's better to have an easy game than an unfair game.

For example, I'd say Dwarf Fortress falls on the "easy" side of the scale, with experienced players having no problem at all overpowering all sieges and attacks and enduring the harshest of winters, while Love seems to be on the "unfair" side of it, with player settlements getting bombraped before they can do anything about it (Here's a forum thread titled "AI makes game unplayable").

Keep up the good work, Notch.

[Hangedman]

Tuning Fork is an interesting concept, but I don't know if it's practical, because sometimes there's just tons of junk in the way that would render it kind of impractical. And please don't make it detect stuff, because then the game would just become pinging walls until you found something and then digging in straight lines forever.

I think achievements, if there are any, should be entirely clientside, and have absolutely no effect on the game. That way, they're just intangible milestones and nothing more, which is really what achievements ought to be. Also, make them HYUUUUUUUUUJJJJJ. 2 million digs!

I would love to see a compass or lodestone or some such thing just to make wandering a bit easier, as losing your sense of direction is remarkably easy with the long but still limited draw distance. There's just a lot of green stuff out there.

Bookcases should hint at random crafting recipes when tapped: that way they have a purpose and you can sneak in new recipes that way and help new players learn in-game. 

Okay, enough of what I want.
Keep up the good work, dear Notch 

[Notch]

On a slightly off-topic note, I don't think a game such as Minecraft can ever be challenging or difficult. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but in a setting in which the player is given so much freedom it's almost impossible to make an AI that can challenge human ingenuity.

I am intentionally designing enemies in a pretty retro way where enemies behave somewhat predictably, and if they beat the player it is because they cheat, not because they're clever. Beating a cyberdemon in Doom wasn't difficult because of the AI, it was difficult because it has a flipping rocket launcher instead of a right arm!

I think achievements, if there are any, should be entirely clientside, and have absolutely no effect on the game. That way, they're just intangible milestones and nothing more, which is really what achievements ought to be. Also, make them HYUUUUUUUUUJJJJJ. 2 million digs!

Yes! With achievements that affect the game, it'd be way too easy to just hack your way into getting it, and I don't think having unlockable content like that fits the rest of the feel of minecraft. For achievements, I want both the OCD crazy ones (Dig the Gobi: Dig 1295000000000 blocks of sand) and achievements that encourage players to try different areas of the game (Episode 3: make a pig fly over frozen lava)