I've finally finished updating my mods and started playing Minecraft again. Most of the mods I use have been updated, and the ones that haven't can be substituted with others in the meantime. What's more, this is the official release of Minecraft. The game is finished and has a degree of polish above what the beta was, and a few niceities have been added. However... some parts of the game still bother me.
What's wrong:
The hunger system is completely broken for anyone starting a new world. There's hardly anything in the world that looks like food. Even though the world you start in is filled with lush grass and green trees all around, there's no plants anywhere in the whole game that can be used right off. Wheat is the exception; it's the only renewable food source in the whole game, and by the time you have any your hunger bar will probably be empty.
There are passive mobs wandering about, filled to the brim with juicy meat, but killing them has its own downside: They never respawn. Not to mention that killing a whole cow can gain you a total of 0 food... Mojang tried to alleviate this problem with the breeding system, but the whole process is tedious and boring.
Combat is lame. Let me repeat this: Combat is lame. There were some interesting additions with the bows and sprint-hits in 1.8, yet there is nothing worthwhile to fight. Skeletons are the only real threat due to walking around and fighting from a range often beyond yours. Part of the problem is the lack of variety in the mobs, and part of it is the AI of existing mobs. They're not interesting, and never were.
What could be better:
Enchantments sucking up levels to enchant items is one of the oddest things I've ever seen in a game. It feels like a quick-fix to give leveling a purpose, and then once you do gain those levels they're placed into the items. Some of the enchantments are ridiculously overpowered for the monsters in the game, and the whole process is random.
The nether is boring. Glowstone is alright, I guess, and netherrack makes for a good fireplace fuel, but having an entire dimension dedicated to this feels like a waste. The overworld has biomes, each with interesting and unique parts to it; why is the nether so neglected?
Potions have a nice system once you actually find a blaze rod for a potion stand. It also assumes that you know what you're doing. Then again, the crafting table assumes you know what you're doing.
The fix:
I am considering replacing the hunger bar with a stamina bar. I am also fond of RPGs, so I may implement a mana bar and let all of these bars grow as you level up or find items. The fix for the hunger system will be the cooking system, which will be used both for cookin' up some grub and for creating potion ingredients.
Passive mob spawning needs a rework. I'll probably take a look at hostile mob spawning so they don't spawn on unnatural blocks at the same time. Mob drops need examined as well.
The Range module will attempt to fix one part of combat: lack of combat tools. I may just throw in some magic and Mabinogi-style alchemy as well. I'm not sure what to do yet about the lack of combat challenges yet, but I'll think of something.
A list of potions that you have created in the past, along with their ingredients, is what I have planned for potions. It's not going to be soon, but it will happen. Anyone who's interested has my permission to implement this.
The future:
As the creation of InfiTools draws to a close I've begun looking to expand the mod into something... more. Blocks was an attempt to do this. While unfinished, I consider it a success at heart, if not in implementation yet. The pieces I have planned are: Animated, Armor, Range, Cooking, Traps, and Glassworking. I'm also toying with the idea of a nether-replacement dimension, and there's always the metal alloy system I designed but haven't decided whether to do yet.
