Things I would include in Minecraft 1.4
 

Coming up to the 1.3 release, it made me think about some items i would include in the following update.

Verticle slabs - Used for crafting thinner walls and better defined statues

Half wool slabs and wool stairs - The colors of wool are great but we are still limited to using full blocks.

A soccer ball - Imagine the fun of running around, having a kick with your Minecraft friends.

Spear - a melee weapon which can also be thrown. My 6 year old suggested this one.

Catapult pistons - to throw a block into the air or push it along the ground, and have 4 different settings for the distance.

Switching rail - to easily change between tracks. Really can't believe this isn't a current feature.

Large signs - which can be read from further away, rather than standing a few feet away from them.

Horses - for transport, better scenarios, tinned meat :)

I'm sure there are mods which cover many of these, but would love to see them included ' out of the box'

What would you like to see added ?

MC re-written in a real language :D

People have been asking for this for a while, especially since Better Than Wolves was released. Unfortunately, Jens and Markus both said no, due to the logistics of adding it.

Certainly doable. It would add to Creative mode, but it would become less of a blocky game. then people would ask for diagonals, so I doubt this will happen.
Anything that bounces whilst maintaining a horizontal trajectory would be good.
Doable. It would be like the arrows, with the drawback time being how far back you take your arm.
Jens has already said no to this. It is not the style of piston they wanted, even though the piston mod they based the vanilla pistons on did this.
The game has this. Where tracks intersect, you just run a redstone switch.
I want signs to merge if placed next to each other. This allows ascii artwork to be designed, like world maps, menuboards.
Yes, this might yet be added. Jens has suggested that it might be on the long term plans. Unfortunately, there are higher priorities and he would have to work out how to limit its capabilities.

Sorontar

you will find this arguement is actually loosing ground. the reason BTW was able to do it cause they used Curse mod to enable additional block ID's (known as hooks)

now Minecraft has altered it's world and coding to include more than the original 200 "hooks" as such they have no real reason why they cannot do it, apart from pride and addmitting that the BTW mod had awesome idea's.

personally I would like to see some of the Build Craft and Industrial craft mods included, pumps and pipes rock, as does BTW's outlet.

i think like gliders or some form of shabby aeroplane, would be cool. Would take a lot of work and materials to get. I think they would fly only for short times before requiring say fuel or cool down. Would be nice for traveling etc.. could put storage in them too. Park them and dump extra items in thier storage.. fly home.

XD

A hot air balloon which burns coal would be very handy.

Skeletons would have fun trying to shoot you down.

what happens when you run out of coal though??

Float to the ground gently with boat steering like controls to allow navigating to a safe landing place ..

or just go splat .. either way it'll be fun. :D

In 1.4 I would like to see:
Terrain
One new stone type such a marble (white with light grey veins) which appears more rarely than normal stone, just so that digging underground isn't so boring and people don't have to use wool when making Greek-style buildings. It would also be interesting if a gem such as emeralds appeared more frequently in the new stone type.
Villages
I'd like to see villages refined to be less derpy and more useful (ie make it less likely for them to appear over huge holes or water, or in ways that bury/strand half the houses and make the villagers less likely to vanish randomly just when your village is getting interesting). I would like it to be a valid form of gameplay to adopt a village and pimp it out, and to get some benefit from doing that.
Randomness
I like randomness in games - the chests in the tunnels and the new buildings are fun to expore, but I'd like there to be a risk/reward balance for opening these chests. A chance of spawning enemies around you when you open them would be entertaining. Would also be a suprise for people cheating to find goodies (would also be awesom if you could set up a trap chest full of mobs to get people who stick their noses where they shouldn't - would also make a fun game show lol)

I haven't really thought all that much about the future of vanilla Minecraft, as I've been writing ideas for a new 'flavour' of Minecraft in my head (it's a wee bit too complicated for a mod I think). It's sci-fi, but the main focus isn't on the theme, but rather providing a challenging multiplayer environment, where you can't just go outside and run around during they day, and equipment upgrades and co-operation between players make a huge difference. The biggest difference is that it is set on a planet with a non-breathable atmosphere, so all the delightful machinery you can make in varous mods suddenly has a purpose (beyond just making delightful machinery). You NEED power for your air scrubbers, you need to recharge your suits, you need to develop upgrades for your suits etc. I'm having fun coming up with new ideas and mobs and hope I have it in a form to share with people someday soon :D

On Sanctuary in my "sandcastle" I used endstone as marble. Not ideal, but it did the job. As to the emerald, it will be mineable in MC 1.3, but it will also be accessible by trading with villagers.

There will be new sandstone villages in MC 1.3, but they look like they will be the same design as the current villages. While there is no score for "improving" villages, I have seen mods that boost some constructions/locations based on how much gold/diamond is placed in the area. Also, the larger the village, the more villagers and golems there will be. The more villagers, the more trading you can do.

The problem is always how to measure the reward. While some resources and items are rare, not all players actually want them, e.g. saddles.

It sounds like you are designing an Adventure mod. That might fit in well with some of the Space adventures already designed.

Sorontar