Okay, I'm going to try to put what we know together with some logic and educated guessing to get the big picture about where the game is headed.
So far, we know of three ways to enhance your performance in-game: Skills, potions, and enchantments. Let's take each of them in turn.
SKILLS:
What we know:
There will be a short list of about six skills.
When the experience bar fills up, you gain three skill points to spend on skills. (Or enchantments, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)
When you die, you lose all your skill points and experience.
Notch has said that he wants it to take about two hours of focussed play to build your skill points back up should you die.
What we can deduce:
The skills will almost certainly be 'mundane' ones. No water breathing, for example.
As much as possible, the skills will probably map onto the potion effects - why reinvent the wheel? (Plus, we already know that sprinting makes use of the effects.) Speed, Haste, and Jump Boost all seem likely, not sure about any others. Like sprinting, they may carry baggage in the form of Hunger or the like as well.
What we can guess:
Given that potions and enchantments both have three basic tiers of effects, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that skills do too. I am encouraged in this by the fact you get 3 skill points when the experience bar is full - you can max out one thing per bar, or spread it around. (Though it could conceivably take more points to go up a tier, the way enchantments do.)
If it's one skill point per tier, then maxing out your character in two hours of play would mean filling the experience bar six times - which doesn't seem outrageous.
Pros:
They are presumably always-on.
Cons:
They irretrievably disappear when you die, unlike potions and enchantments, which are items that could be recoverable.
They are limited in the effects they can produce.
POTIONS:
What we know:
Quite a lot, actually. Potions give a wide range of effects, some fairly mundane, others exotic. They take rare materials and knowledge of how to combine them. For effects that have tiers, no potion goes above the third. Above all, they are temporary.
What we can deduce:
Not much left over to deduce.
What we can guess:
The biggest question is stacking, but I'll save that for last.
Pros:
High degree of control over the combination of effects you get.
Don't cost experience, unlike the other two.
Cons:
Are strictly temporary.
Take rare and dangerous-to-get materials.
Can sometimes inflict negative effects.
ENCHANTMENTS:
What we know:
Not much. We know they come in three tiers, that that they are random in nature. At the very least, we know they affect gold swords.
What we can deduce/guess:
It seems likely that one will be able to learn to 'read' spells and thus eventually overcome the randomness to some degree.
It also seems likely that gold items will be favored for enchanting - there is otherwise absolutely no point in making them. It is to be hoped that the act of enchantment will give them greater durability - or perhaps that's a first-tier enchantment.
Where possible, enchanted items will likely recycle the potion-effect code. However, there are bound to be many enchantments that don't duplicate existing effects.
For those enchantments that do duplicate potion effects, it seems likely that they will come in three tiers. ie, Speed I, Speed II, and Speed III enchantments.
In order for the randomness to be worthwhile, there should be at least five or six different enchantments per tier.
Further, since it seems unlikely that all items can receive the same enchantments (I can't readily imagine a sword that gives Resistance or Water Breathing, for example), there will need to be at least five or six enchantments per tier per type of enchantable item.
Since enchanted items cost experience, it seems likely that they are wholly beneficial - unlike potions, which can have negative effects.
Pros:
Longer-lasting than potions, and potentially recoverable upon death.
There are likely enchantments that do things no potion or skill can.
Cons:
At a minimum, it will take trial-and-error to figure out what you're getting - with an experience cost for each trial. Skills are at least reliable, if limited.
If my guess about gold items is correct, it will take significant effort to maintain and/or replace enchanted items. Unlike potions, it isn't dangerous to mine for gold, but it can certainly be tedious.
THE BIG PICTURE:
What we know:
Almost nothing.
What we can deduce/guess:
We know that potion effects can occur at levels well beyond three, yet no actual potion goes beyond that point. I deduce that overlapping skills, potions, and/or enchantments will be able to stack. Perhaps not linearly (Jump Boost gets crazy and dangerous fast), but stack in some fashion. For an ability plausible for all three - Speed, for example - it is thus at least possible that one could get all the way to level nine!
Since it is apparently relatively easy to max out skills, there probably won't be as much as a trade-off between them and enchantments as one might think. It will probably take time to get an enchanting table, and by then one's skills will seemingly be maxed? Hard decisions about priorities might arise in the event of death, though!
The pressure of inventory space will tend to limit potion use more than enchantments, since one needs to carry tools anyway. (And enchanted armor, if it exists, will be even more handy.) One will tend to kit out potion and enchantment sets for specific purposes - mining, mob-hunting, and the like.
Hardcore games will likely give increased value to skills relative to the other two, since their biggest weakness - loss upon death - will be obviated.
It is interesting to speculate about enchantments that might only be useful in SMP. It is likely that some enchantments will let you apply negative effects to others, yet some effects don't make sense to inflict on mobs.
It's true we haven't heard about them lately. But that doesn't prove much of anything; we hadn't heard about potions at all save for one little tease months ago, but it's clearly been in the works.
So far, we know of three ways to enhance your performance in-game: Skills, potions, and enchantments. Let's take each of them in turn.
SKILLS:
What we know:
There will be a short list of about six skills.
When the experience bar fills up, you gain three skill points to spend on skills. (Or enchantments, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)
When you die, you lose all your skill points and experience.
Notch has said that he wants it to take about two hours of focussed play to build your skill points back up should you die.
What we can deduce:
The skills will almost certainly be 'mundane' ones. No water breathing, for example.
As much as possible, the skills will probably map onto the potion effects - why reinvent the wheel? (Plus, we already know that sprinting makes use of the effects.) Speed, Haste, and Jump Boost all seem likely, not sure about any others. Like sprinting, they may carry baggage in the form of Hunger or the like as well.
What we can guess:
Given that potions and enchantments both have three basic tiers of effects, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that skills do too. I am encouraged in this by the fact you get 3 skill points when the experience bar is full - you can max out one thing per bar, or spread it around. (Though it could conceivably take more points to go up a tier, the way enchantments do.)
If it's one skill point per tier, then maxing out your character in two hours of play would mean filling the experience bar six times - which doesn't seem outrageous.
Pros:
They are presumably always-on.
Cons:
They irretrievably disappear when you die, unlike potions and enchantments, which are items that could be recoverable.
They are limited in the effects they can produce.
POTIONS:
What we know:
Quite a lot, actually. Potions give a wide range of effects, some fairly mundane, others exotic. They take rare materials and knowledge of how to combine them. For effects that have tiers, no potion goes above the third. Above all, they are temporary.
What we can deduce:
Not much left over to deduce.
What we can guess:
The biggest question is stacking, but I'll save that for last.
Pros:
High degree of control over the combination of effects you get.
Don't cost experience, unlike the other two.
Cons:
Are strictly temporary.
Take rare and dangerous-to-get materials.
Can sometimes inflict negative effects.
ENCHANTMENTS:
What we know:
Not much. We know they come in three tiers, that that they are random in nature. At the very least, we know they affect gold swords.
What we can deduce/guess:
It seems likely that one will be able to learn to 'read' spells and thus eventually overcome the randomness to some degree.
It also seems likely that gold items will be favored for enchanting - there is otherwise absolutely no point in making them. It is to be hoped that the act of enchantment will give them greater durability - or perhaps that's a first-tier enchantment.
Where possible, enchanted items will likely recycle the potion-effect code. However, there are bound to be many enchantments that don't duplicate existing effects.
For those enchantments that do duplicate potion effects, it seems likely that they will come in three tiers. ie, Speed I, Speed II, and Speed III enchantments.
In order for the randomness to be worthwhile, there should be at least five or six different enchantments per tier.
Further, since it seems unlikely that all items can receive the same enchantments (I can't readily imagine a sword that gives Resistance or Water Breathing, for example), there will need to be at least five or six enchantments per tier per type of enchantable item.
Since enchanted items cost experience, it seems likely that they are wholly beneficial - unlike potions, which can have negative effects.
Pros:
Longer-lasting than potions, and potentially recoverable upon death.
There are likely enchantments that do things no potion or skill can.
Cons:
At a minimum, it will take trial-and-error to figure out what you're getting - with an experience cost for each trial. Skills are at least reliable, if limited.
If my guess about gold items is correct, it will take significant effort to maintain and/or replace enchanted items. Unlike potions, it isn't dangerous to mine for gold, but it can certainly be tedious.
THE BIG PICTURE:
What we know:
Almost nothing.
What we can deduce/guess:
We know that potion effects can occur at levels well beyond three, yet no actual potion goes beyond that point. I deduce that overlapping skills, potions, and/or enchantments will be able to stack. Perhaps not linearly (Jump Boost gets crazy and dangerous fast), but stack in some fashion. For an ability plausible for all three - Speed, for example - it is thus at least possible that one could get all the way to level nine!
Since it is apparently relatively easy to max out skills, there probably won't be as much as a trade-off between them and enchantments as one might think. It will probably take time to get an enchanting table, and by then one's skills will seemingly be maxed? Hard decisions about priorities might arise in the event of death, though!
The pressure of inventory space will tend to limit potion use more than enchantments, since one needs to carry tools anyway. (And enchanted armor, if it exists, will be even more handy.) One will tend to kit out potion and enchantment sets for specific purposes - mining, mob-hunting, and the like.
Hardcore games will likely give increased value to skills relative to the other two, since their biggest weakness - loss upon death - will be obviated.
It is interesting to speculate about enchantments that might only be useful in SMP. It is likely that some enchantments will let you apply negative effects to others, yet some effects don't make sense to inflict on mobs.
Any other thoughts?
considering the game's current level of difficulty (or lack thereof).
Perhaps skills have been scrapped?
It's true we haven't heard about them lately. But that doesn't prove much of anything; we hadn't heard about potions at all save for one little tease months ago, but it's clearly been in the works.