Board Thread:General Mod Discussion/@comment-33763020-20181106145423

Does anyone know where I can find pre-made adventure "maps" or quests of a role-playing nature, made for the MC LotR mod by the community? Alternatively, how can I create these for others and share them, like the large number of maps on minecraftmaps.com? (survival, puzzle, parcour, adventure, etc.) Currently we all play survival mode and the help page on playing style just boils down to launching from scratch and surviving, so there's no given storyline, you make it up as you go along.

I have been trying to rekindle my interest in the mod through making up story-lines, but realized that making up a story for myself is not exactly motivating, as there are no "surprises", because as soon as I come up with a concept, I know the outcome. I would much rather play a storyline that someone else made up, as a challenge. This way I don't know the outcome and this keeps me excited for whatever is there to come. For example, if somebody hasn't read (or seen) The Hobbit yet, not knowing the storyline of Bilbo's travels from the point of Gandalf visiting you till the conclusion at Erebor, would make for amazing gameplay. There can be endless stories like this, MindofMike's latest Torment series on YT comes to my mind, though again, we either see the full story developing or we do not know what the instructions are for the next step, so it is passive viewing instead of interactive freedom to play our own RPG game.

For this reason, I would like to share storylines with others and find storylines by others as well. I have not found any source for existing stories in the wiki, so I am asking here if anybody knows of a compendium or alternatively whether one can be created.

Being able to judge quality is of essence of course, because while one person may enjoy a simple task of gaining strong alignment with a faction and slaying some Orc Chieftain or the classic tasks of gathering this, building that, travelling there, blabla, the other may have need for a complex story with treasure hunts at wild places, intricate events of people and in general a good storyline that is equally challenging, as well as gratifying. In case there is no such thing yet and there is appetite for it, I'll submit in the Suggestions forum to have a map-sharing page created.

As for the technical aspects, I'd love to share my storyline, but it contains events and hidden items I would need to place/populate. I have zero knowledge on modding so would like to hear your thoughts on how to do this, since I am already facing some issues, such as these (see technical forum section as well):

1. My storylines involve quests with vast travels, objects and messages placed/hidden across Middle-earth. If I create these and place them in survival mode (or creative, for that matter), I would still have had to visit these places to place the objects, build the structure, etc., hence my character will have built up some alignment during self-defense or to allow for use of crafting-tables, trading, smithies, changed blocks, etc. How can I create a "Save" without player alignment? In Creative mode perhaps? Or via cheat mode? Can I then save the game in a way that it is opened again in survival mode? Can I also create a save without chunks already loaded in (and therefore creating a save file size that can still easily be downloaded to play with), but still by having objects placed?

2. How does sharing of maps work? I currently make backups easily via copies of the "Save" files, which contain all data of progress in a given mod. As I progress in ME however, the files get larger and larger through the region files where chunks are saved and at some point we talk about Gigabytes size files, not that easy to download for some. Simply post Google Drive links?

3. Is there a way to "unlock" certain steps in a story? For example, instead of just hiding objects and messages throughout the game, is it possible that certain things only appear once previous steps have been performed? Similarly to alignment: until a certain alignment, traders do not talk to you, no troops can be hired, no crafting table used, etc. I would like to create achievements that enable complex mechanics as well, for example a cave or building whose gate cannot be opened (due to banner protection) until a certain achievement has been made in advance, not just the alignment of a faction to be achieved.

4. It would have to be a fixed seed to make sure that everything is placed where it should be. Is it possible that I open a random seed and once saved, everyone playing the game will be able to use that one seed, so that all terrain and placed objects are in the same place?

5. Is it possible to spawn NPC's only once, through a spawner, so they do not respawn? Similar to the Troll chieftain or the Ent boss? This would create the possibility for single boss-fights and achievements. Can said bosses drop SPECIFIC items upon death instead of the "odds" of items, like a set of armour and weapons? What about self-made books, can these be placed in their inventory to be dropped upon slaying them?

There are probably many more questions that will pop up, for now these are my major headaches in making a map for others. Any help is welcome and of course I am looking forward to where I can find already created ones! 