Roleplaying in Middle Earth

<nav id="toc" class="toc" data-loaded="false"><div id="toctitle"><h2>Contents</h2><span class="toctoggle">[show]</span></div>

</nav><h2><span class="mw-headline" id="LOTRmodded_minecraft_for_roleplayers.2Fbuilders_of_minecraft_and_CoE"> LOTRmodded minecraft for roleplayers/builders of minecraft and CoE </span></h2> <p>This minecraft LOTRmod veteran and the Duchy of Anor proudly bring you this LOTRmodded minecraft server to play on! </p> <h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Server_page"> Server page </span></h3> <p>Here it is: Ilu Ambar - Quenta Arda </p> <h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Objectives"> Objectives </span></h3> <p>The server aims to
1) create a bridge between the worlds and gameplay of minecraft roleplayers and Chronicles of Elyria (CoE) and its community, and
2) provide a minecraft based gameplay environment for CoE communities where they can start playing together. </p> <h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Features"> Features </span></h3> <p>This gives an incomplete overview of our main features, just to provide a first impression. </p> <h4><span class="mw-headline" id="For_all"> For all </span></h4>

• We focus on long term in-character roleplay, building, PvE and consented PvP.
• Create your own character, builds and lore. We have no lore characters, nor pre-made lore builds.
• Select one of 50+ sub-factions to start in. Forge fellowships to build and manage your own in-character community.
• The server is whitelisted as we aim to gather a healthy, mature community. The law and order on the server is controlled by the whitelisted community.
• We go by the principle of consented PvP. The player is in charge. This doesn't mean you can go anywhere without the risk of being slain. Enemy NPCs can still invade your lands, and you're free game in enemy lands. This creates an environment where roleplayer-builders can be certain their long term community and structure building efforts aren't in vain.
• The (sub-)faction spawn areas (will) have NPC traders selling NPC spawn eggs so you can populate your settlements.
• The server is comitted for at least a full year and all rules and features aim to support long term gameplay objectives.
• Players can create multiple characters and switch character every week if they please. Upon character switch their old character LOTRmod data will be saved for later use and they will start with a blank sheet for their new character, or an old character LOTRmod data file if they wish to resume playing an old character they had.

<h4><span class="mw-headline" id="For_minecrafters_and_LOTRmod_veterans"> For minecrafters and LOTRmod veterans </span></h4>

• After (sub-)faction selection, you start in a simple (sub-)faction spawn area, without unlocking access to The Shire.
• Your alignment is preset so your facions enemies will try to find you and bring you down.
• Fast transport cooldown is set to 40 minutes max and 8 minutes min. Plan ahead!
• A couple of decent daily meals will keep you on your feet and prevent you from starving. You will value your quick snacks, drinks and pies as much as cooked meats and lembas as the hunger rate is comparable to vanilla minecraft.
• Upon engaging in PvP, you will be tagged as 'in combat' and FT will be blocked.

<h4><span class="mw-headline" id="For_Chronicles_of_Elyria_players"> For Chronicles of Elyria players </span></h4>

• CoE communities can play together in one (sub-)faction, set up their own fellowship and establish and build their own settlements and populate them with NPCs to their liking.
• The world is massive, even larger than Elyria. Arda (downscaled 1:20!) measures a stunning 350 km from west to east and 450 km from north to south. That's about 8 times the size of Elyrias starting continent. Elyrias starting continent is comparable with the size of the part of Middle-earth known from the LOTR trilogy stretching from Lindon in the west to the Iron Hills in the east and Angmar in the north to Gondor in the south.
• The alignment system of the LOTRmod has a slight resemblance with the reputation system of CoE. Faction alignment determines where you're safe and your presence appreciated and where you must bring an army to survive.
• It's relatively cheap as it only requires a minecraft account. And installing is made easier as we provide a light modpack via the TechnicPack launcher.

<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Discord"> Discord </span></h2> <p>Our discord server is where it's at. Check in using this link: Ilu Ambar Discord Server </p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Information"> Information </span></h2> <p>Starting points, scope and objectives for "Ilu Ambar - Quenta Arda" is provided in this document:
Overview </p><p>Rules and Guidelines for both Discord and Minecraft server:
Rules and Guidelines </p><p>General Information, a.o. on IP, Modpack and Discord roles, is presented in this document:
General Information </p><p>Installation guides and an overview of tutorial information, tips and links for people new to minecraft or the LOTRmod:
Installation and Gameplay Guide </p><p>All information on the whitelisting procedure and the application template:
Whitelisting </p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Status"> Status </span></h2> <p>The server is feature complete and opened for whitelisted players on 15 January 2019. </p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="The_realms_and_their_chroniclers"> The realms and their chroniclers </span></h2> <p>The official sub-factions of the server, the characters (and players) playing there and their fellowships are listed in four collapsable tables on the server wiki page. </p>

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</nav><h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Basic_notion_.26_motive"> Basic notion & motive </span></h2> <p>At the moment anyone can hire any unit at any time provided they have sufficient alignment and regardless the alignment they have with other factions. This means that a 'Gundabad' character with +3500 with Gundabad can hire Black Uruks from Mordor, even if he only has +600 alignment with Mordor. Also, a player with +4000 Gondor alignment and only +700 with Lindon, can still hire High Elven Cavalry and Banner Bearers. This is odd, and I believe it breaks the roleplay immersion and makes the 'unique' / elite units of all factions less unique in the game. The system doesn't promote 'working for specific alignment' for a player to hire units. For many good aligned characters in the north, endless Gundie slaughter simply suffices at the moment. </p><p>My basic notion is this:
Elite military forces will only swear allegiance to a leader that proves his or her loyalty with their faction. </p><p>
</p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Proposal"> Proposal </span></h2>

• Make elite and banner bearer units only hirable to players for which the alignment they have with that faction is clearly the highest of any alignment the player has.
  
• Make the hiring of 'tier 2' NPCs (not elite or banner bearer, but no 'levy troops / cannon fudder' either), also dependent on the relative alignment a player has with the faction: require at least 'second highest alignment with any faction'.
• To ensure the players loyalty is 'clear', and to prevent exploits from regular 'allegiance switches', for hiring elite units the difference between maximum alignment and second highest alignment a player has, must be higher than some treshold value. This 'elite allegiance treshold' should be faction dependent. For weaker / more neutral factions like Dunland and most sub-factions, it should be 100 and for stronger / more extremely aligned factions like Mordor and Lindon, it should be 500 or comparable.

<p>
</p> <h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Purpose"> Purpose </span></h3> <p>To improve:
1) specific usage of the faction diversity as offered in the mod;
2) strategic choices by players when hiring units / composing their fighting forces;
3) roleplay immersion by limiting the options players have in hiring units, dependent on the alignment profile they have acquired in-game. </p><p>
</p> <h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Feature_mechanics"> Feature mechanics </span></h3> <p>In the GUI, the player is already able to see whether or not the units (s)he wishes to hire are hireable to him/her or not. Now, there are two requirement: a player must have the minimum alignment required for hiring and have enough in cash in his/her inventory. The proposed changes will add requirements for a player to meet to be able to hire higher tier units. </p><p>Two new checks must be added for all higher tier units. These require storing four parameters per player (already stored): the faction with which the player has highest alignment, the faction with which the player has second highest alignment and the two corresponding alignment values. </p><p>Also, for each faction, the value for the 'elite allegiance treshold' must be defined. Here are some example values for this parameter: </p>

• Wood-land Realm 350; High Elves and Galadhrim 300; Dorwinion 200;
• Mordor 500; Dol Guldur and Angmar 300; Isengard 250; Gundabad 150;
• Dol-Amorth 400; Gondor 300; Rohan 200; Dale 150; Dunland 100;
• Durin's Folk 300; Blue Mountain Dwarves 200

<p>
Finally, each NPC will get a new identifier, tagging the NPC as 'elite', 'regular' or 'levy'. Based on that tag, either no additional check, or one or both of the new checks must be performed. </p>

• For the 'elite' units (incl. banner bearers), a check will be done on whether the 'players highest alignment faction' is equal to the faction of the unit. If 'true', a second check will be done to see if the difference in alignment the player has between his 'highest alignment faction' and the second highest, is bigger than the defined 'elite allegiance treshold' value. If 'true', the player can hire the unit.
• For the 'regular' units, a check will be made whether the players two highest alignment factions are equal to the units faction. If 'true', the player can hire the unit.
• For 'levy' units only the already present checks will be performed.

<p>
</p> <h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Examples_of_unit_categorisation"> Examples of unit categorisation </span></h3> <p>Here's a few examples of which units would be tagged as 'elite' or 'levy': </p>

• Woodland Realm: cavalry & banner bearer are elite; warriors are regular; elves & scouts are levy.
• Mordor: black uruks, olog-Hai, warg bombardiers & banner bearers are elite; orc bombardiers and war riders are regular; orcs and archers are levy.
• Durin's Folk: boar riders and banner bearers are elite; warriors and axe throwers are regular; non warrior dwarves are levy.

<p>
</p> <h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Related_proposals"> Related proposals </span></h3> <p>As indicated in this post, the basic notion regarding the availability of hired units to players, also relates to more than the proposal presented above. One related proposal I wish to mention as relevant in this context is this: </p><p>[Endorsed] Food for troops! </p><p>The mechanic discussed extensively in that thread, provides the opportunity to create a mechanistic cap on the number of hired units a player can maintain, or 'how large a standing army a player can support'. I believe it deserves more thorough and open/public thinking to find acceptable ways to implement it ... in that thread. </p><p>Additionally, I feel that adding more and significantly higher minimum requirements for crafting faction specific gear will certainly contribute to the purpose indicated above, notably point 1). As I feel this is obvious, and as It has been brought forward earlier in a number of other threads, I suspect the mod team is already aware of that option. I suspect that either they will never implement it, or it's planned in some way. </p>

<p>The management of the Second Age server is looking for a modder to help out for some customisation regarding the functional interactions between server, LOTR mod and ForgeEssentials and a number of specific features the server wants to have implemented, mainly aimed at improving the game's roleplay experience. Currently, Timgodreuil, owner of The Awakening, is helping out tremendously with a dedicated server-side mod, but he doesn't have enough time for all of the desired work. We also have VulcanForge assisting with valuable advice on modding but his availability is also quite restricted. </p><p>So, we are looking for a generally skilled java-minecraft modder with affinity for the LOTR mod and roleplay who will focus on the server side modding for the SA server. Experience with ForgeEssentials is desired but not a strict requirement. </p><p>As a special point of attention, we are also investigating possibilities to implement a character development / gear enhancement ('enchanting') system that would fit the LOTR mod. General preference is that this does not implement the general 'OP-ness' of vanilla enchanting. As a first step we wish to implement a simple experience based system that enables general character trait improvement: Vigour. When that is implemented, more advanced additions can be considered. As an alternative, we wish to evaluate options to implement enchantment table crafting with ME ingredients, but with significantly reduced enchantment options and effects (think -50-80% of maxed effects). </p><p>So, we are also looking for someone who would like to take on the challenge of creating a dedicated (preferrably only server side) mod, that implements the aforementioned feature(s). </p><p>Ideally, both roles are fulfilled by one and the same enthusiastic and experienced modder, who will find other enthusiastic and experienced people working alongside and supporting him/her. </p><p>This is just an open announcement to see whether there are people interested in either or both mentioned projects. If you're interested, post a message below, on the server's message wall here, on the server's FB page, and/or contact FB accounts Sam Fish or Alte Ogre. </p>