Minequest - (Discontinued)

MAJOR EDIT 7 - Minequest is currently discontinued in lieu of bigger, better projects.  It may be returned to at some point, but for now it is too ambitious a project for me to take part in on my own at this point.  I'm leaving this here for nostalgia's sake before getting rid of it later.

In a world of dragons and magic, few can hope to outlast the coming tide of war, famine, and destruction. You are the exception. You have conquered evil cults, fought against wave after wave of undead hordes, and even took on gods in their own holy temples...You know how to survive in these worlds, and you can do it again.

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Minequest is a WIP adventure map that has been in development on and off for a couple of years now.  Probably my most ambitious of projects, this adventure map features several cool and unique concepts, almost all of which inspired by MMOs and fantasy RPG games/storylines like Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings.  This map will be a heavily modded map; it will have its own modpack by the time it is finished.  It will feature a lot of story and fun content like modded combat systems.  It will draw from the mythos I have established in previous adventure maps; adventure maps that I hope to finish, and potentially will use the same modpack that this map will come with.  And this map will have a big emphasis on multiplayer gameplay.  It can also be treated as a survival map, so essentially people can play survival playthroughs while still having the extra content there to mess around with.

Currently I am still trying to develop the map and set up appropriate mods for it before I make any permissions, so if i release any new trailers in the future (circa 5/23/2014) consider them all to be incomplete, WIP concepts with everything subject to change until it gets done.  I do, however, have a general idea on the list of mods I want for this adventure map that I know I can get permissions for a modpack (and those that, unfortunately, I cannot, so people will be required to manually install those mods to the modpack themselves client-side so that they can get all the content in the adventure map).

What mods I have planned thus far:

Noppes' Custom NPCs, Animal Bikes, and More Player Models mods
Treecapitator
Mo' Creatures (will not be in the modpack)
Balkon's Weapon Mod
Biomes A'Plenty
Mystcraft
Dynamic Sword Skills
Tinker's Construct/Natura
Piecraft (had to include it...>u<)
Plant Mega Pack

More to come!


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What I have so far:

Dwarves

Lore
Long ago, the Dwarf race once lived deep underground in a realm known as the Great Underdark, where the sun never shines and where all rivers meet. It is said that here, in the depths below the Earth, the Dwarves first made their great homes dedicated to the Gods of the Earth and Smith Lords, where hammers clashed alongside mighty picks of steel and iron. But many centuries ago, a great famine swept the realm, forcing the Dwarves to the surface. Where they arrived they made great strongholds and outposts designed to act as havens for pilgrims ascending to the lands of the sky. Khathaz-Gorim, the Pail of Fire, was one such outpost; once a gateway for many a Dwarf arriving from pilgrimage through the Deep Roads.

But within the last half a century, the former Lord General Stonefingers had ordered the Deep Roads to be blocked off. In secret, the gates to the Deep Roads were sealed with great iron doors, their gateways collapsed while the entrances to the surface were collapsed with rubble. For 50 years, Khathaz-Gorim remained completely isolated from the rest of Dwarf-kind, though its people still kept tabs with the surface dwellers for many decades. In the recent years since Stonefingers' death and succession, the new Lord General wishes to re-open the Deep Roads to discover why his predecessor was so keen in keeping his people from accessing their ancestral homelands...

The first of the four starting zones, Khathaz-Gorim takes many different inspirations from many games, all of which Dwarf related. As can be seen in the screenshots, it is the first of the four regions I've been working on. I'm not going to release much info on it yet, but I will say this; it's almost done. It just needs micromanaging and then I can call it finished...at least, until the modded content is going to be added. ^^

Current content
Starting Zone - Khathaz-Gorim (100% complete)
Dungeon - Garrison (90% complete)
Village - Hammerfall (90% complete)
End Dungeon - Ahn-Khanet (in progress)

Elves

Lore
In a time back when the world was young, and when the forests and trees stretched out as far as the eye could see, the Elves ruled the land. Once a proud people, the noble race of Elvenkind has now reached a very critical state of regression. With most of their forests gone, for the past thousand years the Elves have lived in isolation from the rest of the world, living in the remnants of their great World Trees. Keeping to themselves, many an old elf reminisces about the time when the jungles once stretched across the wetlands, and the oaks and pines covered the frozen waste of the north; while younger Elves remain restless - desiring to explore and adventure like the times of old, but forced to remain hidden within their slowly shrinking forest borders.

But now the time for isolation is long past. The mighty tree of Whisperwood Grove has begun to stir, its heartwood fluxing in time to the beat of foreign stars. The Council of Three fears that the grove is finally dying, and that the tree itself has only decades to live; if they are lucky. The Council has decided that now is the time to act; the forest's encroachment on all sides by desert, plains, and ice shall finally come to a halt. If they act quickly, there may be a chance to save the Whisperwood and rescue the Elves of the grove, but if not then yet another forest will die in the face of this ever-changing world, and the Elves that lived there will simply vanish. The Council knows that it will need help, however, and so bringing the forest back to life again means that their age of isolation must end. It falls to you, an Elf of a new generation, to join in the fight to save Whisperwood Grove and perhaps bring about hope once again for all Elvenkind...

The second starting zone is complete (structure-wise), though there's still a lot to go. No High Fantasy story-line is complete without Elves. Natural enemies of the Dwarves, the Elves have lived in a world full of forests and trees before climate change and other natural (or unnatural) events reduced their homes to just a few random forest groves, many of which are isolated. Elf structures will all look like they've been naturally grown from the environment, as you can see in the above video.


Current content
Starting Zone - Whisperwind Grove (100% complete)
Dungeon - Darkwood Cave (90% complete)
Village - Vinewave Village (90% complete)
End Dungeon - Yggdrasil (100% complete)

Orcs

Lore
Long ago, the plains of Anvilmar were once a peaceful, quiet place of the dreams of mortals, where farming and trade helped guide the many small villages into an age of prosperity. All of that changed the day Warchief Battlemaw was born, master of the Battlemaw Clan. Legendary herald and savior of his people, infamous and feared by all, Battlemaw became the first warrior to unite the Orc clans in over thousands of years when he was just a boy of 10. Leading his people, he enacted a mass genocide that encompassed the entire Anvilmar plain, renaming it the Plains of Battlemaw after his clan. The place where he and his chieftains first met council to prepare for war became a permanent base camp called Totem, in honor of his memory and the memory of the spirits of war and violence.

But Battlemaw's reign was short; brief, like a firecracker. Stopped dead in his tracks by the Dwarves, his entire army was obliterated in a battle between a united army of Dwarves and Humans, who caught the Orcs in a pincer upon the Blood Ice, a tundra named so for the final battle. This devastation would have spelled doom for the Orcs were it not for the foresight of Gamar Axehand, the young lord of the Axehand Clan. Having split off from the main group of warrior Orcs, he succeeded in saving three of the Orc Clans as well as his own, ensuring the survival of the Orcish race and ensuring that their armies were large enough to keep enemies stalling for an attack. His ambition was not to begin an age of peace between the other races; an age of trade. But in the two decades since the end of the war, the Orcs have gotten restless. The drums of war are beginning to beat, and the Totems demand that the bloodlust be quenched. All that Gamar has sought for may be for nought, but luckily for all Orckind he has thought of such contingencies. That is where you come in. You, like Gamar, think with your brain rather than your ax or club, and you've been tasked on a mission to keep the peace and neutrality of the Orcs stable, or die trying...

Totem's an interesting one. The Starting Zone for the Orcs, it features a very Native American/Gaulic style of build; essentially emphasizing the fact that Orcs have and always will be wandering nomadic warriors. Totem is, truth be told, their only big major settlement, and as a result while it's not very big it's still impressive that such a nomadic race ever found the patience to keep the buildings intact. I wanted to give it the feel like you're someplace where civilization and the wild go hand in hand, rather than be just one or the other in the case of Khathaz-Gorim and Whisperwind Grove.


Current content
Starting Zone - Totem (100% complete)
Dungeon - Doomhammer Chasm (75% complete)
Village - Bladewood (90% complete)
End Dungeon - TBA (On Hold)

Humans

Lore
The city-state of Griffin's Landing has long been considered to be one of the finest cities in all of mankind's holdings. Throughout the known lands, in the region recognized as the Free Cities, the halls of Griffin's Landing have been known to outlast any war, its strategists and warriors able to outthink and outfight any enemy. Founded by colonists from the alpine lands of the far north, the city state has since become a place of nature's great beauty; a true oasis in and amongst the great desert. But things took a turn for the worst during the Orcish Wars, when Battlemaw's horde began to conquer the known lands and sack the Free Cities. Over the course of the war, refugees from the sacked cities came to the aid of Griffin's Landing; most coming from Stormhold, who knew well the wrath of the Orcs and sought vengeance the most.

Now it has been decades since the war's end, and though Griffin's Landing has fared well as always since the peace has begun, sleeping giants begin to stir. The refugees of Stormhold desire vengeance against the Orcs for what they had done, especially against the survivors. Some even look at the keep's Dwarven trade allies, accusing them of not standing up in time in the war to save Stormhold and the other lands. And there is another issue; overpopulation during the war has resulted in a desire to rebuild cities anew, and with refugees packed by the dozens there is little in the way of resources for the city state to provide. The Thane of Griffin's Landing knows this well, and so he has tasked brave warriors such as yourself to go forth in the city's name; acquire resources, make trade agreements, and above all keep the continued peace in the nest of the Griffin. For if war was to begin again now, the fabled keep may not outlast it this time...

Current content
Starting Zone - Griffin's Landing (100% complete)
Dungeon - The Old Keep (90% complete)
Village - Port Wavesong (90% complete)
End Dungeon - Stormhold (on hold)

Additional Notes

Minecraft (c) Mojang
RPG map likely to be released before other map projects