Verify Shire dialogue and quest chain in-game

[voitsekhovskymax]

Phase 9 shipped unverified. Walk through the whole chain with a real client.

• Right-click Frodo, Bilbo and Gandalf; confirm numbered choices appear
• /lotr talk N advances nodes and ends cleanly at 0
• Bilbo starts A Long-Expected Party; completing it grants lembas and Shire alignment
• Gandalf gates Concerning Hobbits behind the first quest
• Greeting text changes when alignment is negative
• Lembas can actually be eaten

Shire is at /tp 490496 150 486912.

[voitsekhovskymax]

Test procedure

Before you start

Two things to know, both verified in the code:

• The game already sees the mod: %APPDATA%\VintagestoryData\Mods\lotr is a symlink to bin\Debug\Mods\mod, so a successful dotnet build is enough. run.ps1 builds and launches in one step.
• NPCs do not spawn on their own. No entity JSON declares spawnconditions, so the Shire is empty until you spawn them by command (tracked in NPCs never spawn naturally - no spawnconditions anywhere #15).

Start a new world (the mod enforces world settings on creation) and stay in singleplayer — the integrated server is what runs the dialogue.

1. Get to the Shire

/gamemode 2
/tp 490496 150 486912

Creative mode lets you fly to the surface if the teleport puts you underground. Once you are standing on grass:

/lotr region

Expect a region named Shire and faction shire. If it says wilderness, you are outside the region — move a few hundred blocks and retry.

2. Spawn the three NPCs

/entity spawnat lotr:bilbo 1 ~ ~ ~ 1
/entity spawnat lotr:gandalf 1 ~ ~ ~ 1
/entity spawnat lotr:frodo 1 ~ ~ ~ 1

If the argument order errors, run /help entity spawnat — the parser is picky about the position argument.

Check they are visible and not invisible boxes: Frodo was re-shaped onto hobbit-male-1 in 73073fe, Gandalf uses human-ranger-1.

3. Dialogue and the quest chain

Switch to survival so the run matches a real player: /gamemode 1.

Right-click Bilbo with an empty hand. Expect chat like:

[Bilbo] My dear friend, welcome! Just in time — a party of special magnificence approaches...
  1. Need a hand with the party preparations?
  2. Tell me of your adventure with the dwarves.
  3. Good day, Mr. Baggins.
(Answer with: /lotr talk <number>)

You should see the friendly greeting, not the neutral one: default Shire alignment is +200, which is the Friendly tier.

Then:

1. /lotr talk 1 — starts A Long-Expected Party. Confirm with /lotr quest list that it is Active.
2. Right-click Bilbo again → the first option should now be "Everything is ready for the party" (it is gated on quest state Active).
3. /lotr talk 1 again — completes the quest. Expect Quest completed, 3 lembas in your inventory, and Shire alignment rising to 250 (/lotr alignment).
4. Right-click Gandalf → /lotr talk 1 to start Concerning Hobbits, then walk the ring nodes and complete it. This one requires the Bilbo quest first, so it proves prerequisites work.
5. Right-click Frodo → he has no quest, just directions. Confirm nested navigation works: pick a topic, then "Ask about something else" returns you to the start node.

Also try the exits: /lotr talk 0 should end the conversation, and a number larger than the list should say Pick 1..N.

4. Greeting changes with alignment

The three text variants map to exact score ranges, so test the boundaries:

/lotr setalignment shire -100    → neutral text  ("Ah, a visitor! Welcome to Bag End...")
/lotr setalignment shire -400    → hostile text  ("I don't believe we've been introduced...")
/lotr setalignment shire 200     → back to friendly

5. Lembas

In survival, with hunger not full, right-click-hold a lembas. It should be eaten (satiety 600, heals 4 hp). This was broken until fa33488 — the old JSON used a property the engine ignores.

6. If something misbehaves

Server log: %APPDATA%\VintagestoryData\Logs\server-main.log. Search for [LOTR]. On a healthy start you will see 3 dialogue(s) loaded and 2 quest(s) loaded.

Common causes:

• Nothing happens on right-click → check you are not holding an item that consumes the click, and that the entity code matches a dialogue file (lotr:bilbo, lotr:frodo, lotr:gandalf).
• You are not talking to anyone → the session ended; the NPC must stay within 8 blocks.
• Quest will not start → /lotr quest status <id> shows why (Unavailable means a prerequisite or alignment gate).

What to report back

Comment here with what worked and what did not, ideally: the exact chat output for the first Bilbo interaction, whether the quest chain completed end to end, and whether the three greeting variants all appeared. Screenshots help for anything visual (invisible NPCs, wrong model).