Mines of Morgoth:the other Moria successor

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  • getter77
    Adept
    • Dec 2009
    • 242

    Mines of Morgoth:the other Moria successor

    Sort of! (Well...probably.)



    From all indications, as Angband did so many years ago, the game aims to succeed the original Moria which had quite an impact on the developer. From my chats with him, and is evident on the website, he's thrown a weighty amount of years and hard work into the project which finally made it to release around the beginning of this year. A release that sadly seems to have even less people aware of it than Scallywag mentioned in the other topic.

    Unfortunately, I've not yet seen any proper discussions crop up around the title anywhere, even the free demo. Not many Moria/Band folks around Roguetemple and a host of other things eating peoples time like Crawl. I would reckon, ironically, the Angband audience here would be the best shot at getting things hopping---as back in the day it was the appeal of an evolution of sorts to Moria that got people into Angband proper. Besides, consider the historical implications: Not since Angband, to my knowledge, has there been a Moria variant/evolution attempt. Angband has tons, but not old Moria outside the whole uMoria maintenance thing which confuses me greatly and seems about as invisible as Jaunt Trooper, being that nothing can be so very, depressingly invisible as Jaunt Trooper.

    Compounding this, for some infuriating reason, I've never been able to get the game to boot up properly on my old PC here, so I've been unable to delve into the demo, let alone purchase the full version in good conscience, to see what there is to be seen. I'm aiming to get a modern PC in a few more weeks at long last, but still: I'd LOVE to see actual indepth impressions, descriptions of the systems used---pretty much anything and everything to vicariously wrap my head around the title gestalt'ish style. Even if just the demo, based on the gameplay video onsite, I want to believe there's much potential in here for good times.

    Any takers here in oook land?
  • konijn_
    Hellband maintainer
    • Jul 2007
    • 367

    #2
    Originally posted by getter77
    Sort of! (Well...probably.)
    <Big snip containing much fawning>

    Any takers here in oook land?
    Eh, personally I find "open and free" a defining quality of roguelikes. The whole shareware/windows_only thing repels me.

    Cheers,
    T.
    * Are you ready for something else ? Hellband 0.8.8 is out! *

    Comment

    • buzzkill
      Prophet
      • May 2008
      • 2939

      #3
      Allow me to comment without actually trying the game...

      Although it looks OK, a 3 level demo sounds weak. $24 for a game that only has 20 levels and 1980's graphics seems a bit much. The probable disappointment makes me not want to even try it. Free is better.
      www.mediafire.com/buzzkill - Get your 32x32 tiles here. UT32 now compatible Ironband and Quickband 9/6/2012.
      My banding life on Buzzkill's ladder.

      Comment

      • Magnate
        Angband Devteam member
        • May 2007
        • 5110

        #4
        Originally posted by buzzkill
        Allow me to comment without actually trying the game...

        Although it looks OK, a 3 level demo sounds weak. $24 for a game that only has 20 levels and 1980's graphics seems a bit much. The probable disappointment makes me not want to even try it. Free is better.
        I'm with konjin - freeness is part of the very essence of roguelikes. Rogue and its true descendents have always been free, and they predate the GPL and its concepts by a long way.
        "Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it's good to be back home" - The Beatles

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        • Whelk
          Adept
          • Jun 2007
          • 211

          #5
          I paid less ($20.00) and got this roguelike(ish) instead.

          Comment

          • getter77
            Adept
            • Dec 2009
            • 242

            #6
            I'm aware of the notion of "free" being a touchy issue historically with Roguelikes, though I would caution that both Moria and Rogue, IIRC, DID have retail releases back in the day. (though they didn't garner much commercial success) Take Sword of Fargoal for instance, retail release, then a later free release, now a brand new active remake for iPhone and eventually PC and such(again from my asking the devs) from the original devs as perhaps one of the few success stories as far as western developers go on it.

            For my end, I have no issue throwing some dollars at things I reckon to be worthy endeavors/tryable---bought a Lifetime license to UnReal World, bought the disc/book/map edition of Legerdemain, bought Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space and Scallywag, bought pretty well all of the Shiren and Mystery Dungeon games on console/handheld, hope ASCII Quest (A $1 game!) and Dungeon Adventure ($2-$3 I think...) get PC ports from XBL Indie since I don't have a 360, same for Rogue Touch/100 Rogues/Sword of Fargoal on iPhone since I also lack one of those, and so on.

            I would agree that the $30 price point is a bit on the steep side, but from a console/handheld pricing perspective....before the likes of Steam/GG sales and GoG...such a point was considered "budget" on console and about even'ish on handheld. If only I could've found out about the game during the last 8 years he'd been working on it by himself, among many other bits of advice and such, much sooner than within the past year or so, things like the demo being meatier(on paper at least it sounds like very little content, but again, I've yet to be able to actually give it a shot) and the price point/distro methods/informative website being a bit broader a target audience. I can't turn back the clock though to head off some of these pitfalls, but I also really don't want to witness what it probably a well wrought Roguelike, in terms of scale versus Moria and I guess Mystery Dungeon games at the very least, vanish in this modern computing age and ultimately not live up to the full potential it may well have with continued development and such---which I think he mentions on the site somewhere about have plans for additional levels of dungeon depth and such depending on time, doing, and so on likely contingent in part on sales.

            I've gained something of a vicarious understanding of vanilla Angband's combat/game system from the very excellent Let's Play thread ongoing over at Gamespite's TalkingTime forum, so I really wonder how combat and all else is documented and intented/implemented in Mines of Morgoth. The demo is free and should at least confront the player with the basics-intermediate concerns so if some kind soul could get it to work?.... At this point, there's not even screenshot of the ingame documentation/help/instructions out there, let alone writeup impressions/YASD(VP)/AAR's.

            Re: "fawning"---meh I say! I prefer the notion of passionate/academic interests, as there is a great deal to be and find interesting in the world of Roguelikes past, present, and future.

            Torchlight edit: As did I, as do I have plans for it! But really, why can't it be both? Besides, Torchlight was made by an experienced team with a publisher in a matter of months. This was made by seemingly one guy in his spare time over the course of about 8 years. Same thing with Scallywag as it is also cheaper. They are just different circumstances/mindsets behind the games.

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