Any original Moria players still around?

[Djabanete]

I played Moria a long time ago! Thanks for the screen shots... that's some nostalgia there.

[Folk Star]

Ill have to read up on the pillar dance for when i feel confident for an Ancient Multi-Hued!
Then ill teach that bastard the two-step of death.

Though i have tackled a few mature multi-hued and a few Ancients and won fair easily. Couple times they breathed gas and i had to teleport away.
I found a staff of speed as well. So i can achieve 'very fast'. When i can get the staff to work haha.

Youre welcome for the screen shots. Ill throw some more up sometime for fun. When i have some nicer swag.
I first played Moria a long time ago as well. In 1990 when my mom bought a Tandy 1000. It had 20mb hard drive. 1mb of ram. And a 12mhz processor i believe.
Moria and Wing Commander ruined our social lives for a while.
Good times.

[bron]

tackled a few mature multi-hued and a few Ancients and won fair easily. Couple times they breathed gas and i had to teleport away.

This is almost always a mistake. If a full-strength AMHD breathes gas on you, and you aren't currently under the influence of Invulnerability, you die. End of story. Sometimes you can pillar dance to avoid giving the AMHD a chance to breathe on you, but if you screw-up the dance ...

Anyway, I advise against it. And pillar dancing is sort of borderline cheating. Like Bashing the Balrog.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I think if you've got a monster who can insta-kill you with poison, which you can never resist, pillar dancing is only fair. But, to each their own. What is this, bashing the balrog? I don't know this one.

[debo]

I'm astonished at how similar this is to V. I knew Angband was a descendent but I didn't realize how much of the core mechanics were already in Moria way back all those years ago!

[bron]

bashing the balrog? I don't know this one.

Moria permits a Bash attack with your shield. It doesn't do much damage by itseld, but it temporarilly stuns your opponent. Trouble was, it stacks, and even the Balrog was vulnerable to it. So if you get in a couple of Bashes to get started, you could then just bash and bash and bash, gradually building up the Stun counter, and eventually enjoy 100+ uninterrupted turns of attacking the Balrog with impunity. Sort of like Mastery.

I'm pretty sure this got fixed for 5.5 however.

[scud]

Bashing the Balrog.

This sounds euphemistic.

[bron]

astonished at how similar this is to V

While V certainly has a whole lot of "more" (more weapons, more levels, more monsters, more races, more classes, more spell books, more ego types, the "high" elementals, artifacts), and a lot of "refinements" (stats going above 18/100, targeting, better race/class combinations, tweaked spells, refined combat), I think that the number of things that really seriously *change* the way you play Angband compared to Moria is really rather small: better handling of time, with a smaller speed quanta (definitely a big win for Angband); addition of a home (important given the amount of "more" that Angband has); not being forced to switch between your bow and your HTH weapon (a mistake, IMHO). No doubt I'm forgetting something important, but really, this is what comes to mind as changes that actually make things different, as opposed to just better and more detailed.

[Kinematics]

If I remember correctly, bashing a monster (ie: what you do to break down doors) has a chance to stun it. With the proper build, you can keep the balrog permanently stunned with this, thus killing him without having to deal with all his general nastiness.

And yeah, Moria. Been a looong time since I played, but it was fun.

Edit: Heh, and slow reply. Missed the page turnover.

[Folk Star]

I like the euphamism comment haha.

Therefore instead of bashing the balrog... I was thinking on trash talking him instead.

Ps. I really didnt know that about the bashing being able to keep stunning. Though even if it did.work on him still.. i wouldnt do it. Seems like cheapening it.for yourself after months and months of gameplay.

Most definitely going to play Angband next!

[HallucinationMushroom]

Wow, thanks for the info. I had no idea you could do that. I knew you could bash down doors, but I don't think I ever tried bashing a monster.

The single biggest thing that made me slack jawed when I saw Angband for the first time was the sheer number of monsters on the screen. My first view of Angband was of a friend fighting a unique orc, with something like 20 accompanying orcs in the same room. Moria is quite sparse. You might find, 1 orc. To me, this just blew my mind. Also, color.

In Moria, you never quite know when anything is going to die since there isn't any life bar. This attributes a lot of the way I play now, you know, just winging it.

[debo]

Wow, thanks for the info. I had no idea you could do that. I knew you could bash down doors, but I don't think I ever tried bashing a monster.

The single biggest thing that made me slack jawed when I saw Angband for the first time was the sheer number of monsters on the screen. My first view of Angband was of a friend fighting a unique orc, with something like 20 accompanying orcs in the same room. Moria is quite sparse. You might find, 1 orc. To me, this just blew my mind. Also, color.

In Moria, you never quite know when anything is going to die since there isn't any life bar. This attributes a lot of the way I play now, you know, just winging it.

i can just see your reaction to that. "I CAN KILL MORE THINGS FASTER? SIGN ME UP"

[nppangband]

Hopefully there will be more Moria players around soon...

Last weekend I got inspired to do start a project that is long overdue: update Moria....

Well, not so much of an update to Moria, but take the current NPP code, and whittle it down to Moria 5.5.2.

I have made most of the edit files (monster.txt, ego-item.txt, and object.txt). A couple more minor edit files to go, and I start on the code. I don't think the coding will be too difficult. Mostly I will be turning off Angband/NPP features to strip it down to a Moria game features. So what I should be left with is an updated version of UMoria 5.5.2 featuring:

basic Moria dungeons (no pits/nests/vaults, or NPP terrain)
The monster/object/ego-item list from UMoria
Stats maxed at 18/100
Angband targeting
All Angband UI improvements from the last 20+ years (running, macros, monster HP on sidebar, object stacking, multiple windows, etc.)
Mouse support
Color
3 working tile sets
4GAI (No way to turn this off in the NPP codebase without hacking it to bits. But it mostly involved how group monsters move and attack, which there are none in Moria. Monster mana will be in this version, and the monsters will be slightly better at spell selection, finding the player, and fleeing.)
Working Linux, Windows, and Mac ports
Rod/Wand stacking
I am still deciding on whether to include a black market and/or home. Various versions of Moria I played over the years didn't always have those.
A squelch system.
NPPAngband style chests (that was the first thing I ever coded when I started NPP, and I think it is a badly needed improvement, plus it is the only way to have occasional good/great treasure drops.
NPP style mimics
No haggling (which some people might miss, but it would be a heck of alot of work to add it back in and get it to work right with the modern Angband store.c interface.)

After that, there isn't too much to do. There are maybe a dozen or so objects that need coding support in the NPP code, such as the wand of wall building, and a couple spells that were in Moria that eventually were changed in Angband, some changes to the object generation system, and bring back the old speed system.

And yes, Ancient Chromatic Dragons will still be able to kill a player in one turn. No poison resistance.

At least for the initial version, I will probably keep only one artifact (The Phial),and add one unique (Smeagol), since they both actually passed through the Mines of Moria.

Then all of us with a case of nostalgia can see how much fun the game is after all these years.

[bron]

not so much of an update to Moria, but take the current NPP code, and whittle it down to Moria 5.5.2.
[...]
I am still deciding on whether to include a black market and/or home. Various versions of Moria I played over the years didn't always have those.
[...]
There are maybe a dozen or so objects that need coding support in the NPP code, such as the wand of wall building, and a couple spells that were in Moria that eventually were changed in Angband, some changes to the object generation system, and bring back the old speed system.

This would be kinda fun. I always liked Moria; it was a lot less "cluttered" than Angband, which of course is both good and bad.

I certainly could be wrong, but I don't recall any version of *Moria* that had a home, and certainly none with a black market. Wands of Wall Building are pretty abusable .. you might consider leaving them out. And *exactly* duplicating the Moria speed system might (?) be hard. I'd think a reasonable approximation to the old speed system would probably be good enough. What Sil does, for example.

Depending on how faithful you want to be to 5.5.2, the way weapon enchantment is handled might be a bit of a problem to back-port. I don't know the npp code, so maybe I'm wrong and it's easy, but it is something to watch for.

Anyway, best of luck!

[nppangband]

This would be kinda fun. I always liked Moria; it was a lot less "cluttered" than Angband, which of course is both good and bad.

Yes, as I was transferring the monster lists I started noticing how much the Moria list repeats itself (lots of nondescript and nearly identical bats and insects), and how few interesting monsters that actually drop treasure there are.

I certainly could be wrong, but I don't recall any version of *Moria* that had a home, and certainly none with a black market. Wands of Wall Building are pretty abusable .. you might consider leaving them out. And *exactly* duplicating the Moria speed system might (?) be hard. I'd think a reasonable approximation to the old speed system would probably be good enough. What Sil does, for example.

The first version of Moria I played had a black market. The speed system will be easy. Wands of wall building will be in there.....as abusable as they are, they are one of the most distinct Moria features that didn't make it into Angband.

Depending on how faithful you want to be to 5.5.2, the way weapon enchantment is handled might be a bit of a problem to back-port. I don't know the npp code, so maybe I'm wrong and it's easy, but it is something to watch for.anyway, best of luck!

I checked it out. I don't think it should be too hard to duplicate.

Thanks for the feedback. If anyone else has something they remember that was radically different in Moria, please let me know. The Moria source code is a challenge to read and understand. I am mostly going from my own nostalgic memory and beej's moria spoilers for the differences between Moria and Angband.