Any original Moria players still around?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

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.

That's awesome!

When you're done with the nostalgic version, I hope someone takes your code and creates an NPPMoria that tries to make the game better than the original. Lots of other ways to do that besides taking the Angband route...

[nppangband]

That's was exactly my plan, even down to calling it NPPMoria. The starting point will have 4GAI and rod/wand stacking, and things like that, so it isn't an exact duplicate of Moria. I am sure some Angband ideas will get worked in eventually, but I am not trying to create a 50-level version of Angband either.

First I want to get a decent re-creation of moria, then I want to try to improve it a little bit. I think my ETA for a respectable working beta version is around 1-2 months.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I had just about worked myself up to replay Moria, but now I'll just wait for this to come out. Sounds fun.

[bron]

> NPPMoria

That would be pretty cool. I realize we all have our own particular set of "must have" features, but I hope you strongly resist the temptation to add too much. For myself, I think the only "really need to be changed" parts of Moria are (1) to use the Angband style "speed" system, and (2) to make Green Oozes *not* drop items.

[ekolis]

> For myself, I think the only "really need to be changed" parts of Moria are (1) to use the Angband style "speed" system, and (2) to make Green Oozes *not* drop items.

There is a speed system that could be improved by replacing it with the Angband style speed system???

[Derakon]

There is a speed system that could be improved by replacing it with the Angband style speed system???

Yes; one in which your only options for speed items are ones that double, triple (very rare), or halve your speed.

[debo]

Yes; one in which your only options for speed items are ones that double, triple (very rare), or halve your speed.

Sounds almost like Sil

[Derakon]

Sil doesn't have any permanent speed boosts though, right? Temporarily doubling your speed at the cost of a rare consumable is completely different from having gear that literally doubles your effectiveness at just about everything.

[Patashu]

You can find/make artifacts with perma speed in Sil, but it's not easy. (The perma speed artifact is a robe, and it gives no other advantages. And to forge it is really expensive obviously.)

[Malak Darkhunter]

Jeff Green- so glad you decided to do this, I will be eagerly awaiting your release, I might have to stop playing war commander on facebook for awhile, to play this! lol

[nppangband]

> NPPMoria

That would be pretty cool. I realize we all have our own particular set of "must have" features, but I hope you strongly resist the temptation to add too much. For myself, I think the only "really need to be changed" parts of Moria are (1) to use the Angband style "speed" system, and (2) to make Green Oozes *not* drop items.

Actually, it is the potions of invulrnerability that I find the most unbalancing....but maybe they are fair considering Ancient Chromatic Dragons can kill on one breath....and Ancient Green dragons come pretty close to doing the same.

I am starting with the moria speed system, although I admit there is room for a whole lot improvement. Although, I am not sure if the Angabnd syyle works because there are only two speed items in Moria...Boots of speed and rings of speed (+1). So to make them incremental means the player would die of boredom before they got to +20 speed.

But first things first, let me get it up and running, then we can play and brainstorm from there.

:::kicking myself for announcing I was working on this the day before Boishock: Infinite was released:::

[Malak Darkhunter]

Some huge differences in moria to angband ...

1. Targeting-angband has a much better targeting system

2. Pseudo ID- moria uses a very weak pseudo I'd system
Not sure how you want to approach that given the different views on I'd

3. No monster escorts or vault groups, moria generally had solitary monsters that at best would only appear close together in bunches in vault rooms. And no uniques with escorts. ( I generally like this) less dungeon loot clutter from slain monsters.....and then there is the auto squelch that moria did not have.

4. No artifacts- holy avengers where generally the most sought for ego weapons
I think weapons of gondolin, and some angband ego's would still be nice however.

5. See invisible was very rare as well as rings of speeds

6. No Id spell for priests, only Mage spells had Id , rogue, ranger, Mage had Id no other class did, and the game used only the basic spells, no artifact books

7. Only +1 light radius, max, and no ego ego lanterns.

8. Stores only sold random stat potions in shops, you were never guaranteed to find that stat potion you need in town. Stores generally were very random in their merchandise , no fixed store inventory like in angband today.

I think this has the potential to be a very fun and very challenging game once it's fully implemented, Moria really really needed to be remade, and brought up to date, in this way it can still live.

[Psi]

You can find/make artifacts with perma speed in Sil, but it's not easy. (The perma speed artifact is a robe, and it gives no other advantages. And to forge it is really expensive obviously.)

I would add that "fast" in Sil in only 1.5 times normal in any case.

[half]

There is a speed system that could be improved by replacing it with the Angband style speed system???

My thoughts exactly. There is a legitimate question about how fine grained a speed system one should have (Sil's is part way between Moria's and Angband's), but the diminishing returns through a completely opaque lookup table with arbitrary values in it is terrible.

If the Moria speed system needs changing, then I'd suggest something like the Sil system. There are 4 speeds: 1, 2, 3, 4. These mean what they look like (i.e. speed 3 is 1.5 times as fast as speed 2 etc). The player starts at 2, and temporary effects or permanent effects move this by + or - 1. I guarantee that the player's speed is constrained by 1 and 3, but you could allow it to get to 4 with the use of two items if you want.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Is it possible to kill the Balrog with melee without invulnerability? I don't know much about the big B.