Does anyone play Moria anymore?

[Ulfen]

Hi everyone,

A friend introduced me to Moria back in 1990 or 1991.  I haven't played it in sometime, and have never beaten it, and I'm wondering if I should go for it or just try something more modern. 

Some questions:
Is anyone playing Moria anymore (from the looks of it, no, but I have to ask!)

What are some of the significant advancements that have been made in the genre since then?

In retrospective, what were/are some of the shortcomings of Moria? 

Which modern major Rogue-like is most like Moria?  (Randomized, non-persistent dungeon levels and permadeath are musts for me!)


I will, of course, go download some and try them for myself.  In the meantime, discussion is welcome! 

[Quendus]

There are probably people around who play Moria, and the *ABSOLUTELY UNCHANGED COMPILER RESPONSES* from a make of umoria 5.4 on an Apollo are still floating around on the internet... but I think the Moria fanbase has mostly moved to Angband these days.

Initially the main difference between Moria and Angband was the double length dungeon (not necessarily the best idea ever, since the second half doesn't have quite such a variety of monsters as the early-mid game) and the even more dangerous boss at the end.

Slightly more recently the gameplay philosophy changed a bit, from one which hid as much information as possible from the player (especially item and spell descriptions) to one where information was mostly forthcoming (though you still don't get things like exact monster health unless you use the right kind of magic). Several sources of fake difficulty have also been removed. Even ignoring the gameplay and information changes, the interface has become a lot more convenient since the early days.

[guest509]

  Holy crap my friend you have asked a huge question. Lemme tackle them.

  1. Try something more modern. Moria is alright, but its direct descendent, Angband, is much more awesome. Lots of people play it, and variants.

  2. Not many play Moria anymore, if community is important and you liked Moria, then, again, Angband is the ticket.

  3. In the last 20 years there have been MASSIVE developments in the Roguelike genre. Many popular games have come out including Brogue, ToME 4, etc...Whole new subgenres have come into being as well. Coffee Break (short style) roguelikes are super popular, there is a 7 Day Roguelike Competition in March where a bunch of us throw together a game in 7 days. Many of those are great. There are shooter games, graphical games, real time games and commercially available games (that cost real money and can be downloaded form Steam). It really has exploded.

  I'd recommend checking out Andrew Doull's annual Roguelike of the Year contest results. We are about to have another one, but last year had some great games that are still going strong.

http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/search/label/ascii%20dreams%20roguelike%20of%20the%20year

  I would recommend checking out:
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup,
Angband,
ToME4,
Brogue,
PRIME
and DoomRL.

Also Nethack is still around, with new variants being made like Unnethack and Nethack4.

[guest509]

  Here is the top 20 last year.

http://www.roguetemple.com/2011/12/27/ascii-dreams-roguelike-of-the-year-2011-winners/

[Ulfen]

@Jo: Yes, I was thinking (immediately after I posted) that this was a big can of worms.  Maybe I should have just stuck with my original question!  It has been 20 years after all, but things still look very similar on the surface!

@Quendus: That link is awesome.  Our compilers are so boring these days. 

Anyway, I did read up on Angband today, and downloaded ToME and Sil.  I'll look at some others over the weekend.  The Tolkein theme in Sil along with the superb documentation really have my attention at the moment.

[guest509]

  Oh very good choices. SIL has really started getting good, though I've not played in awhile. ToME4 has won best game for 2 years in a row, and might pull it out again this year. Play a bit of that and tell me things still 'look' the same. 

  The games you mention are all MORIA descendents.

  I'd highly recommend giving Brogue a whirl. I just played the new version, so good.

[Ancient]

Ulfen, there are still people playing Moria. Even more, there is a person who has been continuing development for some time. Have a look here: http://arcywidmo.republika.pl/Moria/

Myself, I prefer the sci-fi themed Moria variant BOSS. But then I have a liking for anything science fiction, RLs especially.

[getter77]

...how in the world did I miss the above Moria strain all this time?      Just goes to show there's still all sorts of projects out there carrying on along outside of the spotlight---don't think it made the ASCII Dreams poll either which would've been a really interesting happenstance given Angband did pretty well.

[Quendus]

Had a quick look at BOSS. Dived to level 10 or so. Haven't died yet, but my light has run out and the interface won't let me use the stack of batteries in my inventory to replace it.

Apart from the various quaint differences in gameplay from what I'm used to in Angband (variety of different level layouts, no inventory damage, 8-direction targetting, etc.), there's one difference I just can't get past - the total lack of description of anything. The only information I have about what an item might do, or even what command I should use on it, is its name. The same applies to the enemies - if you don't get the cultural reference or keep notes about what has what attacks, then there's no way to decide how to deal with an enemy.

Also I made the mistake of not buying a computer first thing in town to read scr floppy disks. The first levels are much less interesting when half your consumables are totally inert.

[Ancient]

Quendus, the flashlight cannot use batteries but the lantern does. Use 'F' key to fuel it. Unfortunately the no-description thing is not going to change. It has bitten me several times too.

Getter, I am more to blame. Being the hosting space provider for this one I knew of it for quite a time. It was hard to add it to the list (and thus ASCII Dreams poll) because:
 - It is forked off earlier version of Moria than was last released by RAK so is not a direct continuation.
 - It is also named Moria, not e.g. Daniel's Moria.
 - There was no official maintainership change, so old name "Moria" should belong to the version not updated for a long time.

[Munge]

Moria rocks and is still good today (surprisingly). See http://roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=719.0 Some guy called "corremn" claims to have finished it.

Just play a colored version like: http://www.roguelikedevelopment.org/archive/files/executables/mor552c.zip

There are plenty of other new games out there, but in my opinion "most" have their own down comings. (especially Angband, yawn boring, NPPAngband was pretty good but now sucks like most angbands (IMO).

Stone Soup has gone to great lengths to be a roguelike with the least about of short comings (but unfortunately invented its own down-coming - they strive to make it challenging even for the stone soup experts, that is, most improvements gradually increase the difficulty level.  But for me it was probably the best and most rewarding roguelike experience I had since Moria and Adom.

[Ulfen]

Moria rocks and is still good today (surprisingly). See http://roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=719.0 Some guy called "corremn" claims to have finished it.

Just play a colored version like: http://www.roguelikedevelopment.org/archive/files/executables/mor552c.zip

Thanks for the links.

I'm starting to realize that I don't have time to climb the learning curve on the newer games, so I'm inclined to stick with what I know.  I'm looking forward to trying out the color version of Moria.

[guest509]

Moria rocks and is still good today (surprisingly). See http://roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=719.0 Some guy called "corremn" claims to have finished it.

  Ah yes. Corremn is known. He makes warhammer roguelikes, he's a pretty active developer and poster.

[Munge]

I'm starting to realize that I don't have time to climb the learning curve on the newer games, so I'm inclined to stick with what I know.  I'm looking forward to trying out the color version of Moria.

Nostalgia baby!

That is why I play these games, there are so many new roguelikes out there, but I stick to what I know cause I dont have the time to learn new ones. 
Of course as mentioned Angband will suit you, because it is very similar to Moria. But is bigger and harder (and dont get me started with all the different wall flavors, just give me a plain wall to look at PLEASE!!!) Earlier versions of NPPAngband will be familiar to you.

Try a game of Quickband, it will give you a feeling of what Angband has to offer over Moria, but is designed to be very short. (12 levels IIRC)\
http://angband.oook.cz/quickband/

[guest509]

  +1 to the quickband recommend.

  Also newer games like Brogue/DoomRL/Aliens have no real learning curve, at least in regards to the interface.