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Early history of Moria

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Robert Alan Koeneke

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Feb 21, 1996, 3:00:00 AM2/21/96
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I had some email show up asking about the origin of Moria, and its
relation to Rogue. So I thought I would just post some text on the
early days of Moria.

First of all, yes, I really am the Robert Koeneke who wrote the first
Moria. I had a lot of mail accussing me of pulling their leg and
such. I just recently connected to Internet (yes, I work for a
company in the dark ages where Internet is concerned) and
was real surprised to find Moria in the news groups... Angband was an
even bigger surprise, since I have never seen it. I probably spoke to
its originator though... I have given permission to lots of people
through the years to enhance, modify, or whatever as long as they
freely distributed the results. I have always been a proponent of
sharing games, not selling them.

Anyway...

Around 1980 or 81 I was enrolled in engineering courses at the
University of Oklahoma. The engineering lab ran on a PDP 1170 under
an early version of UNIX. I was always good at computers, so it was
natural for me to get to know the system administrators. They invited
me one night to stay and play some games, an early startrek game, The
Colossal Cave Adventure (later just 'Adventure'), and late one night,
a new dungeon game called 'Rogue'.

So yes, I was exposed to Rogue before Moria was even a gleam in my
eye. In fact, Rogue was directly responsible for millions of hours of
play time wasted on Moria and its descendents...

Soon after playing Rogue (and man, was I HOOKED), I got a job in a
different department as a student assistant in computers. I worked on
one of the early VAX 11/780's running VMS, and no games were available
for it at that time. The engineering lab got a real geek of an
administrator who thought the only purpose of a computer was WORK!
Imagine... Soooo, no more games, and no more rogue!

This was intolerable! So I decided to write my own rogue game, Moria
Beta 1.0. I had three languages available on my VMS system. Fortran
IV, PASCAL V1.?, and BASIC. Since most of the game was string
manipulation, I wrote the first attempt at Moria in VMS BASIC, and it
looked a LOT like Rogue, at least what I could remember of it. Then I
began getting ideas of how to improve it, how it should work
differently, and I pretty much didn't touch it for about a year.

Around 1983, two things happened that caused Moria to be born in its
recognizable form. I was engaged to be married, and the only cure for
THAT is to work so hard you can't think about it; and I was enrolled
for fall to take an operating systems class in PASCAL.

So, I investigated the new version of VMS PASCAL and found out it had
a new feature. Variable length strings! Wow...

That summer I finished Moria 1.0 in VMS PASCAL. I learned more about
data structures, optimization, and just plain programming that summer
then in all of my years in school. I soon drew a crowd of devoted
Moria players... All at OU.

I asked Jimmey Todd, a good friend of mine, to write a better
character generator for the game, and so the skills and history were
born. Jimmey helped out on many of the functions in the game as well.
This would have been about Moria 2.0

In the following two years, I listened a lot to my players and kept
making enhancements to the game to fix problems, to challenge them,
and to keep them going. If anyone managed to win, I immediately found
out how, and 'enhanced' the game to make it harder. I once vowed it
was 'unbeatable', and a week later a friend of mine beat it! His
character, 'Iggy', was placed into the game as 'The Evil Iggy', and
immortalized... And of course, I went in and plugged up the trick he
used to win...

Around 1985 I started sending out source to other universities. Just
before a OU / Texas football clash, I was asked to send a copy to the
Univeristy of Texas... I couldn't resist... I modified it so that
the begger on the town level was 'An OU football fan' and they moved
at maximum rate. They also multiplied at maximum rate... So the
first step you took and woke one up, it crossed the floor increasing
to hundreds of them and pounded you into oblivion... I soon received
a call and provided instructions on how to 'de-enhance' the game!

Around 1986 - 87 I released Moria 4.7, my last official release. I
was working on a Moria 5.0 when I left OU to go to work for American
Airlines (and yes, I still work there). Moria 5.0 was a complete
rewrite, and contained many neat enhancements, features, you name it.
It had water, streams, lakes, pools, with water monsters. It had
'mysterious orbs' which could be carried like torches for light but
also gave off magical aura's (like protection from fire, or aggrivate
monster...). It had new weapons and treasures... I left it with the
student assistants at OU to be finished, but I guess it soon died on
the vine. As far as I know, that source was lost...

I gave permission to anyone who asked to work on the game. Several
people asked if they could convert it to 'C', and I said fine as long
as a complete credit history was maintained, and that it could NEVER
be sold, only given. So I guess one or more of them succeeded in
their efforts to rewrite it in 'C'.

I have since received thousands of letters from all over the world
from players telling about their exploits, and from administrators
cursing the day I was born... I received mail from behind the iron
curtain (while it was still standing) talking about the game on VAX's
(which supposedly couldn't be there due to export laws). I used to
have a map with pins for every letter I received, but I gave up on
that!

I am very happy to learn my creation keeps on going... I plan to
download it and Angband and play them... Maybe something has been
added that will surprise me! That would be nice... I never got to
play Moria and be surprised...

Robert Alan Koeneke
koe...@ionet.net


Mischa E Gelman

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Feb 21, 1996, 3:00:00 AM2/21/96
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>This was intolerable! So I decided to write my own rogue game, Moria
Moria really is descended from rogue! I thought the title roguelike was
wrong coz of the differences but I guess the newsgroup-namers were smart

>I asked Jimmey Todd, a good friend of mine, to write a better
>character generator for the game, and so the skills and history were
>born. Jimmey helped out on many of the functions in the game as well.
>This would have been about Moria 2.0

Huh.., this was that longf ago- I played Moria 1.0. something or somesuch
within the last 2 yrs- and people call me outdated for playing Angband 2.0.3

>character, 'Iggy', was placed into the game as 'The Evil Iggy', and
>immortalized... And of course, I went in and plugged up the trick he
>used to win...

Which was?

Also-iggy rules! The pre-Fundin.

>rewrite, and contained many neat enhancements, features, you name it.
>It had water, streams, lakes, pools, with water monsters. It had

Wow! Sounds a bit like JAMoria- outdoors, rivers, underground pools,
some monsters can swim-some can't

>monster...). It had new weapons and treasures... I left it with the
>student assistants at OU to be finished, but I guess it soon died on
>the vine. As far as I know, that source was lost...

Dagnabbit.

>I am very happy to learn my creation keeps on going... I plan to
>download it and Angband and play them... Maybe something has been
>added that will surprise me! That would be nice... I never got to
>play Moria and be surprised...

Angband will surprise you! Now if only someone could surprise Ben
nowadays...
--
Are your friends as good at killing Firbolgs as you are?-Tristan Kendrick
Well, we kind of like to make a hobby of it-Finnellenn, the dwarf


M Miles

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Feb 22, 1996, 3:00:00 AM2/22/96
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Firstly, RAK, you are a god to me.

I tried to E-mail you three (or so) years ago, when I started getting
unrecoverable math errors (or something like that) when I suffered life
draining attacks (this was a problem that developed over time, it worked
just fine for quite a while).

Someone told me that a version of Moria existed where shop keepers
repaired items; if you sold them a broken dagger/sword, rusty chainmail,
etc. of (something good) they'd turn it into a dagger/sword, chainmail, etc.
Is this something you're familiar with?


Tabor J. Wells

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Feb 22, 1996, 3:00:00 AM2/22/96
to megs...@pitt.edu
In article <4gfjgt$o...@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>, Mischa E Gelman (megs...@pitt.edu) wrote:
[a followup to an article about Moria]

Y'know, really, this has nothing to do about Angband depite the fact that
you managed to work into your post that people call you outdated for
playing Angband 2.0.3. Please don't crosspost between the groups. Your
last crossposted thread regarding your stupidest Moria death ever still
hasn't died in r.g.r.a.

Followups set to r.g.r.m

Posted & mailed

Tabor
--
______________________________________________________________________________
Tabor J. Wells twe...@netcom.com
Just another victim of the ambient morality twe...@nesl.edu
______________________________________________________________________________
Opinions expressed in this message are my own and do not necessarily
represent those of my employer, the New England School of Law

Robert Alan Koeneke

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Feb 23, 1996, 3:00:00 AM2/23/96
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mmi...@gpu1.srv.ualberta.ca (M Miles) wrote:

Let me assure you, Moria has grown a lot since I wrote the original
game. I recognize the mechanics, the algorithms, the design... But a
lot of new stuff has been added by someone(s) that I am NOT familiar
with. You would do better to ask one of the current wizards of the
game... I haven't even seen Moria since 1987 when I left OU! : >

This is all just staggering to me... I keep getting letters from
players and wizards from all over the place. I can't wait to play the
modified versions myself!

Have fun in the dungeons...

Robert Alan Koeneke
koe...@ionet.net


Robert Alan Koeneke

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Feb 23, 1996, 3:00:00 AM2/23/96
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mmi...@gpu1.srv.ualberta.ca (M Miles) wrote:

>Firstly, RAK, you are a god to me.

>I tried to E-mail you three (or so) years ago, when I started getting
>unrecoverable math errors (or something like that) when I suffered life
>draining attacks (this was a problem that developed over time, it worked
>just fine for quite a while).

>Someone told me that a version of Moria existed where shop keepers
>repaired items; if you sold them a broken dagger/sword, rusty chainmail,
>etc. of (something good) they'd turn it into a dagger/sword, chainmail, etc.
>Is this something you're familiar with?

See my response in Angband to this message...


Mike Marcelais

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Feb 25, 1996, 3:00:00 AM2/25/96
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My spies tell me that Mischa E Gelman (megs...@pitt.edu) wrote:
| Angband will surprise you! Now if only someone could surprise Ben
| nowadays...
| --

Well, I did just send him the new graphics code -- I hope he's surprised.
;-) [PC/DOS 386 and VGA req'd]

--

+------------------------+----------------------------+
| Mike Marcelais | mrma...@eos.ncsu.edu |
| Moonstone Dragon | Magic: The Gathering Judge |
| -==(UDIC)==- | Author of ChrHack 2.3 |
+-----------------------------------------------------+

Robert Alan Koeneke

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May 11, 1996, 3:00:00 AM5/11/96
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mmi...@gpu1.srv.ualberta.ca (M Miles) wrote:

See my response in Angband...

Robert Alan Koeneke

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May 11, 1996, 3:00:00 AM5/11/96
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ghistel...@gmail.com

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Aug 24, 2019, 2:57:22 PM8/24/19
to
current version, while running the player has a hitch in their step

can we get an older pre 2014 release?

Franck nothing

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Dec 29, 2020, 5:45:02 AM12/29/20
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Le samedi 24 août 2019 à 20:57:22 UTC+2, ghistel...@gmail.com a écrit :
> current version, while running the player has a hitch in their step
>
> can we get an older pre 2014 release?


hello,

Have you got somme news, i play at moria2 but i found that version is not the version when i played in 1992. And
I preferred the 1990 version, there was a chance to win :)
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