Creator of 1983 Rogue-Like Game 'Moria' Has Died at Age 64 (nme.com) 27
"Moria, along with Hack (1984) and Larn (1986), is considered to be the first roguelike game, and the first to include a town level," according to Wikipedia.
And long-time Slashdot reader neoRUR remembers: At the dawn of the computer era there were some games that borrowed from Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons to create an experience like no other. It brought you into the world and you could be one of those characters, roam around, fight monsters, level up your characters. One of the more popular ones that would add to that was Moria (As in the Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings) You quest was to kill the Balrog at the end.
This week one of the creators, Robert Alan Koeneke, who wrote Moria because he wanted a Rogue like game to play while at school at the University of Oklahoma, passed away. It has inspired many games and RPG's since.
I played Moria on the Amiga for hours and hours. His contributions to computer game history will always be remembered.
"Koeneke was working on version 5.0 of Moria when he left the university for a job," remembers NME, "though he made Moria open source so others could work on the project." In an email posted by Koeneke to a mailing list for Angband (a subsequent popular roguelike derived from Moria) in 1996, the developer reflected on his legacy.
"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 [an early range of computers] (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...!"
While Koeneke never developed another video game, his influence on the gaming industry cannot be understated as his work directly inspired games like the Diablo series.
Those interested in playing the original Moria can do so here.
And long-time Slashdot reader neoRUR remembers: At the dawn of the computer era there were some games that borrowed from Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons to create an experience like no other. It brought you into the world and you could be one of those characters, roam around, fight monsters, level up your characters. One of the more popular ones that would add to that was Moria (As in the Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings) You quest was to kill the Balrog at the end.
This week one of the creators, Robert Alan Koeneke, who wrote Moria because he wanted a Rogue like game to play while at school at the University of Oklahoma, passed away. It has inspired many games and RPG's since.
I played Moria on the Amiga for hours and hours. His contributions to computer game history will always be remembered.
"Koeneke was working on version 5.0 of Moria when he left the university for a job," remembers NME, "though he made Moria open source so others could work on the project." In an email posted by Koeneke to a mailing list for Angband (a subsequent popular roguelike derived from Moria) in 1996, the developer reflected on his legacy.
"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 [an early range of computers] (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...!"
While Koeneke never developed another video game, his influence on the gaming industry cannot be understated as his work directly inspired games like the Diablo series.
Those interested in playing the original Moria can do so here.
I suppose.... (Score:3)
Moria might be the first roguelike that that wasn't Rogue.
Can Rogue qualify as a roguelike since its, well, the game like-which all roguelikes are?
Re: (Score:2)
I guess true, because Rogue isn't a rogue-like? But then, aren't today's rogue-likes just rogue-like-like?
Re: (Score:2)
There must be a more apt name for that genre. Dungeon crawl?
My condolences (Score:4, Interesting)
My condolences to Robert Alan Koeneke's family and friends.
I spent a lot if time playing moria in the past, haven't played in a while but will start up a session. Odd that there have been questions about moria in "rec.games.roguelike.moria" the past couple of weeks after years of no posts. Those questions go me looking for my old save file.
a fitting tombstone (Score:4, Funny)
would have to be the ASCII-art grave that came up every time the character died.
Bummer. (Score:2, Offtopic)
I really wish Robert had taken care of his health so he could still be among the living. Heart disease the the primary killer in this country and the biggest culprit is a sugar heavy diet. In the US it's difficult to avoid getting foods that aren't loaded with sugar (even those branded as "healthy") which is why so many people die early as a result of heart disease.
Take care of your health, friends because food corporations have no problem putting you and your family in an early grave.
Re: (Score:1)
and the biggest culprit is a sugar heavy diet
Don't attribute heart disease to one thing. Its causes are shared among several bad practices: over consumption of alcohol, lack of physical activity, tabaco, and obesity (of which sugar is a culprit but far from the only one).
Food corporations aren't the only one trying to kill people in a country where 1 in 8 still smoke like they are trying to single headedly save PhilipMorris.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't attribute heart disease to one thing.
I wrote, " the biggest culprit is a sugar heavy diet" which was intended to indicate there is more than one cause.
Re: (Score:2)
Except the biggest culprit isn't. If you want to make a statement then say the biggest culprit is high blood pressure. Your statement is no similar to the classic Daily Mail headlines: "Cut out THIS ONE THING to loose weight."
Re: (Score:2)
Except the biggest culprit isn't. If you want to make a statement then say the biggest culprit is high blood pressure. Your statement is no similar to the classic Daily Mail headlines: "Cut out THIS ONE THING to loose weight."
If by "one thing" you mean "eating" that would be true.
It's pretty easy (Score:1)
In the US it's difficult to avoid getting foods that aren't loaded with sugar
Actually it's really easy - buy meats and vegetables and fruits and grains that you cook into meals.
You can control exactly how much sugar or salt or anything you get.
Also the very act of cooking provides some minimal amount of motion that helps keep you active.
The problem is that even while access to healthy food is really easy, it's always easier to eat something pre-prepared and over salted or sugared dishes usually taste bett
Re: (Score:2)
Actually it's really easy - buy meats and vegetables and fruits and grains that you cook into meals.
Easier said than done. You might as well claim that good security is easy.
Not the same thing (Score:1)
You might as well claim that good security is easy.
That's not a good comparison, as security is about protecting from a nearly infinite realm of possible bad scenarios.
Meanwhile anyone in the U.S. lives close to a source of vegetables and meat they could simply heat into something edible; not doing that is a clear choice that can be corrected.
I'm not going to say it's easy to change a habit, it is not, but the actual mechanics of getting healthy food is very easy in the U.S, just as easy as getting junk fo
Re: (Score:2)
That's not entirely true.
A large part of our unhealthy diet is from what we incentivize farmers to grow.
We incentivize wheat, corn, and other grains
As a result we wind up incentivizing corn syrup production which as it is very cheap gets added to a huge amount of food.
We don't have similar incentives for growing fresh fruits and vegetables hence fake strawberries with corn syrup and wheat are radically cheaper than real strawberries despite similar labor to produce them.
garbage (Score:5, Funny)
just tried it out. graphics are shit, no multiplayer to speak of, loot boxes are stupid (they fight you, and the items aren't even labeled by rarity? wtf? how are you supposed to know what's good????), tactics are terrible (not even a dodge-roll?), and finally: no NFT integration or even a battle royale mode.
0/10.
your own fault (Score:3)
It's your own fault if you try to play this game with the wrong equipment.
As with netback, it's important to have a properly optimized ascii video card, such as the 9500 ASC:
http://www.bbspot.com/news/200... [bbspot.com]
Re: (Score:2)
>it's important to have a properly optimized ascii video card
I feel the need to design my own optimized ascii video card.
Watch out for me on youtube.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure thing.
This is your portrait, right?
@
So that you'll recognize me, here I am with my cat:
@f :_)
hawk
tone down the reverence (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
After Hunt the Wumpus I graduated to Moria, both of which are single-player, non-networked games.
Then someone showed me Nethack with multiplayer networking, then Galtrader on the VAX at my college.
I still liked Moria the best, though, even though it was an isolated, single player campaign.
Re: (Score:2)
When I started college, they had just installed a new Sun Sparc 20 (I think, Don't remember the details) in the computer lab as a general student use machine. Everyone got an account on it, and as freshmen coming in for orientation week, we were the first ones to log on and use it. After I followed the instructions on logging in, getting my first taste of the Unix shell, learning to use ELM, etc, of course, the first thing I wanted to find out was "does this thing have games?"
Sure enough, I found /usr/bin
Re:Cause of death? (Score:4, Funny)
A Balrog got him.
Finished Moria for the 1st time, after 20years (Score:2)
It was about 6 months ago that I finally had time to pick up and continue the game of Moria that I started on my sister's Quadra 605 twenty-something years ago.
I was running it under BasiliskII for a while and was delighted to realize that the same save file could be opened on the intel OS X console version. I was carefully building up my character while I systematically tried to avoid reaching level 50 until I had enough equipment. (It's all about having enough potions of invulnerability by the time you