A History of Moria: written by Jim Wilson
This history is somewhat biased towards the Umoria versions because
those are the versions that I am most familiar with; info for the
VMS versions, in particular, may be inaccurate.
Moria 4.8:
The last version developed by the original authors, R.A. Koeneke,
etc., at the Univ Oklahoma. This is written in VMS Pascal, and
is only available for VAX/VMS systems. All other versions of moria
are based on this program. (Sometimes referred to as VMS Moria 4.8.)
Moria UB 5.0:
This version was developed at Univ Buffalo, hence the UB in the name.
This is also written in VMS Pascal, and is only available for VAX/VMS
systems. Some of the distinguishing features of this version are:
a Black Market where one can purchase highly enchanted magic items at
100 times normal value, monsters on the town level worth negative
experience (Mother and Baby, Small Child), `shadow' Balrogs start
appearing at level 50 with the `real' Balrog at level 1200 (this makes
it a bit difficult to win). There are also some new items, and many
more new monsters. (Sometimes referred to as VMS Moria 5.0 or
Moria 5.0. Should not be confused with Umoria 5.x.) This is based
on the Moria 4.8 sources.
Moria UB 5.1:
The latest version of UB Moria. This version is not available outside
Univ Buffalo as yet, and I do not know what any of the new features
are. Only available for VAX/VMS systems.
VMS Moria 6.0:
This version was under development at Villanova by Rick Greene.
However, it was never completed and was never released. I believe
that it was abandoned because Rick lost computer and/or network access.
This was based on the Moria UB 5.0 sources.
Imoria:
This version was developed at the Univ. Washington. It is written
in VMS Pascal, and is only available for VAX/VMX systems. This
version has never been officially released outside U. Washington.
I know very little about this version, but have been told by people
at U Washington that it is far superior to any other Moria version
that currently exists. It has many new monsters, new objects,
new races, new classes, new terrain types (like water), etc.
Unfortunately, the authors have never shown any serious intent
to release the sources, they are simply unavailable. I believe
that it is based on the Moria 4.8 sources.
Imoria 4.9:
The latest version of Imoria. I do not know anything about this
version.
PC-Moria 4.00+:
This version is a port of the Moria 4.8 Pascal sources to the IBM-PC
by John W. DeBoskey. This is a faithful port of the original game,
unfortunately, this version has quite a few bugs and hence is not
as good as the unrelated PC-Moria 4.87 version.
Umoria (UNIX Moria) 4.83/4.85/4.87:
This version was developed by Jim Wilson at UC Berkeley.
It is written in UNIX/C and is much more portable than the original
sources. These sources, at one time or another, were ported to VMS,
IBM-PC, Atari ST, Amiga, Macintosh, Apple IIGS, VM/SP, Archimedes,
are probably others too. This version fixes very many bugs, spelling
errors, and inconsistencies in the original Moria 4.8 sources.
This version has no help facility like the original program. It has
character rerolling (in the later versions), but few other changes
from the original game. (This version has many names, e.g.
Umoria 4.87, UNIX Moria 4.87, PC-Moria 4.83, PC-Moria 4.873, Mac Moria
4.87, etc. Just about anything with a .83/.85/.87 in the name is
a version of this program.) This is based on the Moria 4.8 sources.
PC-Moria 4.83/4.873:
This version was developed by Don Kneller, based on the Umoria sources.
These sources are identical except that they will compile on machines
with 16 bit integers, had many changes to reduce program size,
and introduced the reduced map display. (Note: PC-Moria 4.83 is
extremely buggy, and is unplayable. I strongly recommend that you
upgrade to a newer version if you are still playing it.)
Amiga Moria v3.0:
This version was written by Richard and Bryan Henderson of Kettering,
Ohio. It is based on the Umoria 4.85 sources. This version
has bitmapped graphics, unlike the ascii graphics of all other
versions. It has weapons of Godly Might (which make one practically
invicible) and some other changes that make it far far easier than
all other Moria versions. It also has several new monsters, such
as Lavender Leprechauns. Sources for this version were never
released.
BRUCE Moria:
This version was developed by Christopher J. Stuart at Monash
University, Clayton, Victoria Australia. This version has many
great new features: monster memories, look any direction code,
settable options, better run/find code, can center character on
screen, stat code rewritten to fix bugs, rudimentory help facility
added, plus many other enhancements. This was considered an
experimental version, and source never publicly released. This
was based on the Umoria 4.85 sources.
UMoria 5.x:
This version is under developement by Jim Wilson at Cygnus Support.
It has unified source for the UNIX/IBM-PC/Atari/Mac/VMS/Amiga ports
of Umoria 4.87. It includes many new features borrowed from BRUCE
Moria, many more bug fixes, all floating point code eliminated,
many changes that affect play balance (hopefully for the better),
many type/structure changes to reduce game size and allow fixes for
pervasive bugs. See the doc/FEATURES.NEW file for a list of most
user visible changes. (Sometimes called Umoria 5.0, Moria 5.0,
Moria 5.x. Should not be confused with Moria UB 5.0.)
Umoria 5.4:
The latest version of Umoria 5.x.
RB Umoria 5.4a:
The first release of Moria for the Rainbow based on the 5.4 sources.
Done by Warner Losh with minimal changes to the source and reasonable
speed as goals. No new functionality added.
Vertical position indicates roughly when the versions were made available,
although the scale is not very accurate.
