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=== Zangband History and Information === This document is intended to set forth the history of Zangband and its forbears. We have included only major events in Zangband development as well as commentry from previous authors and maintainers where applicable. A more complete description of the course of Zangband development can be obtained by reviewing z_update.txt. === Zangband 2.6.0 === The first stable release after the beginning of the 2.5.x development branch. Zangband 2.6.0 featured an enormous, randomly generated wilderness with towns of varying sizes and flavour. Over 100 new shop and building types were introduced as well as numerous new terrain types. As with the earlier 2.5.x versions, the wilderness scrolls seemlessly as you explore. Also imported from the 2.5.x branch were several things designed to make the dungeon experience smoother and more enoyable. This includes a redistribution of monsters and objects to make the danger/reward levels of the dungeon increase smoothly with character progression and a reworking of object generation to ensure that items generated are more useful to the player. The other major change in this version was he permanent switching on of the monster AI functions which had previously been included as options. === Zangband 2.5.0 === This development release was unique in that it first included a new, randomly generated wilderness. Unlike earlier versions, the wilderness offers seemless scrolling as you move accross it and far more variety in available terrains. Zangband 2.5.0 also included a major rebalancing and redistribution of monsters and objects in order to smooth out the dungeon experience. ==== Zangband 2.3.5 === This development release was the first one to include the new combat code which was adapted from Oangband. The main features of the code are that spellcasting classes can no longer reliably rely on hand-to-hand fighting, the maximum number of attacks each class coud obtain was reduced, extra attacks from equipment were made rarer, the base damage of a weapon became more important, critical blows were reworked. ==== Zangband 2.2.0 === This release introduced the expanded wilderness and fixed quests (adapted from Kangband). Towns, Quests and the Wilderness were each easily configurable by the means of text files. The following review of Version 2.2.0 was written by Topi Ylinen - Zangband's original author. --- Review of 2.2.0 (by Topi Ylinen)--- Zangband 2.2.0 could easily claim to be the most different version of Zangband so far. While the historical versions (Angband-- and Zangband 1.*) mainly restructured the set of monsters and items, and the 2.0.* - 2.1.* versions added new races and elements, Zangband 2.2.0 drastically alters the game fundamentals. The new direction is related to Kangband, from which the new version borrows such features as wilderness, new terrains and custom-built quests and maps. Although some people may object to this, as this decreases the amount of randomness and increases the amount of predictability in the game, the new features do not actually remove anything from the game -- everything is in *addition* to the old features. Even the popular "random quests" of Zangband 2.1.1 are still available, although their depths are no longer random. However, the pre-programmed part of the game is only as large and rich as the available maps and quests. Currently the wilderness map is relatively small, and there are only a couple of quests, which will quickly become all too familiar to the player. Since new towns and quests can be added in the definition files (in lib/edit/) without having to recompile, hopefully the players of the new version will build their own quests and share them with all Zangband players! Besides the quests and wilderness, Zangband 2.2.0 also adds several new monsters (nearly 300, although some of these are from Vanilla), a couple of new weapons and pieces of armour and no less than 52 new mutations, translating to a total of 98 possible mutations. This means that there's a lot of new stuff for the Zangband veterans to explore and discover. The total 850-odd-something monster races were only possible by removing the 16-bit memory handling code, which has no practical effects, since Zangband 2.* does not support 16-bit code anyway. Among the less obvious new features are of the new version are improved pet AI and s-lang support. The latter is not used yet, but it will enable truly powerful customizability of the game, items, monsters, quests etc. in the lib/edit/ files: all functions can be invoked from the editable files without having to recompile. === Zangband 2.1.0d === This was the first version released by Robert Ruehlmann as the new maintainer of Zangband. In Robert's own words .... "ZAngband 2.1.0c was Topi's last version, he has got a job and and doesn't have enough time anymore to continue work on ZAngband. He asked for a new maintainer and I was the one to take over the task. May I introduce myself, my name is Robert Ruehlmann, I'm the creator of the graphical Angband versions for DOS and webmaster of "Thangorodrim - The Angband Page" ("http://thangorodrim.angband.org")." === Versions 1.0 - 2.1.0c === The following text by Topi Ylinen describe his development efforts ... The seeds of Zangband lie in an obsolete and long ago vanished PC variant (somewhat misleadingly) dubbed Angband--. The variant was written by a hopeless Angband addict (previously Moria veteran and winner) who got bored with the standard monsters and wanted to introduce some new monsters. Angband-- was based on the PC Angband 1.31 sources, and it was set in Roger Zelazny's 'Amber' universe. Later this individual got a better computer and learned to code, and produced the PC Zangband, and most Angband-- monsters survived into PC Zangband 1.0. PC Zangband 1.0 was the first PC Angband to introduce (simple, font-based) graphics, which were also used in the graphical PC Angband 1.40. Yet this individual was still not cured of his addiction... his almost as strong addiction to the Civilization style fantasy strategy game 'Master of Magic' inspired him to write a new magic system. The current version of Zangband (2.*) incorporates this magic system, as well as the best features from Angband-- and PC Zangband 1.0. It is based on the Angband 2.8.1 sources (by Ben Harrison), and is therefore portable to other systems (unlike the earlier versions which were for dos-pc's only). Incidentally, this person (me, Topi Ylinen) also thought that the standard Angband monsters were too easy, which led him to introduce such monsters as Death swords, Cyberdemons and Great wyrms of power... === Special thanks === The newer versions of Zangband might not have come into existence without the significant help from these excellent Angband programmers. Topi would like to thank: Ben Harrison, for obvious reasons. Greg Wooledge, who pointed out a bug in the dos compiler, which was preventing Topi's progress with the first 2.* version of Zangband and for various patches. Julian Lighton, who must have sent Topi more ideas, patches, and bug reports, than all the others toghether. Robert Ruehlmann, whose nice new main-dos.c enables SVGA graphics and even windows in ms-dos. Paul Sexton, who is responsible for about 50% of the new code in 2.1.0. Robert would also like to thank: Heino Vander Sanden, who created the quest-code and Dean Anderson, whose patch showed me the quickest way to implement the quests. Adam Bolt, who created the new ZAngband tiles. Scott Bigham, for the S-Lang patch. Jeff Duprey for the new mutations. John Duffin and Leigh Silas Hanrihan for the new items. Marten Woxberg for many new ideas. Ken Wigle for allowing me to include his town and quest code. Tim Baker for many patches and bugfixes and for ZAngbandTk. Chris Weisiger for many new vault layouts. Juergen Neitzel for countless new rumors. Topi Ylinen, Mark Howson, Adam Horowitz, Oscar Nelson and all the other regular members of the #angband chat channel for giving me lots of new ideas and being good friends. Benny S. Hofmann, Aram Harrow, Greg Harvey, Keldon Jones, Graham Murray, Remco Gerlich, Tim Baker, Oscar Nelson, Adam Horowitz, David A. Henry, "Strikes", Chris Hadgis, David Howdon, Jenni Henzel, Stephen Lee, Gwidon S. Naskrent, Eric Wright, Bob Martin, Jeff Coleburn, Ethan Sicotte, Brandon Walker, Kelly Trinh, Brian Graham, James W. Sager III, John Holton, Larry Bassel, Markus Linnala, Musus Umbra, Mike Hommel, Christopher Stranczek, Werner Baer, Andreas Koch, Jon Boehnker, Jason Willoughby, David Paoletti and many others for bugreports, patches, bugfixes, and ideas. === Brief Version History (of standard Angband) === First came "VMS Moria", by Robert Alan Koeneke (1985). Then came "Umoria" (Unix Moria), by James E. Wilson (1989). In 1990, Alex Cutler and Andy Astrand, with the help of other students at the University of Warwick, created Angband 1.0, based on the existing code for Umoria 5.2.1. They wanted to expand the game, keeping or even strengthening the grounding in Tolkien lore, while adding more monsters and items, including unique monsters and artifact items, plus activation, pseudo-sensing, level feelings, and special dungeon rooms. Over time, Sean Marsh, Geoff Hill, Charles Teague, and others, worked on the source, releasing a copy known as "Angband 2.4.frog_knows" at some point, which ran only on Unix systems, but which was ported by various people to various other systems. Then Charles Swiger (cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu) attempted to clean up the mess, resulting in several versions, starting sometime around November, 1993, with Angband 2.5.1 (more or less) and leading up to Angband 2.6.2 in late 1994. Several people ported (the primarily Unix/NeXT centered) Angband 2.6.1 to other platforms, including Keith Randall, who made a Macintosh port that added support for color usage. Some of the changes during this period were based on suggestions from the "net", PC Angband 1.40, UMoria 5.5, and some of the Angband "variations", such as FAngband. Finally, I (Ben Harrison) took over in late 1994 when Charles Swiger left. Initially my intention was simply to clean up what had become, after ten years, a rather unholy mess, but the deeper I delved into the code, the more it became apparent that drastic changes were needed, so, starting with MacAngband 2.6.1, I began a more or less total rewrite, resulting, eventually, in Angband 2.7.0, released around January first, 1995. Angband 2.7.0 was a very clean (but very buggy) rewrite that, among other things, allowed extremely simple porting to multiple platforms, starting with Unix and Macintosh, and by the time most of the bugs were cleaned up, in Angband 2.7.2, including X11, and various IBM machines. Angband 2.7.4 was released to the "ftp.cis.ksu.edu" site, and quickly gained acceptance, perhaps helped by the OS2 and Windows and Amiga and Linux ports. Angband 2.7.5 and 2.7.6 added important capabilities such as macros and user pref files, and continued to clean up the source. Angband 2.7.8 was designed to supply another "stable" version that we can all give to our friends, with new "help files" and "spoiler files" for the "online help", plus a variety of minor tweaks and some new features. Angband 2.7.9 optimized a few things, and tweaked a few other things, and cleaned up a few other things, and introduced a few minor semantic changes. It is very hard to pin down, along the way from 2.6.2 to 2.7.0, and thence to 2.7.8, exactly what was added exactly when. Most of these steps involved so many changes as to make "diff files" not very useful, since often the diff files were as long as the code itself. Most of the changes, with the notable exception of the creation of the new "main-xxx.c" files for the various new platforms, and a few other exceptions generally noted in the source, were written by myself, either spontaneously, or, more commonly, as the result of a suggestion or comment by an Angband player. So if you have any problems with anything that you do not recognize from older versions, you can blame them on me. And if you like the new features and such, you can send me a brief little "thank you" email (to benh@phial.com) or something... The Official Angband Home Page ("http://www.phial.com/") was created along with Angband 2.7.9 to serve as an up to date description of any bugs found in various versions, and to list all of the people whose email addresses I kept having to look up. === Some of the changes from Angband 2.6.1 to Angband 2.7.9 === The most important modification was a massive "code level cleanup" that made all of my other modifications much simpler and safer. This cleanup was so massive that in many places the code is no longer recognizable, for example, via "diff -r", often because it was rewritten from scratch. The second most important modification was the design of a generic "term.c" package, which allows Angband to be ported to a new machine with as few as 50 lines of code. Angband 2.7.9 thus runs without modification on many machines, including Macintosh, PowerMac, Unix/X11, Unix/Curses, Amiga, Windows, OS2-386, DOS-386, and even DOS-286. It would be difficult to list all of the changes between Angband 2.6.1 and Angband 2.7.9, because many of them were made in passing during the massive code level cleanup. Many of the changes are invisible to the user, but still provide increased simplicity and efficiency, and decreased code size, or make other more visable changes possible. For example, the new "project()" code that handles all bolts, beams, and balls, the new "update_view()" code that simplifies line of sight computation, or the new "generate()" code that builds new levels in the dungeon. Many changes have been made to increase efficiency, including the new "process_monsters()" and "update_monsters()" functions, and the new "objdes()" and "lite_spot()" routines. The generic "Term" package yielded efficient screen updates, and enabled the efficient use of "color". But anyway, here are a few things that come to mind, in no particular order, and with very little time or effort. Somehow I managed to put off updating this file to the very end, and it will just have to do for now. The recent changes (and bug fixes) can be found at the Official Angband Home Page. color macros keymaps user pref files generic feature array, with template file generic object array, with template file generic artifact array, with template file generic ego-item array, with template file generic monster array, with template fils generic vault array, with template file binary image files for the template files special stat effect tables a special table of spells a special table of options inventory tagging inventory restrictions using objects off the floor various new runtime options the new "destroy" command the new "examine" command the new "note" command the new "dump screen" command the new "load screen" command the new "un-inscribe" command the new "change visuals" command the new "change colors" command the new "change macros" command the new "save game" command the new "fire" vs "throw" commands rearranged equipment slots a standard bow slot an extra inventory slot an underlying keyset refueling torches better monster memory nicer targeting mode object stacking the recall window the choice window the mirror window new high score code special lighting effects intelligent monsters new monster flags text formatting code much cleaner store code generic spell projections scrolls of *identify* maximize mode preserve mode new inscription code new message recall code new spell and prayer code massive cleanup of effects code new object allocation routines powerful (but simple) on line help robust savefile cheat preventers new official cheating options new blindness code new hallucination code optimized object description code new keypress input routines actual object discounts fractional (asymptotic) speed postponing updates/redraws run-time price determination better wizard commands the automatic player launchers of extra shots elemental ignore flags new ego-item types new player ghost creation no more sliding objects no more sliding monsters new object flags new chest trap code regularized the artifact code regularized the ego-item code new monster abilities new monster spell attacks some new store owners run-time skill computation player kills vs ancestor kills better room illumination code better group monster code table access through pointers more redefinable constants slightly new screen layout extreme code cleaning extreme optimizations === A Note from the Maintainer (of standard Angband) === Welcome to Angband 2.7.9v6. My name is Ben Harrison, and I have been the maintainer of Angband since November, 1994, when the previous maintainer, Charles Swiger (who developed Angband 2.5.1 through 2.6.2), got a real job. Starting with Angband 2.7.0, and continuing through the current version (2.7.9), I have been responsible for a number of major improvements to the basic Angband game, some of them obvious to the casual user and others hidden below the surface, but no less significant. The most significant improvement has been a total rewrite of large portions of the code, which, after ten years of modifications by various people, had begun to resemble a rotting death mold. Also significant was the design of a generic "term.c" package, which has allowed Angband to be easily ported to Macintosh, Amiga, X11, Windows, and basically every system in existance (including a beta-version for DOS-286). In addition, I have added lots of new commands, features, and functionalities, most of which appear to have been accepted by most people as a good idea (TM). It is extremely easy to port Angband 2.7.9 to a new system. If you cannot find a version that will compile on your machine, you can usually make one by writing a single file of about one hundred lines of C code. Angband 2.7.8 was intended to be a nice, clean, stable version, so we can all give copies to our friends. Unfortunately, it contained a few minor bugs. The *enchant* armor/weapon scrolls were "swapped". The game starts to look funny if too many objects accumulate on the floor. The "Q" command (commit suicide) does not work. You may not be able to load older savefiles. Some special dungeon levels may take a long time to generate. Good drops can include cursed rings of speed. But you can see that none of these are "fatal", so Angband 2.7.8 remains for now the most "official" version. Angband 2.7.9v1 through Angband 2.7.9v6 are intended as "transition" versions leading up to the release of Angband 2.8.0. Angband 2.8.0 will include many extensive changes from Angband 2.7.8, see the web page for more information. Most of these changes have been completed, and include things like cleaning up some internal code issues, optimizing the code (again), extending the functionality of some existing commands (such as target and look, which now handle directional motion), tweaking various aspects of the program, most notably in the introduction of new symbols and colors for various monsters, and in the use of a more regular set of RGB values for the various color codes, etc. Again, see the web page for a complete list. Angband 2.8.0 will introduce a version independent savefile format, along with a new terrain feature concept, and the ability to allow multiple objects in the same cave grid. It may or may not separate the "unique" monsters from the "normal" monsters, perhaps introducing some new "normal" monsters, such as "skeleton lord" or "giant boar" or "master mage". You can email compliments, complaints, bug reports, and presents to me ("benh@voicenet.com"), and you can post interesting experiences, general questions, compilation questions and code suggestions to the newsgroup ("rec.games.roguelike.angband"). You can obtain the latest source and pre-compiled executables from various places, try "ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Games/Angband/Angband-2.7.x" and the developer site at "ftp://clockwork.dementia.org/angband". You will need to enter the appropriate sub-directory, such as "Source" or "Macintosh". You should visit "http://thangorodrim.angband.org/" (the Official Angband Home Page) for more up to date information. You may freely distribute the game, and its source, though you are bound not only by the existing copyright notice from 1984, but also whatever restrictions may be present on various other pieces of the code, including the fact that any source written by me is technically automatically placed under copyright and may thus not be used for commercial purposes. The basic help files supplied with this game are more or less up to date, but when in doubt, the source (or the newsgroup) is the place to turn for advice. Or attempt to figure it out by experimentation, this is sometimes the most fun. In particular, see "commands.txt" for information on the available commands, some of which have been recently added or changed, and "options.txt", which describe how to customize several aspects of the game to suit your preferences. The documentation is very easy to modify and update, so you may want to check in to the ftp site occasionally to see if there are any new help files (or spoiler files) for you to acquire. Note that the spoiler files are not distributed with the source since they are so huge, but you can obtain them from various places as with the source and executables. New spoiler files may be placed in the "lib/help" or "lib/info" directories, to allow access via the "online help" system. Remember to tell all your friends about how much you like Angband... Happy adventuring! +++ Ben +++ === A Posting from the Original Author === From: koeneke@ionet.net (Robert Alan Koeneke) Newsgroups: rec.games.roguelike.angband,rec.games.roguelike.moria Subject: Early history of Moria Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 04:20:51 GMT 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 accusing 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 University 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 aggravate 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 koeneke@ionet.net === Previous Versions (outdated) === VMS Moria Version 4.8 Version 0.1 : 03/25/83 Version 1.0 : 05/01/84 Version 2.0 : 07/10/84 Version 3.0 : 11/20/84 Version 4.0 : 01/20/85 Modules : V1.0 Dungeon Generator - RAK Character Generator - RAK & JWT Moria Module - RAK Miscellaneous - RAK & JWT V2.0 Town Level & Misc - RAK V3.0 Internal Help & Misc - RAK V4.0 Source Release Version - RAK Robert Alan Koeneke Jimmey Wayne Todd Jr. Student/University of Oklahoma Student/University of Oklahoma Umoria Version 5.2 (formerly UNIX Moria) Version 4.83 : 5/14/87 Version 4.85 : 10/26/87 Version 4.87 : 5/27/88 Version 5.0 : 11/2/89 Version 5.2 : 5/9/90 James E. Wilson, U.C. Berkeley wilson@ernie.Berkeley.EDU ...!ucbvax!ucbernie!wilson Other contributors: D. G. Kneller - MSDOS Moria port Christopher J. Stuart - recall, options, inventory, and running code Curtis McCauley - Macintosh Moria port Stephen A. Jacobs - Atari ST Moria port William Setzer - object naming code David J. Grabiner - numerous bug reports, and consistency checking Dan Bernstein - UNIX hangup signal fix, many bug fixes and many others... Copyright (c) 1989 James E. Wilson, Robert A. Keoneke This software may be copied and distributed for educational, research, and not for profit purposes provided that this copyright and statement are included in all such copies. Umoria Version 5.2, patch level 1 Angband Version 2.0 Alex Cutler, Andy Astrand, Sean Marsh, Geoff Hill, Charles Teague. Angband Version 2.4 : 5/09/93 Angband Version 2.5 : 12/05/93 Charles Swiger. Angband Version 2.6 : 9/04/94 Angband Version 2.7 : 1/1/95 Ben Harrison -- Original : (??) Updated : (??) Updated : Zangband DevTeam Last update: May 25, 2001