The NetHack DevTeam is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1.

3.6.1 is a general patch release.  It includes a large number of fixes
to the 3.6.0 version, all of which have been incrementally published on
the public Git repository for the game.

The DevTeam has decided that 3.6.1 will be the final "official" 3.6.x
version, barring some sort of major issue that requires a new release.

After this release, 3.6 will continue to be maintained in our Git repositories,
however the team will focus on a new major release. Another 3.6.x release
and packaged set of binaries, is not anticipated.

Here's a synopsis of some of the changes we've made in the past two years
(approximately) since the release of 3.6.0 in December 2015:

1. Personnel changes

We've added some additional members to the team since the 3.6.0 release:

Alex Smith and Patric Mueller joined the team in July 2016.

Alex created the AceHack and NetHack 4 variants and is an expert on the
inner workings of the game and the ways in which they can be exploited.

Patric is probably best known as the creator of the UnNetHack variant.
He also created NetHack-De (a German translation of NetHack) and has
considerable involvement in the Junethack tournament.

2. Gameplay changes

There are fewer gameplay changes in 3.6.1 than in 3.6.0,  but still over
500 items.  Here are a few, though not necessarily the most important,
examples:

General New Features
--------------------

    Naming Sting or Orcrist now breaks illiterate conduct
    Poison breath leaves a trail of poison gas
    Allow knife and stiletto as possible tin opening tools
    New status line conditions Stone Strngl Deaf Lev Fly Ride
    Swallowers can't re-engulf hero immediately after spitting him/her out
    Allow taming monkeys and apes with bananas
    Ray bounceback chance depends on the wall type
    Undead #turning takes less time at higher experience level
    Peacefuls may react when you attack other peacefuls
    Prevent diagonal jumping through open doorways
    Give feedback just before timed levitation runs out
    Blinded hero or monster who eats a nurse corpse will have blindness cured
    Wielding *bane have additional effects
    "Elbereth" must now be the only engraved text on a square to function
    "Elbereth" now erodes based on attacks by the player, not monsters scared

NetHack Community Patches (or Variations) Included
-------------------------------------------------

    Malcolm Ryan's improved tin opener
    Ray Chason's keyboard may stop responding after locking or unlocking a door
        when using altkeyhandler=nhraykey.dll
    Ray Chason's fix: window interfaces that support transparency may give away
        unseen parts of the map
    Ray Chason's xprname should honor iflags.menu_tab_sep
    Ray Chason's punctuation for "That foo is really a mimic."
    Ray Chason's proper background tiles for lava and water
    Ray Chason's MS-DOS port restored to functionality with credit to Reddit user
        b_helyer for the fix to sys/share/pcmain.c
    Ray Chason's MSDOS port support for some VESA modes
    Ray Chason's Qt4 windowport
    Darshan Shaligram's pet ranged attack
    Jason Dorje Short's key rebinding
    Maxime Bacoux's new DUMPLOG: compile-time option to enable logging of
         end-of-game information into a text file

For a complete, very granular, but not necessarily clear list of the
changes incorporated in this release, please take a look at the file
doc/fixes36.1 in the source distribution.  This file has a full list of all
changes to the game.

The text in this file is populated automatically for the development team's
own use and is provided "as is", so please do not ask us to further explain
the entries in that file. Some entries may also be "spoilers", particularly
in the "new features" sections, so read at your own risk.

3. Deprecations announced post NetHack 3.6.1

3.6.1 is essentially a maintenance release and as such doesn't change much
in terms of what is or is not supported.  However there will be some
significant changes to support in the next major release.

The following ports will be dropped from the next major release unless
someone comes forward to maintain them:

    * Amiga
    * Atari
    * Macintosh Classic
    * BeOS
    * OS/2
    * 16-bit MS-DOS
    * Floppy disk support for all platforms

Starting with the next major release, we will be dropping support for most
K&R and pre-ANSI C features, including:

    * The Bitfield macro
    * K&R function definitions

Starting with the next major release, we will start using ANSI C features;
which ones have yet to be determined.
 
If you are actively running NetHack on a system that cannot handle full
ANSI C, please let us know some details and we _might_ be able to
accommodate you.

4. Save File Portability:

Save files should be portable between version 3.6.0 and 3.6.1.

We did, however, identify a bug early in the 3.6.0 release that may affect
some score files.For full instructions on how to deal with this bug, please
go to:

https://nethack.org/v360/bugmore/fixrecord.html https://nethack.org/v360/bugmore/fixrecord.html

Yes, this is in the 3.6.0 tree as it is a 3.6.0 bug.

As with all releases of the game, we appreciate your feedback. Please submit
any bugs using the problem report form at:

https://www.nethack.org/common/contact.html.

Also, please check the "known bugs" list at:

https://www.nethack.org/v361/bugs.html

before you log a problem - somebody else may have already found it, after all.

Happy NetHacking!

For the DevTeam...

Mike Stephenson

On Sat, 2018-04-28, pauln...@gmail.com wrote:
> The NetHack DevTeam is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1.

Excellent!  The lack of a post-3.6.0 release with bug fixes has
bothered me.

> 3.6.1 is a general patch release.  It includes a large number of fixes
> to the 3.6.0 version, all of which have been incrementally published on
> the public Git repository for the game.
>
> The DevTeam has decided that 3.6.1 will be the final "official" 3.6.x
> version, barring some sort of major issue that requires a new release.
>
> After this release, 3.6 will continue to be maintained in our Git repositories,
> however the team will focus on a new major release. Another 3.6.x release
> and packaged set of binaries, is not anticipated.

I hope major bugs (whatever I mean by that) still can cause you to
release a 3.6.2.  I can build 3.6.1 plus some bug fix commits, but
it's easier to compare problems with others' problems if you run the
same named release.

/Jorgen

--
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

On 4/27/2018 6:58 PM, pauln...@gmail.com wrote:
> The NetHack DevTeam is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1.
>

Fun! I never finished my 3.6.0 Samurai game because I'm so slow. Now I
have to decide to finish it or start over in 3.6.1. :)

Bobby

I just took at peek at alt.org and it looks like 3.4.3 and 3.6.0 are
going away. Or maybe the menu is just being moved around and the older
releases will be in a "deprecated" area? It's no big deal but I just
have a 3.6.0 game that I've had forever and I don't see finishing it soon.

Bobby

Option 3: complete your 3.6.0 saved game under 3.6.1. *

(*assumes same build platform and architecture)

I guess the NH343 players are out of luck. :-(

  1) Go to NetHack 3.6.0 menu - removed 2018.05.31
  2) Go to NetHack 3.4.3 menu - removed 2018.05.31
  3) Go to NetHack 3.6.1 menu

Janis

On Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 10:21:37 AM UTC-5, Janis wrote:
> I guess the NH343 players are out of luck. :-(
>
>   1) Go to NetHack 3.6.0 menu - removed 2018.05.31
>   2) Go to NetHack 3.4.3 menu - removed 2018.05.31
>   3) Go to NetHack 3.6.1 menu

At least for now, 3.4.3 is still available on hardfought...

I suppose hardfought is a platform of its own? - Mind that one
reason I am playing NH343 on NAO is to have a single source for
file retrieval and a common base for the statistics I'm doing.

If it's only for NH343 I could also play locally on my machine,
but I'd also like to have the UI features that NAO provides.

Well, I could read the signs also that way that it's just time
to stop wasting my time playing NH and put focus on RL.[*]

Janis

[*] Just joking.

On 4/28/2018 8:08 AM, nhmall wrote:
> On 4/28/2018 10:34 AM, Bobby Durrett wrote:
>> On 4/27/2018 6:58 PM, pauln...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> The NetHack DevTeam is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1.
>>>
>> Fun! I never finished my 3.6.0 Samurai game because I'm so slow. Now I
>> have to decide to finish it or start over in 3.6.1. :)
>
> Option 3: complete your 3.6.0 saved game under 3.6.1. *

I wonder if that will be an option on alt.org?

Bobby

On Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 12:00:30 PM UTC-5, Janis wrote:
> I suppose hardfought is a platform of its own? - Mind that one
> reason I am playing NH343 on NAO is to have a single source for
> file retrieval and a common base for the statistics I'm doing.
>
> If it's only for NH343 I could also play locally on my machine,
> but I'd also like to have the UI features that NAO provides.

Hardfought lists it as Nethack 3.4.3-nao...

On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 18:58:58 -0700 (PDT), pauln...@gmail.com wrote:

> The NetHack DevTeam is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1.

Awesome news! A couple of years ago I might have taken a few days off
to get into the new version. Now the weekends must do.  ;-)  I'm a bit
surprised, though, that the most prominent reactions on this release
announcement are worries about the continuation of old version games.
Please don't let this discourage you from your ongoing development
efforts!!

> 2. Gameplay changes
>
> There are fewer gameplay changes in 3.6.1 than in 3.6.0,  but still over
> 500 items.

I like what I've read and seen so far.

> After this release, [...] the team will focus on a new major release

Hm. I should probably save a couple of vacation days for /this/ one.
Just in case it gets released in the next years...  ;-)

Thanks *a lot* for your ongoing work on this (still) most intriguing
game around!

And now I'm off to take a little walk in the light of the full moon.
BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"?              =
===============================================================--(Oops!)===

On 29.04.2018 09:35, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
>
> [...]  I'm a bit

> surprised, though, that the most prominent reactions on this release
> announcement are worries about the continuation of old version games.

I think it's reasonable and a valid question that the poster asked for
the possibility of current games being able to be continued on NAO. He
was playing a recent version and a compatibility demand is reasonable.
(Not sure how NAO handles that NH360->NH361; technically it should be
possible at least.)

The "rest" of the posters was actually just me (who is well known to
be playing the NH343-version for reasons mentioned in the past), one
of the about 15% players on NAO who still prefer the previous version.
(While I would appreaciate it I don't expect that NAO supports older
versions when new (and specifically major) releases get released.)

> Please don't let this discourage you from your ongoing development
> efforts!!

They most certainly don't. ;-)

We can expect that new players (and the majority of old players) will
generally start with NH-36x - and that is what I also suggested here
in RGRN to newbies. (Myself I'll certainly try the next major release.
Not sure about the time in between.)

Janis

On 4/29/2018 12:35 AM, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 18:58:58 -0700 (PDT), pauln...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> The NetHack DevTeam is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1.
>
> Awesome news! A couple of years ago I might have taken a few days off
> to get into the new version. Now the weekends must do.  ;-)  I'm a bit
> surprised, though, that the most prominent reactions on this release
> announcement are worries about the continuation of old version games.

For what it's worth, I'm not stressed about my alt.org 3.6.0 game
surviving. I was more laughing at how long I'm taking to do the game. I
have been following the development team's work on GitHub so I already
knew that they were working on the announced features and fixes. Also,
there were development versions of 3.6.1 available on alt.org so it
isn't that much of a surprise to people. I just didn't know when they
would cut off development and call it a new release. I kept thinking to
myself that I need to get back to my game to beat the 3.6.1 release and
have a 3.6.0 ascension but I didn't. It's all in fun. I really don't
mind starting over anyway because the early part of the game is my
favorite. But the alt.org people may not wipe out the game anyway.
Either way is fine with me.

I think it is great that some people have taken up NetHack development
again and that the development team has some new members. Thanks DevTeam! :)

Bobby

On 4/27/2018 6:58 PM, pauln...@gmail.com wrote:

>      Darshan Shaligram's pet ranged attack

Sounds interesting!

I also see the Windows port has status highlight working properly now,
which is very welcome. I really missed that after playing variants that
had it.

On 03.05.2018 14:15, Stefan Ram wrote:

> pauln...@gmail.com writes:
>> Prevent diagonal jumping through open doorways
>

> nethackwiki.com/wiki/Jumping
>
>   still (as of 2018-04-30) seems to say:
>
> |You can jump diagonally through doorways

Sure. And it's also marked as "3.4.3", not "3.6.0", and certainly not "3.6.1".
There's a lot of wiki pages that haven't been updated. But wait! - Who is the
"maintainer" of a Wiki entry?

Janis

Is there a "this page needs updates for 3.6.x" template one can apply,
when you're lazy or when you're just unsure about how the feature
changed?  I see there's a wider {{todo}} template.

There's {{nethack-343}}, but that seems to mean "written for 3.4.3,
may or may not need updates".

Not that I'm likely to start editing a lot, but I intend to install
3.6.1 here and go on an extended Nethack bender ;-)