Announcement from the NetHack Devteam

[karnov at sympatico.ca]

The NetHack DevTeam is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.2.

3.6.2 is a general patch release.  It includes a large number of fixes to
the 3.6.1 version, beyond the Windows issue fixed at the time of that
release.

All of these fixes have been incrementally published on the public Git
repository for the game.

The DevTeam had 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.
Well, there seem to have been enough things happening that we decided to
undecide that last decision and re-decide that 3.6.2 would take its place as
the final release in this version.

Source for 3.6.x will continue, as always, to be maintained in our Git
repositories, however, the team will be focusing on the next major release.

Another 3.6.x release and packaged set of binaries is not anticipated, but
given previous experience, could happen depending on the amount of time
between now and the next major release.

Here's a synopsis of some of the changes we've made in the last year
(approximately) since the release of 3.6.1 in April 2018:

1. Gameplay changes

There fewer gameplay changes in 3.6.2 than in 3.6.0 or 3.6.1, but still over
500 items.  Almost all can be considered to be bug fixes as this was not
intended as a features release.

Here are a number of the changes - caution - there be potential spoilers
here.

General Changes
-----------------------

- Killing Vlad while he was in bat/fog cloud/wolf form gave poorly worded
feedback when he reverted to vampire form
- For starting inventory, don't give an orc hero lembas wafers or cram
rations
- Targeting with a polearm could give away location of hidden monster
- Make stone-to-flesh behave the same on statues of petrified monsters as it
does on random 'dungeon art' ones (revive at a nearby spot instead of
becoming a corpse when there's already a monster at statue's location)
- Eating rings while polymorphed didn't handle bonus/penalty for increase
damage, increase accuracy, or protection correctly
- When eating a tin of spinach, don't "feel like Popeye" if
sustain-abilities prevents any strength gain
- Verbal charm/seduce messages were given even when hero was deaf
- Succubus/incubus seduction might result in loss of levitation which in
turn could drop the hero onto a trap that transports him/her elsewhere;
seduction was proceeding as if nothing unusual had happened
- #turn command which aggravated monsters did so without using a turn not a
pun)
- Fixed hole/trapdoor passage inconsistency when polymorphed into a giant
- Objects scattering during shop wall repair was skipped if a trap at the
same spot was also being removed
- Parchment and vellum are made from animal skin so change materia
composition and color for spellbooks with those descriptions from paper to
leather; eating those books now breaks vegetarian conduct
- Fixed monsters not wielding digging implements
- Give monsters who have had a worn item stolen or who have been life-saved
(used up amulet) a chance to wear replacement gear on next move instead of
having to wait until they pick something up
- Cancelled shapeshifter is no longer able to change shape
- Cancelled shapeshifter hit by polymorph magic will become uncancelled
- Wishing for "orange" could yield orange or orange colored
gem/potion/spellbook
- Prevent a leash showing unseen monster as "attached to it"
- The Drum of Earthquake was causing deafness but oddly enough only when
used up
- Shop messages referred to the shopkeep by name even when the shopkeep was
not visible but some used pronoun "it" or "its" in same sentence; ditto for
vault guards
- Samurai seeing items at a distance could have them be described by their
ordinary names rather than by their Japanese names
- Floating eye is classified as a flyer but flying is blocked while
levitating, so don't set intrinsic flying if hero is polymorphed into one
- Elbereth hypocrisy penalty doesn't apply if attacking a monster which
isn't frightened by the engraving
- Elbereth; normal scuffing of engravings still applies
- During creation, don't unset alternate weapon when a shield gets worn (was
preventing Knight from having lance set up as uswapwep)
- Poison gas (stinking cloud) wasn't being shown at drawbridge-up spot
- Death from something other than loss of hit points could leave hero with
non-zero HP at end of game (during "really die?" prompt, disclosure)
- Added several special cases for genocide and/or wishing prompt:
(cookie, pie, genie, watchmen)
- Lightning strike from Mjollnir did not make any noise
- Fixed odd wording "The boulder triggers and fills a pit"
- Attempting to #ride a long worm's tail could trigger impossible
"worm_cross checking for non-adjacent location?"
- Clairvoyance would show trap instead of a monster on/in that trap, which
was intentional, but when Clairvoyance finished the monster wasn't shown
- Clairvoyance revealing underwater or under-lava objects left object
displayed instead of restoring the water or lava
- If a migrating monster was killed off because there was no room on the
destination level it would leave a corpse even if it was a type which should
never leave one (demon, golem, blob, etc.)
- Attempting to untrap an adjacent trap while on the edge of--not in--a pit
failed due to not being able to reach the floor
- Magic trap's deafening roar effect wasn't waking nearby monsters
- Stinking cloud placed near water could kill underwater creatures
- Applying--rather than wielding--a cursed polearm or weapon-tool didn't
report that it had become welded to hero's hand(s)
- Dismount that killed steed because there was no room to put it on map
blamed hero; change that to only blame hero if dismount is voluntary
- If hero survives turning into slime (life-saving), survive as a green
slime
- Diluted potion of oil is less effective when filling lamps (adds less
fuel) or burning (lasts less long) or exploding (inflicts less damage)
- Vibrating square is not really a trap, so monsters don't need to avoid it
- If hero kicks some embedded gold out of a wall while following vault guard
away from vault, don't report "the guard _calms_down_and picks up the gold"
unless he's on brink of going ballistic
- Identifying or forgetting gem types now adjusts prices for gems already on
shopping bill
- When fire converts an ice location into a water location, dunk any monster
on that spot immediately instead of waiting until its next move
- Limit carrying heavy loads from water to land
- Life-saving while weak/starving/fainting boosted nutrition without
restoring lost point of strength, making temporary loss be permanent
- Demons gated in other demons without any message
- Various non-weapon attacks while polymorphed didn't inflict blessed or
silver weapon damage when worn items contacted vulnerable target monsters
- Hero poly'd into rope golem form could choke headless or non-breathing
monsters
- Hero poly'd into creature with hug attack could hug a long worm's tail
which rendered the whole worm immobile
- Teleporting out of a vault after guard appears could result in the guard
being stranded in a one-square long temporary corridor adjacent to vault
wall and periodically saying "Move along!"
- When donning armor, defer flagging its +/- value--which can be deduced
from the status line--as known until finished in case it gets stolen before
then (player might still deduce the +/- value but hero won't learn it)
- Valkyrie quest was supposed to have a 50:50 chance that northern
drawbridge would be raised, but both were always lowered; chances now are:
both lowered: 3/8, S down+N up: 3/8, N down+S up: 1/8, both raised: 1/8
- If a mimic concealed itself as a corpse, it could pick a monster type
which never leaves a corpse
   
NetHack Community Patches (or Variations) Included
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Curses: The community patch for an optional curses window-port has been
adopted.  The curses window-port evolved from work originally done by Karl
Garrison and has been in use in several NetHack variants and on
nethack.alt.org and www.hardfought.org/nethack/ for a while.

It is available and tested for 3.6.2 for Windows console with PDCurses
layered underneath, and for Mac OSX and Unix (using ncurses as the layer
underneath).  It may also work for MS-DOS with PDCurses, but that has not
been tested.

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/fixes36.2 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.

Again, a warning that some entries may also be "spoilers", particularly in
the "new features" sections, so read at your own risk.

2. Deprecations announced post NetHack 3.6.2

3.6.2 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.  We have had some interest in at
least one of these and would seriously consider help in any of them should
someone come forward with a viable offer for support:

    * 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.

3. Save File Portability:

Save files should be portable from version 3.6.1 to 3.6.2.

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/v362/bugs.html

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

Happy NetHacking!

For the DevTeam...

Mike Stephenson