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This wiki is mainly to hold text files that serve as a list of ideas that at some point have been considered for inclusion in xNetHack. They exist on a continuum stretching from "committed and actively being developed" to "rejected" and serve as the project's roadmap.

Why use text files instead of a GitHub project or other kanban board or project management system? Mainly because there are thousands of items in the "tentatively committed" bin, and that's probably overwhelming. The GitHub wiki feature also allows the wiki files to be edited offline as their own separate repository, so it works well.

High-level roadmap

No large scale effort is planned for xNetHack 9.0, which will complete the Monk quest overhaul and also include changes to make the game more fun for Monks.

Currently, large-scale efforts aren't being planned beyond the next version.

Candidates that have been discussed in the past include:

• Monster AI overhaul: not the sort of total-symmetry thing fiqhack tries to do necessarily, more extending the internals to support more interesting behavior.
  • mstrategy needs a deep look at in particular. I think the core strategy would be better off as an enum rather than a single bit.
  • This will probably need to disentangle the famous spaghetti code of the monster move loop. (See what AntiGulp has done with this.)
  • One important behavior to add is the concept of monsters having an aversion to things, in particular certain other types of monsters they are "afraid" of. A monster should prioritize aversion most highly.
• Merging player and monster spellcasting so that players and monsters use the same global list of spells, which have the same effects whether it's a player or monster casting it. Notes for this here.
• Addition of a Bard role, which will run with the idea of entering the dungeon with a few NPC player monsters that do the fighting for you.
• Addition of a Druid role (though evilhack will probably get here first)

Quest overhauls

I am trying to do one of these per release. In loose planned order, the Quest overhauls are:

• Archeologist (completed in xNetHack 7.0)
• Valkyrie (completed in xNetHack 7.1)
• Monk
• Barbarian
• Ranger
• Knight
• Priest
• Caveman
• Wizard
• Tourist
• Healer
• Samurai
• Rogue

Other links

xNetHack on NetHackWiki

aosdict's NetHackWiki page (proposals and other stuff)

xNetHack source code repository

NetHack YANI Archive, where things marked with #XXXX come from