2023/02/17 - NetHack 3.6.7 is now available for play on the server.
2020/03/15 - NetHack 3.6.6 is now playable on the server.
2020/03/14 - We're happy to announce Keith Simpson (K2) as a new admin on NAO! This is the first new admin since paxed and dtype, and we're very excited for what K2 will bring to the server.
2019/05/09 - NetHack 3.6.2 is released! It is now playable on the server.
2018/05/15 - The server got an OS upgrade, and some long-needed AWS migrations done.
2018/04/28 - NetHack 3.6.1 is out! It is now playable, and the web site is being updated piece by piece.
2017/03/05 - ttyrecs are moving to AWS S3. These are publicly accessible at s3://altorg/ttyrec/USERNAME/FILE
2015/12/07 - NetHack 3.6.0 has been released.
2015/08/15 - Implemented NAO Web Player using hterm and kerio's wstty.
2015/08/11 - Server move complete to a *much* faster server.
2014/11/01 - The devnull tourney has started!
2014/10/31 - You can now download your config file, ttyrecs and dumps in a single package.
2014/03/23 - Added experimental support for UTF8.
2013/12/07 - Happy 10th anniversary, NetHack 3.4.3
2012/12/19 - Some minor updates to NetHack and dgamelaunch.
2012/11/17 - The flash telnet emulator now supports tiles, just turn on vt_tiledata-option.
2012/05/19 - NetHack updated, hp monitor removed, and statuscolors and hitpointbar added.
2011/10/13 - There were some access problems, but those should be now fixed.
2011/10/06 - You can now reset your password.
2011/10/03 - Dgamelaunch updated.
2011/08/30 - Change in database backend should mean website and Rodney are (much) faster for queries. Probably also means generally lower cpu usage on server, so in short, speed boost all around.
2011/08/30 - Everything back up and running for a couple of weeks now, and new OS install seems to have fixed previous instability issues.
2011/08/13 - New OS installed from scratch, and bringing services back up on what is hopefully a now-stable OS (Debian squeeze this time). Expect some blips but things should mostly be working now. Hopefully Rodney will be back tomorrow.
2011/07/12 - The server has been having some problems, needing occasional reboots. Investigation continues, and dtype'll reinstall the OS sometime soon.
2011/06/13 - The website should now be fully functional.
2011/06/08 - Testing with dgl/nethack being back up. We've tried to recover all of the games in progress. While we're testing for a day or so, play at your own risk.
2011/06/07 - Working through a complete server clean setup after what may or may not have been an intrusion (see post on rgrn). Please be patient but things should be back and running soon.
2011/01/13 - NetHack updated, SporkHack removed. Note the new bones-free play option for those wanting a clean run.
2011/01/07 - Shutdown for maintenance. We'll be back shortly... And we're back. We added a bit more drive space for long term ttyrec storage.
2010/11/10 - We're now hosting the NetHack Wiki.
2010/10/11 - We hit a filesystem limit, so some emergency maintenance was in order. Website and IRC-bot Rodney haven't yet been updated.
2010/05/02 - Server updates.
2010/05/01 - The server will be shut down for maintenance. Dgamelaunch and SporkHack updated.
2010/02/13 - The server has been moved to an Amazon EC2 instance. If you encounter any problems, email nethack at this domain.
2009/11/22 - SporkHack is available again. Hiscores are here.
2009/11/19 - IRC bot Rodney now reports also to twitter: all games, and ascensions only.
2009/11/16 - Installed a flash-based telnet applet, soiled.
2009/11/08 - We now have discussion forums. Your NAO login is not connected to the forums.
2009/11/06 - Participate in the NetHack Poll 2009
2009/10/19 - dgamelaunch updated to v1.5.0; Sporkhack removed for now. You can now telnet to port 14321 too, in case normal telnet port is blocked.
2009/10/17 - Due to admin fuckup, NAO will be down for a bit. Stuff lost: dgl login db, some user ttyrecs.
2009/09/07 - Added pages that list player's game endings, grouped, to the player page.
2009/08/26 - Added Player List.
2009/07/26 - Updated Sporkhack to newest version from SVN.
2009/04/22 - Added a page that shows extended logfile info to the player info page.
2009/03/09 - Top timewasters
2009/01/19 - Dudley's (New, Improved) Dungeon
2008/12/20 - You can download the NAO diff file, done against vanilla NetHack 3.4.3
2008/12/19 - You can now also play SporkHack on the server, and see the Spork hiscores.
2008/11/18 - Added Best behaving ascensions.
2008/11/16 - The 100 Fastest ascensions, in realtime and in turns.
2008/11/02 - Now testing: NAO_TV.
2008/09/18 - Some of the dumplogs were accidentally compressed a week ago when we compressed the ttyrecs.
2008/09/11 - The NetHack playground ran out of free HD space, due to ttyrecs not getting compressed. Also, the server was rebooted.
2008/03/22 - You can now download your TTYRECs from before The Crash. That page is also linked to from each player's user page.
2008/03/21 - The website should be working as normal, with some very minor changes. Added a page that lists player activity.
2008/03/19 - New NetHack playground is up and working. Saves have been lost, but there's some hope of getting rcfiles from the old HD. Website doesn't work yet fully.
2008/03/17 - New HD installed. NetHack isn't available on the server yet, but we're making progress. (See, the website works!)
2008/02/26 - The server is suffering from some hardware problems, possibly a wonky disk; dtype is working on it, play at your own risk!
2008/02/20 - Yet Another Mysterious Glitch. Things should be back up as normal. Contact paxed on IRC or via email if you need game recovery.
2007/12/25 - dgamelaunch updated again, it now supports sorting the watching-list.
2007/12/14 - Updated the dgamelaunch to the newest version from the svn. If you have any problems with it, please contact paxed. (via IRC or emailing him on alt.org)
2007/08/13 - Most web services are working again, although there are still a few to clean up. Corrupt save games and/or games in progress are next. All viable games from before the crash have been recovered.
2007/08/12 - We had a critical boot drive failure at NAO, and are finally back today. The game should be fully functional, and the website is back, but not yet updating with new info. Due to the forced upgrade, NAO is on newer, faster hardware with a much more recent OS install.
2007/08/06 - Added High scores for the last 60 days.
2007/05/27 - Eidolos is organizing a June nethack.alt.org tournament!
2007/04/13 - Added game statistics bar graphs to the player info page.
2007/01/27 - Added Z-Scores page, alternative way to rank players based on their ascensions, and Ascension streaks
2007/01/15 - The server was down some hours due to an unknown glitch, possibly hardware based. Everything should be back to normal now, though, and we're investigating the root cause.
2006/12/01 - The Tourney is now over, congrats to the winners!
2006/11/01 - The devnull tourney has started!
2006/09/17 - List of things people have wished for on nethack.alt.org: wishes, without numbers and uncluttered. These were parsed from the ttyrec files.
2006/08/17 - NetHack could use some more random messages. Do you think you've got good ones?
2006/08/16 - What item in NetHack do you prefer? Check the Item Vote
2006/07/01 - The June Tournament is now over. Eidolos has a page that lists the Trophy winners, and he posted the post mortem to rgrn. Congrats to the winners!
2006/06/01 - We now back up the end-of-game dumplogs every 5 minutes. If your game ends faster than that, the previous dumplog won't get backed up.
2006/06/01 - Eidolos is organizing a June Tournament. All you need to do is play on NAO! Check out the tourney info and trophy winners.
2006/05/09 - Added average deepest dlvl and two colored charts, one for all games and one for all ascensions. Also reordered the index page a bit.
2006/04/19 - Added TTYREC Decoder, which will allow you to see the first few pages of the ttyrec.
2006/03/23 - Added page preferences. The pages that are affected have 'Prefs' -link near the top.
2006/03/09 - Added Lowest Scoring Ascensions
2006/02/12 - Added a page that lists games played on a certain date. It's linked to in the games/highscore per day-page.
2006/02/11 - Added a page about Player ascensions
2005/11/28 - This month marks the 4 year anniversary of nethack.alt.org. Thanks to all the players that have made this site more enjoyable for us all.
2005/11/28 - Congratulations to DeathOnAStick, whose 1.8M turn gem extravaganza entertained us all.
2005/11/17 - Added a page that shows all games for a player in the raw logfile format. See any Player Info page for a link.
2005/09/20 - Added live stats and a page that lists all user data, plus other minor tweakage.
2005/09/12 - Tweaked the website a bit.
2005/09/11 - We had a small outage due to a mistake. (bad paxed, bad!)
2005/09/02 - We now have a Java applet which allows you to play on the server.
2005/08/29 - Added yet another web frontend and stats about roles and races in hiscore.
2005/05/21 - Added a new web frontend for editing your NetHack config file. Thanks to blindcoder for the original code.
2005/05/18 - We had a full HDD and minor nethack crash, but just moved the nethack chroot environment to a completely separate drive. All savegames should be fine. The only lost data was new login info if you registered in the past 30 days. You'll just need to reregister if you're a new user. Savegames/options/etc will all be intact though.
2005/04/21 - Bleh, lots of games active... etc...
2004/07/23 - I know we haven't had news recently, but this site is still as active as ever, and growing rapidly! Nethack is long lived like that. Telnet in and watch some games to join the madness.
2004/02/29 - dgamelaunch 1.4.3 fixes a few bugs, and dumplog, sortloot, and showborn/extinct patches were added to nethack today.
2004/02/16 - On nethack 3.4.3 now. All savegames intact. All patches seem to work, as does dgl mail now. Cross your fingers.
2004/02/06 - dgamelaunch 1.4.0 is out, with bug fixes, new term stripping support, and more. Thanks to jilles and the #nethack team on freenode for putting this together.
2004/02/04 - After a catastrophic power supply failure, NAO is on new hardware and better than ever. Text mode games are now powered by a 2x3.06GHz Xeon with 4GB RAM.
2003/08/30 - dgamelaunch 1.3.1 introduced preliminary supportfor stripping out DEC graphics sets from viewed games. IBM graphics are next, but things are still very much experimental still right now.