Since I am so slow at working on this mod I have to worry about hard drives failures and the possibility of losing work.   I use the Windows feature called "File History" to backup my Last Resort files and have trusted it for years.

A few months ago I switched to Windows 11 and just assumed this File History feature would carry over from the upgrade from Windows 10.   Today I had something in the back of my head nagging me to check that all was working fine.   It appears that Microsoft has changed how File History works and has basically crippled the interface for it.  Ugh!  I don't think I can trust this to back up my files going forward and need to look for an alternative method.

On a more positive note I tackled upgrading a few more textures in the Bank map for Swat 3 the last few days.  The next release should include a substantial amount of texture upgrades to the game and finally start to justify the purpose for the mod.

As you may be aware of NeuWon has been down for a while now.    Just when I was about to declare it officially dead I notice that the owner has paid to renew the domain names Neuwon.com and Nuwon.net for another two years.

This is potentially good news to the Swat 3 community since the NeuWon network can be used to play Swat 3 online just like the old days.

All hope is not lost.

I have been concentrating on finishing up texture work on Mission B - Ghetts House.   A lot of the more difficult textures I have avoided and left for the end.  Procrastination is my super power.

Swat 3 has a lot of duplicate and re-used textures in the maps.  For instance b_door.bmp might be the same in many other maps except renamed c_door.bmp or d_door.bmp depending on the mission name.   Right now I am also cross referencing the names of all the new textures I have made over the years and copying them into other maps that use these duplicate textures.

I have a database that I created of all the texture names in the official Swat 3 maps so it is easy enough to do a search for these duplicate textures.  The only complication comes from the maps released at the end of Swat 3's life because they break the naming conventions of the earlier maps (ie Civil Unrest, Abandoned, etc).

This story scares the crap out of me.   A mod group called X Labs got a cease and desist letter from Activision and have deleted everything.  While I know the Swat series is old and pretty much forgotten about compared to COD this is still my biggest fear that some uncaring lawyer is out for a notch on their belt.

It's also worth noting that X Labs was not distributing complete Call of Duty games—it was just a mod pack, meaning a normally-installed version of the game was required for it to work.

Hopefully the fact that Swat 3 hasn't had online servers in over a decade saves us from the hangman.

Sorry for the lack of activity lately.   I am terrible at multi-tasking and have been busy getting ready for a week long vacation trip to the caribbean as well as various things that needed to be done around the apartment.

I haven't been out of the country since before Covid and I have never been to the caribbean so it is a big deal for me and the wife.

I really want to push out the next version of the mod after I get back so do not fear I will be back at work on it in a week's time.