Hey old friends, and I emphasize the word OLD

I still remember playing the Chinese theater online with my late friend in March 2005 and hiding in the ducts.  Loading the game takes me right back.

Yeah it would be nice if SWAT3's multiplayer could be brought up to more modern standards, like Quake3ish. Like servers that run themselves, have map rotations, IPV6 support, etc.

To do that we need someone to 'liberate' the game, by decompiling and recompiling the code, thus fulfilling what was supposed to have been done 2 decades ago. I don't have the skills to do it myself, or I would be already. I know it wouldn't be easy, but it has absolutely has been done successfully with other games. A tool like Ghidra might be good for that. We just need the right sort of person to do it.

I just saw the first new forum post on swat 3 reunited for months and it was on this exact topic.  Apparently that neuwon program worked well but the guy who created it went dark and took his work along with him.  So, while that is a bummer at least it proves that it can be done.  One source of inspiration for me is the incredible job alien abducter did with exporting the map geometries and making them viewable via browser through this site.  If there was a way for people to play swat through their browser without installing anything, that would be amazing.  It's such a small, light program it seems like it should be feasible.

What I would like to see is SWAT3 liberated from control of those who don't care about it, but don't want to let anyone else have it either - even if that means someone has to leak/decompile.

It would open the doors to doing a lot of things with it.

I have definitely seen mega-corporations gobble up software and warehouse it without any clear intention of ever using it, seems like they only want to prevent their competitors from using it.  There was an amazing program created in the late '90s called surface suite that did an outstanding job wrapping 2D images onto 3D objects to create textures.  Some french multinational bought out the company that developed it and who knows where that code is being kept.  Another excellent program that got "parked" was called 3dmenow, delivered truly mind blowing results without much resources.  It seems fitting that microsoft of all companies would end up with the keys to the swat 3 castle.

Did you ever come across a swat mod/map bundle that was a night of the living dead zombie mission?  I vaguely remember playing it years ago and the person that created, who I believe may have been Mursey, figured out a way for NPCs to perform melee attacks by coming into contact with your player character.  Have searched the interwebs for it but can't find a trace of it.

Yeah, it's unfortunate.If copyright law was the way it should be, then they would've been forced to release it after 15-20 years. Instead they just throw it in a vault and no one ever sees it again.

Sadly I never saw that mod about the night of the living dead. Maybe Copy-Cat would know about it. Sounds interesting though.

Yes, that zombie mod/map was totally nuts, I remember playing it and my mind was blown at how they had basically done a total conversion of swat almost on the level of half-life to the original CS when it was still a mod.  After revisiting the swat program files and associated data, my hunch is that the key to everything lies in using worldcraft to embed unusual features in the map itself.  For example, that crazy tarantula pit in the basement of ventura hotel or the matrix mission with the agents.  Or even how on certain missions you can fall off a building and die.