Well, ok, I know he probably doesn't care if we get the Unreal Tournament demo or not, but it seems an "Act of God" ie, Hurricane Floyd will most likely delay the release of the second UT demo, the one that will support OpenGL and Direct3D. From what I understand, the first demo supporting 3Dfx will be released. I'm personally in Charlotte, and I'm getting some rain and wind now... Floyd is east of me, as is Raleigh, where the UT team is located, and it will probably cause some nice flooding, power outages and broken trees. Maybe blow the top off of Epic's office. Who knows. Anyway, here's the info:

Hurricane Floyd is expected to hit Raleigh pretty strongly late this evening and throughout tomorrow. This might be my last email for a while. We're expected to get at least 10 inches of rain and hurricane-force winds. The eye of the hurricane is projected to pass one county over from us (which is VERY close!) but hopefully it will be diminished as it travels over land.

In anticipation of the first demo release tomorrow we've launched http://www.unrealtournament.com." rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="external The UT web site isn't on a server located in Raleigh so it should stay up. I'll try to update it with our progress if I can keep power. We've sent a build of the demo/test off to 3DFX that could be released tomorrow in the event that we're unable to keep power here tonight. We already experienced a 45 minute power loss but power is back on right now. There are a few minor bugs fixes that we're hoping to fix but if power doesn't stay on that won't happen and the 321 build will get released. We've set up utbugs@epicgames.com for people to report bugs and problems with the demo. We're all backed up and I'll be taking a tape backup home in a waterproof container.

For those interested in tracking the hurricane you can visit http://www.ncstormtrack.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="external - the internet is pretty clogged tonight with people up and down the east coast hitting the weather and news sites for information about the storm.

There is a good possibility that we'll lose power for several days which could cause the delay of the 2nd demo (all APIs). If that happens we apologize in advance for any delays. A few days extra wait for a demo is nothing like the disaster that is facing most North Carolina farmers who are expected to lose their entire crops for the year due to this storm. Our hearts and concerns go out them as well as those who will be displaced from their homes or worse.

Ok, scratch the above. The security guard for our building just came up and asked us to leave the building. Apparently they're going to bolt the doors of the building so we won't be able to return. Carolina Power & Light told them the power is likely to go out at any time. They already have 15,000 customers without power in the area. We don't know when we'll be able to get back in, hopefully Friday after the storm has passed but we'll only be able to get into the building if it has power. During Hurricane Fran much of Raleigh was without power for an average of 3 days. The authorities say that this storm will be pretty similar to Fran or maybe stronger.

We hope 3DFX users enjoys the demo and we'll do the best we can to ship the full demo (with support for all APIs) as soon after Monday as possible given the events of the next day or two. Wish us luck!