ION Storm's John Romero updated his .plan with word on the imminence of the Mplayer version of the Daikatana Deathmatch Demo, to be followed by a LAN and general Internet ready version of the demo. Here's the skinny:

The modem interpolation bug was fixed just a couple hours ago. We're finishing off some remaining polish and sending it off to MPlayer for their final testing phase. We will be releasing the demo in the Practice Area of MPlayer first (limited release), then into the Tournament Area when Practice is through with their testing. When it gets into the Tournament Area, everyone can download it and try it out.

About a month or so later, we will put up the Internet Deathmatch Demo release so you can play over LAN as well and start up your own servers. Just remember: this demo is only for the first episode of Daikatana's deathmatch. Each of the remaining 3 episodes have their own different deathmatch feel because the weapons are all different. It's like 4 deathmatch games in one. (And one single-player game in one. :)

We've been working hard on getting this demo together and I hope everyone likes it. Sure, it's taken us a little longer to get polished, but it will be worth the wait. No use releasing a shab demo.