Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="WhatGravitas" data-source="post: 3980525" data-attributes="member: 33132">I don't expect it.For HL2: It's a computer game, meaning the data is digital all the way and there are many sources that can leak easily (i.e. Steam, from a CD, copy of the game on HD) - which were on PCs all over the world for review or similar purposes. I think that was also a big factor, after all, many people want reviews of games that come out simultaneously with the game, meaning that the magazines often have early copies.Harry Potter... well, it's not easy to control such a huge number of books and a much larger community of fans and enthusiasts.For D&D: PDFs are only for intern use (at least right after the start), unless they intend to release PDFs simultaneously with 4E - I rather expect they'll come later or with the DDI, i.e. a completely Wizards-controlled system.Furthermore, I suspect that Wizards is a wee bit smaller than Harry Potter, and they don't have as easily digitalized data as HL2 - unless they're deep in the interns or a part of the printing process.However, these persons are easily identified and will most probably be deterred by fines.This only leaves playtesters and people who got the book early (like R&C) - well, in this case, that's nothing new.And don't forget the type of D&D players: I suspect that HL2 players are more computer-enthusiastic than D&D players. After all, many of us prefer print versions, meaning there are less people who want to feed that stuff into the torrents.Finally, D&D 4E consists of books with heavy layout and use of illustrations. It's much harder to digitalize that than a Harry Potter.Further point: Wizards is sometimes pretty heavy-handed in dealing with such leaks. Read <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr248" target="_blank">here</a>. Basically a MtG playtest card got leaked... and Wizards sued a moderator (who posted the leaked cards) on a fan-messageboard to get find the leaks. I guess after that event, the guys at WotC are a bit more careful about leaks of any sort.So, after considering these points, I think the chance for a truly pirated leak is quite low, though I fully suspect at least a leak as in "in my FLGS a week before release date". Or perhaps a playtest leak (though that's much less probable, but still more probable than a piracy leak).Cheers, LT.</blockquote>

Verification