The hour has arrived, and the orders have been issued: Day Of Defeat: Source has been unlocked for all who have pre-ordered it.
The official release comes just 48 hours after the game leaked out into the Bit Torrent community, though the two events are unrelated. Naturally, we were playing over the weekend perfectly legally thanks to a special Valve Preview version, but we found two dozen servers full of some very naughty gamers.
"Don't worry," said one. "I've paid my $20. I just couldn't wait until tomorrow," one brash player told us, justfying him playing the leaked version a day before the official release. We're not sure that pre-ordering makes his actions any less illegal, but he at least is coughing up the 20 bucks.
Others appeared genuinely unaware of the illegality of their actions, asking other players if they were going to be banned as a result of playing this pirated version. Many more others were playing from the Far East, where piracy is commonplace and not seen as wrong. Both groups face having their Steam Accounts banned, and IP addresses blocked from servers.
Still don't know what all the fuss is about? Read our
Day of Defeat: Source article to see the improvements made over Day of Defeat: Classic, the difference HDR makes to visual quality (substantial!) and a virtual tour of the four launch maps.
If you're an existing Half-Life 2 owner, it's not too late to add Day of Defeat: Source to your Steam account - visit
www.steampowered.com for more details.
Once you have been issued your fatigues and rifle, report to our
PC Gaming forum to ask any questions you might have, or to hook up with fellow bit-tech readers for some furious online action. Or you can discuss this story in
News Discussion.
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