Beta Contest and Piracy

[One_Dead_Villy]

there is always that possibility
although if they expect to play multiplayer they will eventually need a patch or something and that will disable any crack. plus the game is copy protected and requires the cd to play so it wont be easy to crack.

[MarkG]

it's possible but it will lack many things from the final one and does have bugs after all....

[Alex]

They will have all the winners' addresses...

[WarpStorm]

And since there are only a thousand of them, they could easily 'fingerprint' them to know who leaked it. Nearly all of the betas I've been involved in used 'fingerprinted' versions so that they could prosecute the beta tester who leaked it.

[MarkG]

they could easily 'fingerprint' them to know who leaked it.

as an indication, beta #2 has a registration code(unlike beta #1 if i recall correctly)....

[tniem]

I had read conspiracy instead of piracy. My bad.

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by MarkG
it's possible but it will lack many things from the final one and does have bugs after all....

Yes, this is typical for open betas. Expect limited ages, and some disabled features.

[MarkG]

all ages are included....

from the readme

Things not available in this Beta but will be in the final product:
· Scenario Editor
· Script Editor
· Load a scenario
· Recorded Game Playback

and of course 8 more civs, or the currently known issues with video/audio cards

[MarkG]

there isnt a note about it in the known issues part of the readme ....

[HuangShang]

how big is the disk for the beta anyway? 700meg? 200meg?

[Abdul-Aziz]

I had AoE2 (AoK) beta pirate version I remember... Well, it lacked so many things from final and it was bug-full. I later bought original final version...

[Abdul-Aziz]

HuangShang, Most of CDs are 600-700MB, there are also those "small CDs", but I doubt they would install beta in one of these...

[tniem]

That is the size of the CD but that does not mean its filled.

[vovan]

I think I read somewhere around here (or maybe at RoNC, or heaven or something) that the size of the CD was about 360 - 400 MB, though I am not totally sure...

[Abdul-Aziz]

I thought RoN would come in more than one CD, like most of current "modern" RTS games...