This is a cautionary tale…

The pre-pubescent massed moaned and raged over at the DoD forums, bitching and begging for pictures of the forthcoming port of Day of Defeat to the Source engine. Time and time they were told, “when we have something to show you”, but that wasn’t good enough for their teenage angst.

Tim “Waldo” Holt teased them, telling them of a presentation he had given in Washington that contained two pictures of DoD:Source that may, or may not, be on the Internet somewhere.

At once there was a flurry of frantic Googling but, having known Tim for a while through being involved with the last two DoD releases, I had a slight advantage and proclaimed after about 10 minutes how nice the new Anzio church was looking. Tim wasn’t suprised I’d found it and soon the pictures from the presentation circulated around the ‘net and various DoD community forums.

Yet still they bleated and oorgled like good little llamas, uncontent with that pictures they had. They were dismayed, distraught and filled with more angst that the new DoD:Source wasn’t the nearest thing to graphic reality on their PC. You cannot win against the minds of the DoD community. The concept of “Work in progress” means nothing to them. They proclaimed that “teh pictars suX0rs”.

However, there was a secret underground movement planning revenge on them…

Using the latest in computer technology^* a fake screenshot was created of DoD:Source and surreptitiously leaked upon the net. Some of us played along, replying nervously that the image was not supposed to be released and, in response, the picture was quietly withdrawn.

But the hounds had already smelt the scent. And the chase was on…

Over the next two or three days, DoD community sites were posting copies of the picture, claiming it was an accidentally leaked by the dev team and was a genuine picture from DoD:Source. It appeared on IRC channels, heck it was even re-posted five times on the DoD forums themselves with feverish excitement.

Ironically, no matter how many times we proclaimed it as fake, a minority refused to believe us. It was a cover-up conspiracy! Valve is just trying to disown the leak to protect it! Disinformation!

Yeah right. Your excitement is blocking you ability spot an obvious Photoshop fake.

It was fun, we had a good laugh and it just goes to show – people will believe anything on the Internet and comminuty sites will lap up anything for the chance of an exclusive.

Well, just to nail the coffin shut, if you still don’t belive its a fake maybe you need a little more convincing.

So long, suckers! :p

^{* 100% non-fact}

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