You've mentioned that you peruse some fan forums such as those on thedivide.org. I was wondering - do you, as an author, worry about seeing posts from people in those forums speculating on future plotlines (sometimes even writing whole stories!) and having some of that coincide with story lines that happen in upcoming material you publish? There is the potential, down the line, for someone to say "Hey! You stole my idea - I posted that way back in **** on ***** and you read it and used it in your story!" I know many writers are concerned about this sort of potential liability and often avoid reading fanfiction or discussion forums for just that reason. For example - Michael Straczynsky, the Babylon 5 creator, only participated in a moderated forum which his employees had previously cleansed of future plotline posts just to insure no one could claim credit for an episode (or arc) storyline.

Now I worry.

I've already been accused of stealing people's storylines. The good thing about games taking as long as they do, however, is that we have documentation going back years, outlining storylines and game designs in detail long before the supposed 'theft' happened. And since the TLJ.s story is already done, it'll be hard for anyone to claim it's theirs. There are tons of frivolous lawsuits pertaining to the theft of intellectual property, but in most cases they lead absolutely nowhere.

And hey, ideas are cheap. We got more than enough ideas. It's the implementation that matters.

That said, I do try to avoid forum threads that explicitly discuss future plot threads. Why? I don't want to know if someone's guessed what's going to happen in the next game. If that happened, I'd probably feel compelled to rewrite the plot - I'd hate to lose the element of surprise. We're working very hard to make it all fresh and twisty for y'all.  ¶ 18:21