D&D Handbook Distribution Lawsuit Settled For $125,000 124
The Installer writes "Wizards of the Coast is in the process of settling its claim against several individuals for illegal distribution of its newest copyrighted handbook. 'In one of three lawsuits brought by Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc., US District Judge Thomas S. Zilly on Friday accepted a settlement in which Thomas Patrick Nolan of Milton, Fla., agreed to a judgment against him of $125,000.' These were the lawsuits that went along with WotC's decision to stop selling the handbook in .PDF format. 'According to court filings, more than 2,600 copies of the handbook were downloaded from Scribd.com, and more than 4,200 copies were viewed online before the material was pulled from the document-sharing site at Wizards' request.'"
Re:Sigh. (Score:2, Informative)
On the other side of the coin: I got into D&D through 4th edition as have many people I know.
Their marketing has dramatically improved, the game seems easier to pick up and I'm seeing D&D expand pretty widely beyond the original core. I imagine that was Hasbro's goal and in that regard they seem to be wildly successful.
Re:D&D (Score:4, Informative)
They are supposed to be bringing back Dark Sun, but it'd be best to have very low expectations, cause they just want something "gritty".
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drfe/20090814 [wizards.com]
Re:for those who don't know (Score:5, Informative)
Re:for those who don't know (Score:1, Informative)
Actually, they added "Mythic Rare" a couple of years ago. The set that is releasing right now has something along the lines of "secret rare"
WotC has added "priceless treasures" into some packs of their newest release, Zendikar. It is estimated that about 1 in 20 boxes have a "treasure card". Some people have opened 2 treasures in a single box.
Almost all of these cards are valuable cards from the early years that are on the reserved list. WotC did not violate the reserved list by including them because these cards are from uncirculated backstock (or have been acquired off the secondary market)
For the first time in over 15 years you now have a chance to actually crack open a Black Lotus from a $4 pack of MtG cards. Winning the lottery is more likely, but it is still possible.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=186825 [mtgsalvation.com]
Re:for those who don't know (Score:5, Informative)
Can you give a little more information about the "chase rarity"?
Yeah. Specifically, describing it that way is the sort of thing you see from people who can't do math. What they did was make rares more common, then introduced the "mythic rare" at the approximate frequency ordinary rares used to be.
Odds of finding a specific rare card in the rare slot of your pack, older "large" sets:
Alpha: 0.86%
Beta: 0.85%
Unlimited: 0.85%
Revised: 0.83%
4th Edition: 0.83%
5th Edition: 0.76%
6th Edition: 0.91%
7th Edition: 0.91%
8th Edition: 0.91%
9th Edition: 0.91%
10th Edition: 0.83%
Legends: 0.83%
Ice Age: 0.83%
Mirage: 0.91%
Tempest: 0.91%
Urza's Saga: 0.91%
Mercadian Masques: 0.91%
Invasion: 0.91%
Odyssey: 0.91%
Onslaught: 0.91%
Odds of finding a specific mythic rare card in the rare slot of your pack, newer "large" sets:
Shards of Alara: 0.83%
Magic 2010: 0.83%
Zendikar: 0.83%
Odds of finding a specific rare card in the rare slot of your pack, newer "large" sets:
Shards of Alara: 1.65%
Magic 2010: 1.65%
Zendikar: 1.65%
Re:Nerds (Score:3, Informative)
For example, my soul knife uses Player's Handbook (Fighter), a Dragon Magazine (Feat), Expanded Psionics Handbook (Base Class), PHBII (feat), Complete Warrior (feat), Shining South (Prestige Class), Magic item Compendium (gear), a third party Psion book and uses a custom race varianted from an AEG book.
Exploring lots of books is not my problem with 4E. Its how little content there are per book and how unusable all of the content is for fear of an "unbalanced game". Yeah, you can get infinite attacks with an unerrata'd loop found a week before 4E launched using just the Player's Handbook 1. Games will be broken, that's why we have GMs.
The truth is, 4E still has less classes, feats and races after a year then 3.X had with JUST the SRD. Not even the actual books. Yes, I'm including monstrous races since I believe one of the greatest appeals for me in DnD was the ability to play more than a human, a short human, a short buff human, a big ugly human or a tall foresty human or a half-human half-tall foresty human with barely any the benefits of either. And I wouldn't even be that angry about it if Wizard's didn't market 4E as having 'more interesting races' like the half-demons and half-dragons. Despite the fact they had them in 3E at launch in the Monster Manual! Yes, level adjustments are a little odd...but the SRD includes rules for buying off level adjustments that balances them and makes them fun for the player quite easily (I'd say 'but they are a headache for the DM, but that's just not true for a competant DM who knows more than 'insert X monsters into room and see how my players fair').
Re:Agreed? (Score:4, Informative)
In theory, all legal cases should be decided on the merits.
In practice, as with all situations, dissing the people in power will bring holy shit of vengeance upon your head.
The sad part is that often times the shit will fall in the form of a prejudicial ruling, rather than a contempt of court fine.
Another thing that pisses me off in legal proceedings is how if you screw up, you're toast. Case in point: e390 v. Spamhaus. Technically, the us court didn't have jurisdiction. But once it was removed to federal court, "you automatically waived the right to contest any jurisdictional issues". A booby-trap.
Our legal system is hosed and strewn with traps that, you guessed it, only high priced lawyers are smart enough to work around. I'd call it a damned protection racket if you asked me.
Re:Nerds (Score:4, Informative)
That's just completely, utterly, false. Why don't you also claim you need to buy the official WotC dice? It's about as true as the rest you're saying.
As a group, the only WotC products you need are the original 3 core books, same as with 3E. You'd think this would be obvious from the fact that thousands were playing the game before all the other products you mention were even released.
Yes, if you specifically want to play a class from PHB2, then you need PHB2, duh. If you specifically wanted to play a warlock in 3E, you needed Complete Arcane. This is no different.
There's no reason to buy the "Power" books, unless you'd like more options for your characters. Same as with the "Complete" books in 3.5, and the spatbooks in 3.0. And Complete Martial is not at all a Paladin Supplement. It doesn't have any significant content for paladins, and it's explicitly not marketed as a paladin supplement.
As to the official mini's: these are not at all required, and I've never before heard anyone claim that they were. The same is true for a D&D Insider subscription. That's basically a subscription to Dungeon and Dragon magazines plus some online tools. Do you feel Dungeon and Dragon magazines were required to play 3E? I should hope not.
And what's that nonsense about 4E being a complete surprise? WotC announced 4E 10 months in advance. They even published preview [amazon.com] books [amazon.com]! And anyone paying attention had noticed that Wizards had been experimenting with radically new mechanics [amazon.com] for D&D for at least a year before that, so it was only an open secret that WotC was working on a new edition.
All in all, your post is nothing more than a troll.
Re:Nerds (Score:1, Informative)
Bullshit.
Without the Complete Divine (for example), a Charisma-based Paladin is an "incomplete" class, with a host of abilities that do not match their class designation.
The "base book" set (PHB, MM, DMG) is simply incomplete.