vicarious
Latest
The Lawbringer: The history of Blizzard and MDY (Glider)
It's a Glider! Sorry, that's as good as the jokes are going to get. Greetings from The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly look at the intersection between law and the World of Warcraft. I'm a newly minted law school grad acting as your tour guide between bar prep sessions. In the last two weeks, we looked at the difference between purchases and licenses. This is of vital importance as a major bit of cyberlaw plays out in the Ninth Circuit, namely the next stages of MDY v. Blizzard, Vernor v. Autodesk, and UMG v. Augusto. Today seems like an excellent time to review the case of MDY v. Blizzard, as we've covered the other two a bit. My source for this history will be the excellent collection of files at Justicia.com, which includes all documents filed in the district court of Arizona in this case. Let's get started!
In pictures: a trip around the West Hall
The doors are open, and yet instead of going in and playing all of these games we've been hearing so much about, we went ahead and took a walk around the show floor with a camera just for you readers (imagine the willpower!). So yes, even though you may be at home or work, and even though you may be disappointed that you can't come out to Los Angeles and visit the E3 floor, at least you can do it vicariously through the gallery below. Enjoy.And oh yes: remember when they said it'd be bigger this year? They were right. The booth babes, we report completely objectively, are back. %Gallery-64853%
The Wrath unboxing and installation experience
Your copy hasn't shown up yet? We've got two ways for you to pretend you've actually gotten the game, even if you're stuck at work or Amazon hasn't delivered on their shipping. First, up above you can see our Ustream show from last night, featuring a very tired me installing and stepping into Northrend for the very first time. Yes, it's silly, and yes, it's a little wacky without seeing the chat (though I tried to say everything I was asked while we did it), but if you want to see what it's like to set up and run the game, there you go. The second part of the video is after the break -- sorry I didn't stay up to play longer, but you can at least get a good look at the starting Alliance towns in Northrend, and if you stay all the way to the end, I do find the object everyone will be racing for eventually.And our good friends at Massively have documented the event in their own way -- they got their hands on a Collector's Edition, and they've got an unboxing gallery up that you can flip through below. Sure, sure, laugh if you want, but not everyone out there has the expansion yet, and it's our pleasure to try to bring you the experience as vicariously as possible. Enjoy. Gallery: Unboxing the Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition
WoW Insider Show: The 50th episode
It was our 50th show this past week on the WoW Insider Show, so you'll have to forgive us for doing a little more backpatting than usual -- we promise that next week we'll be back to form for sure. But in the second half of the show, we did get down to talking WoW business, and the results are now posted online for your listening pleasure. When we weren't looking back at our favorite moments in the show's history so far (and giving away stuff to people who tuned in live), we also hit on: A live version of Ask a Beta Tester, where we answered listeners' questions about the Wrath beta in real time, including how professions work with Death Knights, what we're not so excited about in the beta, and whether there are any grind quests to be found. We devoted some time to discussing the Vicarious incident, and why it's wrong (or, in Adam's view, right) to give a Legendary ranged bow to a Rogue. And we answered emails about Hero classes and the possibility of another expansion announced at BlizzCon, as well as the fact that I dinged 70 last week, and the terrific Nethack, supposedly the first game with Achievements in it. Lots of fun stuff in the show. If you have questions or concerns to share with us, please do so by sending an email along to theshow@wow.com, and you might even hear it on next week's show. And as always stay tuned to WoW Radio on Saturday afternoons at 3:30pm Eastern to hear the show live, or hit us up on iTunes to download each show automatically. Until next time, have a great week.
