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D&D Handbook Distribution Lawsuit Settled For $125,000
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.'"
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
Basically, each set now has about five or ten "mythic rare" cards, many of which are game-changers, like the planeswalker cards, or see how popular the Lotus Cobra is in the new set Zendikar. I'll let you google the term from there.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
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%
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.
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 books! And anyone paying attention had noticed that Wizards had been experimenting with radically new mechanics 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.