Project Lore

Mmm People. /Nomnomnomnom Blizzard Entertainment's legal team has been on a bit of a rampage lately.  After crossing some t's and dotting some i's the team, one that I can only imagine lives in the recesses of Blizzard's HQ, was able to finish off the MMO-Glider lawsuit in their favor.  Hungry for more, not enough food falls through the ventilation system and into their cages, the team began sending out cease and desist orders to nearly ever facet of the greater World of Warcraft community. The C&D barrage started off in the appropriate realm of private servers before moving towards legally grey demands.   More recently, the group of iPhone apps dedicated to our favorite MMORPG has seen their ranks thinned to endangerment.  Warcraft Characters, Warcraft Chest and WoW Realm Status, have all received a puff from Blizzard's pack of wolves.  A puff that has other authors fearful of their mailbox.  Lucky for them, the sights were moved to other properties, including the popular Shakes & Fidget comic and WarcraftPets.com's store.  It's still unknown exactly what Blizzard's intentions are.  Are they just protecting Warcraft's copyright from material that is deemed too alike, or is the company targeting these projects for some other reason, like plans to produce an official comic, store and apps? Just as few of the people in charge of the aforementioned projects saw the impossible-to-decipher letters coming, I doubt Blizzard expected not one, but two full blown lawsuits to be launched by The9.  The9 was formally in charge of WoW's distribution in China, but lost the renewal in April after a bout of financial troubles and the inability to get Wrath of the Lich King launched.  Losing a hot property, meaning one that prints money, like WoW would piss anyone off.  In true American fashion, The9 is suing Blizzard for the immediate property loss, as well as commercial defamation.  In severe laymen's terms, this means that The9 is trying to have property returned to them, possibly the servers, and they want Blizzard to stop dissing the company.  Of course, The9 will let this all go if Blizzard just lines the distributor's pockets with millions of dollars. We haven't heard a response from Blizzard yet, but I would be surprised if World of Fight (almost a worse title than Warrior Epic) isn't a little too close to WoW for the legal team's liking.  Countersuit for Copyright Infringement anyone?  The country in question is China, a land known for cheap knock-offs, piracy and a wall that is totally compensating, so I don't see Blizzard's chances of a successful lawsuit being all that great.  That doesn't mean the sharks won't try it. *Note: Signed on this morning to see that World of Fight is now World of Figher and seems to have something to do with Street Fighter... Come June, NetEase, the new kid on the block, will take over distribution and finally get WotLK out to the hungry Chinese market. What do you guys think of all this suing?  Has anyone lost their favorite iPhone app to one of the C&D letters?  I don't have an iPhone or iPod Touch, so for the moment all I have lost is my favorite WoW comic.  Dark Legacy is a suitably hilarious, but poorly drawn, stand in.  I hope they don't sue me for blogging defamation.

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Earlier this week this video (thanks Kotaku) showing that someone had created a way to play World of Warcraft on the iPhone started circulating. TechCrunch called it the end of the world, and Gizmodo thought it had some potential. I just want it in my hands! The technology behind the program is a program called Vollee. Most of the processing is not actually done on the iPhone, but instead uses streaming video of the rendering done on another machine. The functionality was pretty basic, but it includes auction house access and also what would at least be a great way to get some dailies done without having to bring your computer on vacation. Unfortunately, the future of this and all WoW related iPhone Apps is up in the air. Blizzard just issued a Cease and Desist order to the makers of the popular apps, Armory Browser, Warcraft Characters, and Warcraft Arena Calculator. These apps used information that is freely available on the Armory, so why Blizzard would do such a thing is not quite clear at the moment. Perhaps Blizzard is making its own version of those Apps listed and doesn't want any other products out there to confuse users. Perhaps they're working closely with the creators of the Vollee application to give all of us addicts a way to get some WoW in while we're on the go. Whatever the reasoning, there is still a lot of potential in the iPhone and other smart phones for all of us. As a user of an iPhone and a couple of the apps that got Cease and Desists, Blizzard's decision to send out those C&Ds is a little frustrating to me. Hopefully Blizzard creates something amazing or gives up some control to the huge number of developers out there. I'd love a way to log in and chat with people while I wait for the bus and using the Auction House on the road would be amazing. What do you guys think? What kind of phone are you guys using? What World of Warcraft apps are you using on your phone? Would you play WoW on it if you could? What other WoW-related apps would you like to see?

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