Xentertainment.info

I just got off the phone with the guys at Fantasy Flight games and they have confirmed that the highly anticipated World of Warcraft: The Board Game is now shipping and should arrive in stores as early as this Friday.

For those unfamiliar with Fantasy Flight they released the extremely popular Doom: The Boardgame last year and make some of highest quality boardgames around. The WOW Boardgame looks to impress check out these stats:

• Play as one of 16 heroes from nine classes and eight races, advance your character and gather treasure, battle thirteen different types of monsters, and ultimately challenge one of three invincible Overlords.


• Build your character up from level 1 up to level 5 (the equivalent to level 60 in the online game) all the while increasing your character’s stats, abilities, talents, and equipment.


• The game box weights more than 10 pounds(!) and contains nearly 1000 components including 16 sculpted Heroes of the Horde and the Alliance, 120 plastic monsters, and hundreds upon hundreds of cards and cardboard tokens.

Considering the impressive size (did I mention the box weights 10 pounds?) and scope of this game (games are reported to take 3-9 hours to play) I would say that it comes pretty close to convening the MMORPG experience in board game form. The game can be played by 2-6 people and retails for $79.95 … anyone up for a game?

So far, this is the announced card. I expect more fights to be announced before too long however.
-Fedor Emelianenko vs Zuluhino
-Wanderlei Silva vs Ricardo Arona(MW Title)
-Takanori Gomi vs Mach Sakurai(LW Title)
-Dan Henderson vs Murilo Bustamante(WW Title)
-Mirko Cro Cop vs Mark Hunt
-Yuki Kondo vs Kazuhiro Nakamura
-Hidehiko Yoshida vs Naoya Ogawa
-Sanae Kikuta vs Makoto Takimoto
A few […]

EFF Urges New York Judge to Reject Latest Surveillance Request

New York - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has asked a federal magistrate judge in New York City to reject a Department of Justice (DOJ) request to track a cell phone user without first showing probable cause of a crime. In a brief filed in New York on Tuesday, EFF and the Federal Defenders of New York argue that no law authorizes the government’s request, and that granting the order would threaten Americans’ Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches.

This latest briefing comes after a decision last week in Maryland denying a similar order, which combined with two recent denials published by federal courts in New York and Texas, represents an unprecedented judicial rebuke to the DOJ’s surveillance practices. The DOJ’s apparently routine practice of asking for and receiving cell-tracking orders without probable cause only recently came to light as a result of these newly published decisions; typically, such requests are made and granted in secret, without any public accounting.

“Even though three federal courts have now completely rejected the Justice Department’s arguments for tracking a cell phone without probable cause, it is still asking other judges for these plainly illegal surveillance orders,” said Kevin Bankston, EFF Staff Attorney. “How many public denials is it going to take before the Justice Department either stops seeking such orders altogether, or is willing to appeal one of these decisions and subject its baseless arguments to scrutiny by higher courts?”

The DOJ, despite claims that its cell phone tracking requests are routine, necessary, and perfectly legal, has so far chosen not to appeal any of the recent decisions.

For this brief:
http://eff.org/legal/cases/USA_v_PenRegister/EFF_FDNY_reply_brief.pdf

For more on cell phone tracking:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/USA_v_PenRegister/

Contact:

Kevin Bankston
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
bankston@eff.org