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 And
away we go!
Lurker Wyrm - 14 Jul 2006
So I bet you're
wondering why the Nudist Journal hasn't been updated in such a long time, right?
Well, read on to find out.
Disclaimer:
This story is entirely a work of fiction: nothing in it actually happened It's
been a long time, hasn't it? You're probably wondering why there has been such
a long delay between updates of the Nudist Journal, and I really hate to leave
people in anticipation, so let me explain. But first, I would just like to take
this opportunity to thank you for your patience and vigilence, you have not been
kept waiting for nothing; in fact, I think you're going to be amazingly pleased
about how this series has turned out. All of that aside though, the reason this
update is so far after the other one can be summed up in two simple words: lawyers
suck. Apparently, the Nudist Journal (NJ) is not entirely original. The story
we've been telling you up until now is very similar to one that ArenaNet (AN)
has had in its designer notes for a while now. Originally, they were planning
to novelize it and sell it, but the idea fell through and they put it on a shelf
in a dark room nobody ever goes into. Well, you think that would have been the
end of it, right? Wrong.
After we started posting our version of the NJ it started gaining immense popularity
and almost forced the site to shut down once due to the amount of bandwidth being
used; however we were able to prevent that by changing the way images were viewed,
which really cut down on the expendetures the site needed. I can't go into the
details since I'm about as computer literate as a monkey with fleas, but I've
been assured that the site is ok and not in any immediate danger. Anyways, because
of the immense popularity caused by the NJ, people over at AN decided to check
the site out, which was pretty nifty. Fortune seemed to favor us (what we thought
now) since we attracted the attention of Jeff Strain (JS) himself. Turns out fortune
decided to give us a pretty stiff kick (what we think now) since JS saw the NJ
and recognized the story from that one that AN put into that dark room nobody
went into. At
this point, things for us went from "wee!" to "wtf?" -- JS
sent someone, an intern that we still don't have a name for, down into that room
that nobody goes into and to the dark corner where the intern pulled out th AN
version of the story, which had been titled, I suppose in an attempt at humor,
The Emporer's New Army (TENA) and saw that the two were really a lot alike. From
what I've heard via rumors and stuff, he then ran out of the room that nobody
goes into and up to JS's office so fast that he caused 2 librarians to spill their
coffee (not that AN actually needs librarians because they don't actually have
a library, but when you're making as much money as they are you just have to have
librarians so that when you're on the phone with someone from another company
and they ask you a question you don't know the answer to you can respond with
"let me ask my librarians" and make the person feel vastly inferior
since they don't have librarians and you do), sent 3 fellow interns to the hospital
(they're still there by the way, going through physical therapy and seeing trauma/PTSD
counsellors every day), flattened Gaile Gray (GG -- the reason she didn't make
any public appearances for a month), and threw ten people out of the AN HQ elevators
so they wouldn't make him stop on the way up to the office. Because of all this
hubub, JS speed-dialed his lawyer to immediately begin the process of shutting
us down before the intern could even give his report.. Now,
I know what you're thinking at this point: how could he possibly have any case
whatsoever? You see, as it turns out, several of our members have direct access
to the AN personnel and even won a trip to AN's HQ back around the time of Guild
Wars' (GW) release. Apparently because of all this, we should have known about
TENA, sitting in the dark corner of the room that nobody goes into. I don't see
how, but a judge did, and thus began our war with AN. I'll save you all of the
legal details because they're a serious pain to go through (if you're really interested,
look up ArenaNet vs. Realms Beyond sometime -- something you should do if only
to see the look on the face of the clerk you ask), but after about 6 months of
courtroom appearances and phone calls with lawyers, AN quashed our version of
the story, winning a victory for intellectual rights as they put it. Not being
ones to hold a grudge, we stuck our toungues out at them and went on our own ways. That
was about it for the NJ and so I was starting to write up the farewell message
for it (it was rather heart-warming, if I do say so myself) when, in a really
bizarre twist of fate, we were contacted once again by AN (this was really the
first time we were contacted by them since until now it's been their lawyers who
did all the contacting, but you get the idea). Believe it or not, it was JS himself
who called us and said he felt bad and that he might have over-reacted a smidge.
Well, you can imagine the reaction over here at RB, it was a big, sarcastic, "duh...
you think?" although we were a fair bit more polite than that in the actual
conversation. As it turns out JS had never read the NJ himself, he just heard
that we used an idea similar to his and he immediately donned his righteousness
cape. Once he had finally settled down after the suit and read it, he liked it.
So much so that he got right back on the phone and called his lawyers and explained
to them everything he later explained to us about not reading ours and all, and
after what I'm sure was a long sigh-and-forehead-smack conversation, agreed that
they would give us special permission to continue the story. Yup,
they went through all that to shut us down only to tell us they didn't mind if
we continued the story. Personally, I don't understand rich people, but if it
gives us a chance to continue our story, then woohoo! Well, anyways, this entire
post was basically to let you all know that you can start expecting NJ updates
again. | |
