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How World of Warcraft Operates In China
Danny writes "Gaming Steve has taken a detailed look at a little known aspect of the online gaming world -- how World of Warcraft and MMORPGs in general function in Communist China. Topics covered include the WOW China financial arrangement, censorship of WOW and other MMORPGs in general, different methods of payment for Chinese customers, and even how SARS affected online play." From the article: "Although private sector Internet service providers currently exist in China, almost all access to the Internet is maintained through stateowned telecommunication operators under the administrative control and regulatory supervision of China's Ministry of Information Industry. In addition, the national networks in China connect to the Internet through government controlled international gateways. These government controlled international gateways are the only channel through which a domestic Chinese user can connect to the international Internet network."
Can't you use StarBand or some other high speed satellite internet provider in China? Do they have a dome over China I'm not aware of or what?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Only old people play MMORPGs..
Seriously though, isnt there some sort of limit on how much kids can play?
I scanned the article, didn't see much on it.
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Do they have a dome over China I'm not aware of or what?
Well, you can never be too ready for Space Mongols.
The internet can be accessed without going through China's censors. First off, you can use a satellite phone. Second off you can use an encrypted phone line, and lastly you can use ssh and a European provider to ensure your communications are not monitored by the government.
Hell I say that they have vastly improved the game because of it.
The last thing we need is some overly cute bears running around in WOW.
So China never saw release of The Frozen Throne? Sounds a bit fishy to me.
They don't control the internet. They only control the ACCESS of the internet by their citizens.
As in every country there are groups of people who can only handle certain truths. The firewall censors the truth for those people in that country who can't handle it. Those who can handle it inevitably build tools to get around it. This same logic applies to the DMCA and America's attempts to keep certain things classified. Keeping honest people honest really means keeping certain truths from people who can't handle them.
Or are you defining "internet" as all interconnected networks outside China? On the other hand, are you saying there are only client computers in China and no servers?
I heard the players with the collector's edition panda cub pet have to pay a tax to the Chinese government.
Is there really any need to remind us all that china is supposingly "communist"? We all know it's not.
Currently in China the government limits the access, and forces third party companies to host servers for chinese players. The only differnece is that you cannot access the chinese servers if you are not in china. My friend currently in the US, has said that he needed to purchase a new WoW and create a new account to play. IS this really the way that *BLizzard* should get more players? HAving the governemnt restrict the access of the servers so that only people in that country have access to them. Blizzard should do something in this matter, so that players can connect to their own countries servers even if they are not currently staying there. *just an example of a company
Here's a fairly accurate report on the current state of satellite Internet service.
Foolish commie loving mods...It was no troll...
source
They can connect via anoNet http://anonetnfo.brinkster.net/
For everyone else check it out -- the internet the way it should be.
SARS was gone way before world of warcraft even existed. Missleading headline.
Liberty.
I'd love to move all of my software development to China. One small American company alone could double or triple the collective income of a smallish Chinese city. But the network connectivity to the U.S. and Europe is too poor yet.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
You would be surprized should you ever venture outside of your Windows world how much governments here and there, likely everywhere, have control over the internet, and not merely access.
I spent last summer in shanghai, and have a couple observations. WOW seemed to be one of the most common games you'd see people playing in the internet cafes, and the coca-cola ads for it were everywhere. Not only were all of the bottles printed with WOW characters on them, but the print advertising was astonishing. payment wise, there were a couple interesting things. I was tallking to a friend about the game, and when he wanted to start it up, he called a friend to get the account information, it seemed that it was common for a group of friends to share one account. At the same time, people don't expect to pay for software. you can be sure that most of the stuff you buy is illegal copies, even if it comes from an upscale bookstore, and most of the people i met would have emule running constantly on their computers. WOW seems to be making a ton of money because it's subscription system makes it hard to crack, and it seems to have really caught the mainstream attention in china.