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."

Comments

Satellite Internet?

[QuantumG]

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?

Re:Satellite Internet?

[QuantumG]

No. Every two-way high speed internet provided by satellite is done with LEO constelations. As such, most of them have 80% earth coverage (getting internet in the Arctic must be a bitch).

Re:Satellite Internet?

[QuantumG]

uh huh. 150km * 2 = 300km / speed of light = 1.000692 ms. We're not talking about geostationary satellites anymore (typically around 238.738 ms ping times, which is still faster than most people on dialup).

Great Dome of China?

[Anonymous Coward]

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 summary is incorrect

[the_unknown_soldier]

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.

Re:The summary is incorrect

[Banner]

You know that most Chinese are dirt poor and can't afford those things right? Or that it's the death penalty to use it?
I don't think you understand just how totalitarian a communist government like China is.

Re:The summary is incorrect

[minus_273]

I hope someday you have to live under communism.

Re:In China..

[the_unknown_soldier]

That is a korea joke... but anyway.

If you had read the article, It states that most kids get their internet through cafe's, and most cafe's have limited open hours and minimum ages for entry. But these limits are decided by provincial governments so it is different in every area.

Re:WoW china ruined the new Alliance race..

[Anonymous Coward]

So China never saw release of The Frozen Throne? Sounds a bit fishy to me.

Re:So they limit access

[Joel from Sydney]

It's not just the Chinese servers that are region limited. I'm pretty sure you need a local CD key to play on the European or Korean servers as well. However, the list of servers you see is literally just a text file sitting on your hard drive. So realistically you can connect to any WoW server you want (including the illegal emulated ones), but I'd be surprised if a European WoW server accepted your US login credentials (or vice-versa). YMMV.

I think the segregation of servers is more for cultural and language reasons than anything technical. Managing a 40-man MC raid (or even just partying with 5 people for the Deadmines) would be pretty difficult if only half the players spoke English!

238ms? Let's not kid ourselves.

[jfisherwa]

Here's a fairly accurate report on the current state of satellite Internet service.

SARS did not affect WOW

[7-Vodka]

SARS was gone way before world of warcraft even existed. Missleading headline.