Patch 5.4 patch notes
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The latest patch 5.4 newsWoW China hit with more censorship upon relaunch
by Alex Ziebart 
Jul 30th 2009 at 8:00PM
Now that NetEase is in charge, they've had to make some changes to the game as well, though perhaps not as substantial. Potentially funnier, though. According to this Chinese website, severed heads and skulls have been covered up. Literally. Item icons that would show heads or skulls in other regions of the world are now bags, chests and crates in China. This includes things like Van Cleef's Head, and even spell icons like the ones used by Ruin and Improved Corruption have been replaced by bags.
It makes me curious if these edits include just the icons, or if they tried to justify them in the game world. Are you still looting VanCleef's Head (but placing it in a bag), or are you looting some of his personal effects of proof of the deed? It also makes me wish I had a Chinese account just to see what's all been changed this time around. Is it just spell icons? What's Icecrown going to look like? Did they need to make changes to any instances or raid zones?
It's always unfortunate when this sort of censorship happens, it's really not something you ever like to see, but I really can't help but be intrigued by the idea of the game world I'm playing in being so different for those in other parts of the world. If you happen to be reading us from China (or play on Chinese servers from elsewhere), we'd love to see any other screenshots you might have of what Azeroth looks like from your end.
[via Wowhead]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 10)
Hughlagagh Jul 30th 2009 8:13PM
"...I really can't help but be intrigued by the idea of the GAME world I'm playing in being so different for those in other parts of the world."
Irreverenthope Jul 30th 2009 8:13PM
I still want a bone free option for my undead...that being said, Censorship is wrong!
mibluvr13 Jul 30th 2009 8:20PM
What's wrong with my bones? :c I can't help what the plague took from me.
zappo Jul 31st 2009 9:07AM
Imagine that your girlfriend (or you if you're female) went to prom. But no matter what she put on, and no matter how awesome that dress looked, it always looked like she got assaulted by a super charged weed-wacker when she put it on. THAT is the problem with the bones.
Bod Jul 30th 2009 8:21PM
I've just spent 10 mins looking at improved corruption.
Am I just so totally blind that I missed that this is somehow a skull? I mean it could be a skull, but it could just as easily be a bloke with bug eyes and buck teeth after a bad night on the town.
Someone help me, do I have some sort of visual autism, or is this totally not such an obvious skull.
Ok Ok, it's a head, you ruled out heads, but really - really you ruled out heads...so my character is now stopping at the shoulders?
I'm just not built of the right stuff I fear, the sort of stuff that censors (and possibly lawyers) are, that's why I can't see all this.
mibluvr13 Jul 30th 2009 8:31PM
It's some sort of ghoul (looks like an abomination's face) either throwing up or having his... lower jaw explode violently.
Took me three years to figure it out myself.
spamofchaz Jul 30th 2009 8:44PM
It reminds me of the scrubbing bubbles from those old commercials
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO_hzdKIdhI
Bod Jul 30th 2009 9:13PM
*head in hands* i think my irony about censorship may have been interpreted as genuine concern about my capacity to recognise heads. time to move on me fears.
Jason Jul 31st 2009 12:44AM
I couldn't tell what several icons like that were until I got my 17 inch screen with better resolution.
Hansbo Jul 31st 2009 5:58AM
I think it's the recoloring of the abomination's passive disease ability from warcraft III, so yeah, it's an abomination spewing blood. Which isn't that logical.
Mynarc Jul 30th 2009 8:24PM
What happen to the Death knight class did they get rid of it like the rumor I heard from somewhere or have they just nerfed the visuals into the ground?
also what about Icecrown that has whole area covered in skulls
devilsei Jul 30th 2009 8:27PM
Its now covered in thousands of chests, which will most likely confuse people upon first seeing them, and dash their hopes of opening each one before anyone else does thinking that it holds goodies.
theholyevil Jul 30th 2009 8:45PM
@ devilsei
ROFL
also floating ghost skull pet has now been replaced with floating ghostly chest
jbodar Jul 31st 2009 7:40PM
They probably just changed them to really bad people with glowing eyes and dark armor, and called them Sad Knights or Unproductive Knights.
srhall Jul 30th 2009 8:27PM
It's really sad, isn't it?
A huge country, with 1+ billion people, with censorship being the tip of a huge iceberg which encompasses myriad human rights violations. Changing a skull icon into a bag is, well, not interesting at all.
And it's great that Blizzard is jumping on the chance to take advantage of the money to be made from subscribers in that huge market.
That's the story. Who cares how they've changed the appearance of the forsaken, or player corpses, or anything? How many dissident voices within China has that same censorship silenced?
fester Jul 30th 2009 8:48PM
It's not any more sad than a country who screams bloody murder over a 1 second flash of Janet Jackson's nipple on TV. Different cultures censor different things. The US apparently has a thing against female breasts while the Chinese dislike skeletons and severed heads.
notworksafe Jul 30th 2009 9:12PM
You're kidding right? You may be shocked by this, but Activision/Blizzard is a public company with stockholders. They aren't out there to save the world...they want to make a buck from it.
When there's a huge market like China, you make a few changes so that you can do business and make money there. That's just the way it is. You see it from companies like Google and Microsoft all the time.
peagle Jul 30th 2009 9:13PM
@fester
That analogy seems like low hanging fruit, but the situations are not remotely comparable.
yokumgang Jul 30th 2009 10:20PM
You can't legislate morality, folks. No matter how hard people try.
Gareth Jul 31st 2009 3:59AM
Fester, I think you'll find most of the nations on the planet have a thing against bare breasts on tv, no reason really too, but since its a cultural taboo and probably serves to not stimulate the sex drive of the population too much its fine.
The thing is if you want to watch big bare breasts then there are channels where you are free to do so in the rest of the world fine, since its your choice. The key thing was with the Janet nipple thing was that the Fox channel set itself out as a channel that didn't display that sort of video, but then did. Hence the fine since it was deemed to infringe on viewers choice as people who watch that channel wanted to avoid that sort of thing.
If they had displayed that on a porn channel it would have been totally fine.
So where in China are you free to watch WoW with a bone showing?
I think that's a key difference.