WoW currently free to play in China, fate still being decided by government

by Lesley Smith Aug 17th 2009 at 8:00PM

The trials and tribulations continue for Chinese MMO players, WoW, and its new Chinese provider NetEase. IncGamers is reporting that the beta of the game is continuing - effectively making the game free to play for those lucky enough to be taking part - while the Chinese government decides if enough changes have been made, such as the removal of corpses, gore and other unpleasant parts of the MMO experience, for the game to get a Chinese relaunch.

Since handing over the baton from from The9, things have not gone very well. After an extended hiatus which saw the game's servers offline while the data was transferred over, the game is still awaiting the final go-ahead from GAPP (the General Administration of Press and Publication). The beta was originally supposed to last around a week but because of the delay has been going on for nearly a month. However IncGamers is also reporting that according to NetEase, all the internal testing has been completed and once the GAPP are done, the game should launch pretty quickly.

Tags: china, chinese-wow, gapp, general-administration-of-press-and-publication, netease, netease.com, offline, servers, taiwan, the9, world-of-warcraft, wow, wow-china

Filed under: Odds and ends, Blizzard, News items

Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)

adshiel Aug 17th 2009 11:54PM

there is a world outside Azeroth?

JLocke Aug 18th 2009 3:52AM

MMO means WOW when you re-arrange the letters lol

susan.loila Aug 18th 2009 4:00AM

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Susan

http://onlinemariogames.net

snarkygoldfish Aug 18th 2009 9:01AM

...and now, a word from Susan Express.

STAY AWAY FROM MY KEYS! D:

Muse Aug 18th 2009 7:29AM

Will players have to start over, or is their characters and accounts saved so they can pick up where they left off?

Markluzz Aug 18th 2009 10:29AM

wait....So does this mean i wont have to deal with gold farmers anymore! Still dont really know if China trying to decide if 'WoW if appropiate' to play is that they think WoW is to 'gory' for their country, or they are just trying to piss off the WoW players in their country and stop Gold Farming.

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