WoW offline during NetEase transition?
p2pnet news view | Games:- NetEase took out The9 in the battle for WoW, arguably the most famous MMORPG.
The9’s contract with Blizzard ends on June 8.
So, will there be a “smooth, seamless transition” between the two operators?
Probably not, from the look of things.
In fact, Chinese WoW players may be cut off from the game for as long as three months, says Pali Research’s Tian Hou.
He believes that’s how long it could take, “mainly due to the government approval process”.
NTES needs two applications, “one as the operator of WOW in China and the other is content approval of Wrath of Lich King (expansion pack for WOW),” says Hou.
The app to operate WOW in China won’t start officially until June 8, and, “The application for Wrath of Lich King also has to wait until after June 8th.”
The two applications will go to two different government agencies, says Pali, adding:
“Even though some preparation has been done with the government regarding upcoming paperwork, the formal application procedure is still needed. Therefore, we believe Chinese gamers will have no access to WOW for a period of time. We believe 2-3 months’ time is a reasonable assumption.”
took out The9 – The9 and NetEase battle for WoW, March 27, 2009
Pali Research – WOW Transition May Not be Seamless for NetEase, May 22, 2009
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Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
May 25th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
A lot of frustrated Chinese players have turned to Thailand servers for their WotLK fix. That is, when they’re not playing on US servers, grinding gold to sell.