Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

I would Quit WoW if Blizzard approve of this and not do the same for the rest of the world. Especially when the most gold farmers are from China working for 10 cents an hour. While Chinese players play the game and make profits none Chinese players are constantly spammed by them and are tracked down and fined/sued for such action when they have to pay to play.

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

Indeed - to echo Kentokae's remarks.
Shoukd Blizz go ahead with this (bearing in mind it seems pure speculatin at the moment) I see a lot of avid fans walking away to warhammer etc should the whole world not get the same treatment.

And if china is high on the popularity list then why not charge them - i dont see how the more people play in an area the cheaper it becomes.
Seems like a mad idea IMHO.

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

Its only free-to-play in China? So it wont affect us in Europa & USA?

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

It's something they seem to be considering. It's not a fact that they will do this. This is The9, not Blizzard. A business model that works well in the US and the EU might not work as well in Asia. Of course Asia would have to have a revenue stream from somewhere so I can't imagine it being completely free.

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

AHHHHHH a reason that is free is that the are major supporters of gold farming YOU BAI!

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

in communist china, games play you!

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

LoLz fuking chinese dont pay and we get da sh1t to pay
Blizz wake up plz

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

As funny as you tried to be, you are so true for 10 cents an hour

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

mmm i want free, thatd be nice

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

All the people threatening to quit fail. The whole point of WoW in China is that the servers are Chinese. This means that they'll be more inclined to play their free WoW on their servers than flooding our US, European, and Oceanic servers with gold! This would actually be good for Blizz to approve to clean out the rest of the servers of a majority of gold farmers.

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

If they get it free we should get a price drp to $10 a month. Keep game cards $30 but tag on an extra month

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

Lethanialist, the only reason anybody would play on their servers is because they aren't being paid to play on American, Oceanic, or European realms. If you are getting a profit to pay for the game elsewhere, why would you want to play for free and make no profit?

If they were to open up free realms in China, it would only make for more Chinese to learn about the game, and how to play it, and it would create a virtual training grounds for the future gold farmers and power levelers. Think of the PTRs. People use PTRs to test different methods and strategies to see which will work. If this is so, then we can compare the PTRs to these free realms. Give them a place to try anything they want, with no risk, and they'll take advantage of it. Anyone would, especially them.

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

Many games are free in China ,The9 want to make it free so that WOW can get more players.But i hope WOW don't like other free games.

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

if china get free wow then i want all chinese ISP banned from joined the US/EU server period they do that and the amount of gold spammers will go through the roof, lousy rice munchers ><

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

People obviously haven't realized the ideas behind the so called "Free to play" business model of new generation MMORPGs, the current trend in Korean/Chinese MMORPG market is that a lot of games are becoming free to access, however, the in-game items and special privileged items/skills are charged. This enables rich kids and elitist to spend as much as up to 30,000 RMB a week in a game, in fact, I have actually heard from my friends of people that are doing this. A lot of MMORPGs are transitioning to this business model in China, but most of them suck anyway, the only selling point of these MMOs are that they enable you to be uber pwnage, given that you are willing to pay for it, and yes, it's becoming an alternative form of entertainment for rich people who have jobs and need some form of relaxation, they want to cut the leveling, the grinding and enjoy the games on equal levels (if not greater) than the average players.

It's amazing how pride and greed can drive an economy, yes, China is corrupt, and that's why this business model is becoming more prevalent, go to any net-cafes in China and you'll see what I mean, some cafes have arranged agreements with MMORPG distributors to offer demo stations that are free to play, some even give out cash and prizes for the masses to gain popularity.

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

yes I know the system, I played silkroad online, where this was already implemented.
The most fitting description to this is legalized gold selling.

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

Let's be sensible about this, shall we? The9 is a company, and companies like to make money. Logically, if they're suggesting taking WoW free-to-play it's not being done out of the kindness of their hearts, it's to make them more money. The usual business model for this in China is to charge for high-end items, particularly important skills and ingame cash. In WoW terms, you could expect to see ingame cash for sale from an official store rather than gold farmers, along with various class abilities taught from dropped books, rare recipes and high end weapons/armours and other items all being sold by The9 for real money.

Those of you complaining that it will make gold sellers an even more prevalent problem in US/Oceanic/EU realms aren't thinking this through; the version of WoW being distributed in China only allows connection to Oriental realms, just as US clients can't connect to EU realms and vice-versa. Gold-farmers won't be able to play WoW for free and then sell the gold they make doing that to EU/US/Oceanic players. As to the suggestion that free-play realms will be used for training gold farmers, or to allow them to develop new methods of farming? I think they've pretty much got it down to an art form now, really, and I don't see this making a whole lot of difference.

Of course, all that being said none of this is set-in-stone yet, and it's very likely Blizzard will refuse to allow it, both because of the effect on ill-informed EU/US/Oceanic players who would think that the Chinese are getting the same game as they are for free and because it sets a precedent for Blizzard condoning charging for ingame items, which would undermine their attempts to stamp out gold sellers and the like.

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

Well, there is actually no law making "RMT" (real money trading, purchase virtual objects for real money) illegal, so technically there's nothing to legalize... *.* (at least not here where I live)

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

Vayne:
"US clients can't connect to EU realms and vice-versa."

Actually, this isn't quite right...
In the beginning, I played with a US version of WoW (I used a downloaded CD-image of the US version before I bought it for "real", (Ok, I gotta admit I played on private servers a year or so before I went "legal", but enough about that) and with that installed, I both borrowed a friend's acc, AND activated a guest-pass account), and then I connected to the EU servers with no problem. The only exception is when the EU and US servers use different versions (small localization bug fixes etc...)

The only thing being checked with the servers is game version. Errors which may be experienced in-game are in this case language-related (corrupted text etc..)

I don't know about other language versions than US/EU, but I wouldn't be suprised if other combinations work as well. (You're right about that WoW copies bought in the EU can't connect to US servers, but that's because of the activation serials, and not necessarily the software.)

Fri, Nov 16 2007 10:24 PM ()

actuall is it against the terms and agreement policy you sign after every patch, dont want to go lookit uo but it pretty much says no trading in game objects for real life objects (money cars houses kids) :p