Never fear, Chinese WoW fans.
The Chinese government put a damper on the over five million Chinese players of World of Warcraft when the game’s publisher switched network providers two months ago.
Due to a licensing snafu and content approval process, the most popular MMO game in the world has been offline for 40 percent of its customers for the past several weeks.
Thankfully for genuine players and gold farmers alike, World of Warcraft has been allowed a partial relaunch on July 30. Yahoo! explains why it’s only partial:
But the government agency in charge of regulating print and online publications found some content during its checks that it will require Blizzard or NetEase to modify. The game will have to be resubmitted for approval after the changes are made, an employee at the agency, the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), said by phone earlier this week. He declined to estimate when the game will receive approval or to say what content must be changed.
Past content changes include having skeletons change into human bodies, and removing bones from the game’s locales.
“It’s to promote a healthy and harmonious on-line environment,” anonymous staff said, according to [Guangzhou-based newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily].
So healthy, harmonious environments don’t include walking skeletons? Whatever you say, churchy!
[Yahoo! and PCWorld have the info] {link no longer active}