China bans online gold farming

I wonder how this will impact the economy in World of Warcraft

China bans online gold farming



China has unveiled the first official rule on the use of virtual currency in the trade of real goods and services to limit possible impact on the real financial system. The Chinese government also spelled out the definition of "virtual currency" for the first time, which includes prepaid cards of cybergames, according to a joint announcement from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Commerce Friday. It said:

The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services.

The ban is primarily aimed at "gold farming," an Internet-age phenomenon in which players in less developed countries collect and sell virtual gold (common to games like World of Warcraft) to wealthier gamers in the developed world. This enables gamers who have the means to buy virtual gold to get ahead in the games without actually having to accomplish the grunt work.

The trading of virtual currency for real cash generates between $200 million and $1 billion annually, according to a 2008 survey conducted by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester.

The average user will only partially care about this ban. They might be disappointed that they can't buy their way to higher status, but I assume that Tencent and other popular sites will figure out a way to do in-game trades and that eventually the farmers will figure out how to bypass the restrictions.

The ban may scare off smaller shops, but the sophisticated organizations will continue on the same path. It reminds me of Japanese pachinko parlors where you can only win tokens (wink, wink) that you take next door for actual cash.

While I'm not convinced that gold farming is good or bad, there is a very persuasive argument that it's driving economic development in China, and that anything that perpetuates economic stimulus is a good thing.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10275180-62.html

Running through the Nexus instance with Cob the warlock

Cob is an affliction speced warlock, this is a guild run.
Nexus instance contains 4 bosses.
This run took a little over 1 hour, since we have two level 80 toons.

First boss, nothing special, just stand right below the boss.


A new wand for Cob from the second boss, I don't think a warlock benefits much from haste rating.


Third boss looks similar to the elemental boss in Magisters' Terrace, deals tons of arcane damage,
and summons adds from portals


Final boss, a red dragon, an easy kill.

Rare spawn Tukemuth, and other screenshots

I was questing on Calnar in Dragonblight, saw this rare spawn Tukemuth. Level 73 elite, no problem with Calnar Level 78 druid. Two blue loots.

Hunting down Tukemuth is an acheivement.

Calnar with Ryan's rogue stealthed through Heroic Slave Pen to return a quest.

A nice tanking cloak from regular Violet Hold

Running through Drak'Tharon Keep, learning druid's new skills

Tonight, I ran through Drak'Tharon Keep in Zul'Drak on druid Calnar.
An interesting instance, I also discovered druid's new skills added in the expansion.

Now, all weapons have a weapon attack rating for druid, even for weapons such as a sword, which druid cannot use.

One of the bosses in Drak'Tharon Keep, looks similar to the boss in Scholomance.

Druid's in cat form can use swipe to attack multiple targets, a nice AOE ability.

Druid's in cat form can do feral charge also, and cat automatically is behind the target after the charge.

Seems druid is a capable dps class in the expansion.

No Lich King for China?

According to multiple sources, it seems The9, official publisher of World of Warcraft in China, has not been given the ok to release WoW's latest expansion "Wrath of the Lich King". Even with multiple changes including the removal of the well known Death Knight, the governing body which was in charge of assessing WLK still rejected the newest proposal. This latest denial was possibly due to additional content which was not removed, as quoted here,

"The applications were rejected due to content that didn't meet requirements, including a city raid and skeleton characters;"

Rumors detailing problems between The9 and Blizzard regarding contractual issues and a possible meeting between The9's President Chen Xiaowei and top executives at Electronic Arts to discuss Warhammer now seem to have greater validity; as with this latest delay and the supposed removal of a link which connected WoW's simplified Chinese website with the North American one it seems as there may indeed be a fracture in these two companies relations.

If The9 continues to bring forth proposals on Blizzards behalf, it will be interesting to see what other things Blizzard must delete from the official version to get approval, and how much of their IP they are willing to butcher to comply.

What do you think is acceptable for a company to do when appeasing the government of a country in which they desire to do business?

http://news.mmosite.com/content/2009-03-11/20090311185015572.shtml

Latest patch messed up the arena system

Apparently, the arena system is messed up after the latest patch 3.0.8.
As shown on the picture, both teams received negative PVP rating increment after an arena match.

Looks like Stormwind has a harbor now!

Stormwind got expanded in the expansion, now a port city.
The ships in Stormwind tranport to Valiance Keep in the Borean Tundra and to Auberdine in Kalimdor.