Posted Jul 03, 2007 at 06:08AM by Victor B. Listed in: News Tags: Blizzard, The9
Ó

Commander Felstrom, taken from wowwiki.com - Image 1What's an undead scourge without skeleton warriors, right? What seems to be a simple matter of missing content (flesh, in this case) is now stirring up the healthy gaming community in China. We just received word that China has forced World of Warcraft's undead skeletons to be fleshed out and covered with skin.

In an attempt to foster harmony in video games, the Chinese government has forced The9, China's World of Warcraft provider, to cover up skeletons with new skin, essentially turning skeleton undead into zombies in a recent upgrade. The upgrade also removed player corpses (which are basically skeletons) and replaced them with virtual graves.

Said The9 about the incident,

This modification to undead characters is due to the requirements of Chinese national conditions and policies. These small modifications promote a healthy and harmonious online game environment and will not affect players' enjoyment.


Some players are understandably upset about how even the virtual undead are forced to follow Chinese mandate, especially since it focuses only on Blizzard's World of Warcraft and affects no other games. For those of us who live outside China though, it does pose an interesting question: Would having censored content of this sort affect your enjoyment of the game? Let us know in the comments below.


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8 Comments


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   by oh wow (Unregistered) - 2007-07-03
 » wow

Whats going on in china? whats next? curfew? turn everyone into drones why don't you.

   by ,.. (Unregistered) - 2007-07-03
 » ..

Chinese government needs sorting out..

   by CrimsonKnight13 (Unregistered) - 2007-07-03
 » Morons

The Chinese government only wants more control and they use fake agendas to abuse that power. They honestly need to be taken out that so the Chinese people can lively freely.


   Re: Advertising -


   Re: Starayo - 2007-07-03
 » Now I don't mean to troll...

But there's no such thing as "living freely" or "freedom". They're myths that governments use to garner support.

Freedom is a bad thing. With true freedom the world would simply collapse.
   by adrian (Unregistered) - 2007-07-03
 » Our constitution clearly states...

Never drink another mans beer.
dont fire another mans guns.
and for gods sake don't F*CK with another man's wow experience.

   by Ned Schnittt (Unregistered) - 2007-07-03
 » "and will not affect players' enjoyment"...

...in theory. But in theory, even Communism works.

   by Rocky (Unregistered) - 2007-07-04
 » Why?

I fail to see the point. What is "unhealthy" about seeing a skeleton? How is a walking corpse more healthy?

Is the sight of a bare human skeleton THAT traumatic to the gold farmers?

   by Andy (Unregistered) - 2007-07-04
 » What?

I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April 1st when I read this. Seriously? This is supposed to make someone's online gaming time more enjoyable?

Perhaps when China sorts out the massive REAL problems it's facing instead of pratting around with an online game, they'll all be a lot happier. Poverty? Censorship? Limits to how many children a couple can have and forcibly removing them if they have more? Nope, that's fine - but this skeleton looks REALLY scary, we'd better remove it; it might upset someone.



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