Greetings everyone!

I'm conducting research for a US-based article on the differences between WoW China and WoW North America/Europe, and I have lot of questions about WoW China, how it operates, and even your own personal experiences.

Can you help out? If so, here are some of my questions:

1. What are some of the major differences you have noticed between China realms and US-based realm users? Culturally, socially, etc.

2. Have there been any studies or research (or official announcements from NetEase) that confirm the total number of WoW China subscribers? Or the approximate number of users from China playing on Taiwan or EU/US-based servers?

3. How do subscriptions work? Can gamecards (and rechargeables) be purchased from any vendors? What are the price differences?

4. On average, what would a normal player spend per month for playtime? (In comparison to the fixed $15USD per month in NA.)

5. On average, how many hours per month are spent playing WoW? What are the methods for controlling the total amount spent playing the game? (Are they client-side or monitored server-side?)

6. How successful are those time limitations? Do users have methods to bypass? (For example, multiple accounts.)

7. What's the maximum amount of time a player can spend per month?

8. What are some of the major differences in game play, graphics, or features between WoW China and WoW NA?

If you know of anything else that's interesting or informative, please let me know. Keep in mind that this would be read by users who have absolutely no knowledge of World of Warcraft in China.

Thanks everyone.

Hello,

I'll try to answer these questions as best as I can.

1. If you were to compare CN players and US players, the first you would notice upon arrival is that the CN players are much more closed towards foreigners, or maybe shy.
Culturally, of course there are no Chuck Norris jokes and whatnot, but they are still interested in anything new you can show them and in return I ask them the chinese names of instances that I can't seem to memorize==.


2. I'm not sure about this, but I highly doubt it if it's more Netease. (Click Me!-WoW duowan).
As for the number of users from China playing on TW or EU/US servers nothing.


3. Subscriptions=gamecards. Instead of paying the usual $15/month, chinese players are expected to buy "gametime" cards, approximately 600 mins. One card of 600mins costs 30 yuan. There is also a gamecard available for 15yuan but give half the time instead, 300 mins.



Nowadays, WoW cards can be bought at game stores, 7eleven,etc.


4. There isn't an average in this case. Since your gametime is fixed by how many mins you've added to your account, there's no weekly, monthly, yearly limitation.


5. I...guess this varies from player to player. But I cannot help you here .
As for limitation, all players need to attach a Chinese ID card to there account to prove that they are 18 years old or older. If the ID attached was younger however, after 3 hours of playing on the account, all XP gains, loot would stop also known as "Health Lock" to prevent children from "overplaying".


6. In the Health Lock situation, I remember other people on this forum sending other copies of ID cards to Netease, to "exchange" the fail card with one that would work.


7. No maximum amount. It's all about the cards.


8. Gameplay: We are stuck with Burning Crusade content but playing with Wotlk talents.
If you play on an official Chinese client published by Netease, the skeleton of your corpse is replaced by a tombstone. Certain icons with skulls of them have been replaced by boxes,etc.

That is all.

If you are an adult you can actually only play for 18 horus a day that is (3) six hour sessions with a 2 hours session in between of tired time...

Children can play a total of 6 hours a day with a total of 2 sessions with 1 session of 2 hours of downtime for tired time.

Also another note is not sure if you asked but i will give you the info anyway. Some of the Chinese actually speak english. They will answer you with a (?) first if you type english and then if you continue in english they will assist you with understanding them. Most chinese I have played with thus far with either type in english or pinyin, OR use a Chinese to English converter which helps a bunch

Urubean,30yuan=4000mins,15yuan=2000mins for game cards.Not 600mins and 300mins.

zhenshibendan wrote:

Urubean,30yuan=4000mins,15yuan=2000mins for game cards.Not 600mins and 300mins.

yeah sorry.. 600 dian =/= 600 mins haha

1. What are some of the major differences you have noticed between China realms and US-based realm users? Culturally, socially, etc.

I would say the difference is ultimately minimal and varies depending on server. The main difference is that some people in game are available for hire for in-game gold to do things ranging from raids to power leveling. It is possible to go from level 10-70 without ever spilling blood and do so very quickly. It's also possible to purchase raid gear for gold. I would say the Chinese are slightly more motivated (gold has real world value) and slightly more organized by working in teams to make gold). I never saw this on US realms.

2. Have there been any studies or research (or official announcements from NetEase) that confirm the total number of WoW China subscribers? Or the approximate number of users from China playing on Taiwan or EU/US-based servers?

China is not big on actual numbers.


3. How do subscriptions work? Can gamecards (and rechargeable) be purchased from any vendors? What are the price differences?

China has an internet cafe on every corner. Every single of them can access the web for 'codes' that can be entered into the blizzard website for time. For 15 rmb (2 dollars) you can play world of Warcraft with all expansions for 2000 minutes. (For this reason I have 8 accounts, because I do pay monthly fees and often play 2 or more accounts at once I can pick and choose what I like to have online. I really enjoy the freedom provided by metered time instead of a monthly subscription.


4. On average, what would a normal player spend per month for playtime? (In comparison to the fixed $15USD per month in NA.)

15$=105rmb=7x15rmb cards=7*2000 mins=14000 mins=233 hours. (approx)

For 15 US dollars you can play 233 hours of C-WoW.

5. On average, how many hours per month are spent playing WoW? What are the methods for controlling the total amount spent playing the game? (Are they client-side or monitored server-side?)

Chinese WoW is registered by Chinese ID cards. Children IDs are limited to a few hours per week, while adult IDs have no restrictions.

6. How successful are those time limitations? Do users have methods to bypass? (For example, multiple accounts.)

Only Children have this problem, and only need an adult ID to bypass the problem.

7. What's the maximum amount of time a player can spend per month?

= How many hours in that month.

8. What are some of the major differences in game play, graphics, or features between WoW China and WoW NA?

Minor modifications to the graphics are made for some images, corpses become tombstones, skeletons become zombielike. Some items in game that have decapitated head graphics are also changed. However, using a patch NA client gives NA graphics even while using Cwow.

One thing that I read on an American website about C-Wow is the misconception that BC is new in China. This content has been out for a long time (more then a year when I started playing) and I guess as much as 2 or 3 years. Not February as what was quoted elsewhere.

WoWLaoWai wrote:

The main difference is that some people in game are available for hire for in-game gold to do things ranging from raids to power leveling. It is possible to go from level 10-70 without ever spilling blood and do so very quickly. It's also possible to purchase raid gear for gold. I would say the Chinese are slightly more motivated (gold has real world value) and slightly more organized by working in teams to make gold). I never saw this on US realms.

Wow, that is very interesting. Can you elaborate on that more?

- For example, you mentioned that you could purchase raid gear for gold. Do you mean that you pay someone to raid with them, and you collect specific drops? Or are there differences in vendor items between China and US realms?

- Are there any other services like this that the Chinese offers? For example, creating guilds, setting them up, and selling them to other players?

- You mentioned that gold is very important because it has "real world value". Is it pretty common to buy/sell gold? Is NetEase involved in the buying/selling of gold or gear?

In NA, it's against the Terms of Use so if you're caught buying/selling gold (into real world money) then your account is banned. It's also very rare that players are involved in buying/selling gold, it's typically less than 5% of the virtual population.

- Are there big differences between the price of items on China Auction Houses versus US realms? For example, I can make 4000-5000G in about 2 hours of work.. but a character having 100k gold, for example, isn't considered a lot. Can you give me an example of the average prices of DISENCHANTS on China Auction Houses?

Thanks for all of this information, keep it coming! It's very interesting.

Urubaen wrote:

We are stuck with Burning Crusade content but playing with Wotlk talents.

That's cool, I didn't know that.

Is there anything else from WOTLK that has been carried over?

I assume that you have the Inscription profession, but just not WOTLK-specific glyphs? I assume there is also an Achievement system in place?

What are some of the primary methods that Chinese players use for making gold? Is it primarily farming, raiding, professions.. are do some players engage in cross-faction AH trading (ie, selling Faction-Exclusive items to the other side.)

chinese gold raids : a group of 25 players head up to black temple or sunwell and kill everything, each bosses loots are auctioned / bid and the highest bidder pays gold. at the end everyone splits the gold who is eligible for work status, ie, has good gear and made the raid a success. buyers typically don't get paid.

chinese wow has a huge gold market. it seems like nearly everyone is either a buyer or a seller. gold sellers are people who make money at raids or power leveling, gold buyers are people who trade time-cards for gold.

i think more people buy gold in NA than you imagine, but it's nothing like china.

How do you buy gold in China? Ive always gotten the random whispers but cant make out what they are saying. Do they have websites like in America?

breseis wrote:

How do you buy gold in China? Ive always gotten the random whispers but cant make out what they are saying. Do they have websites like in America?

Here's a related question for players on the China-based realms. How much gold can you make in one hour? And, what can that be sold for?

For example, 2000G every hour, and that can be sold for 25-30 yuan.

I won't say how much gold/hour but rather how much gold per raid.
Isle of Quel'danas and its dailies is useful and all, but why spend 1 hour(?) farming dailies when you can just go to a gold raid, be done in 3 hours(pro-team) and come out with a nice amount of gold?

Symien wrote:

For example, 2000G every hour, and that can be sold for 25-30 yuan.

.

Yeah. I'd say 2000g for 30 yuan, since some players sell game cards for gold. Does that count?

If I remember the occasional whisper from a gold-seller, they give you their QQ adress, and you're expected to pay with QQ points which can be obtained with real money.
Depending on the servers though, the AH is only full of enchanting materials, enchants, glyphs and gems. That's it. Click "Sword" and it's empty.

There's an achievement system in place, but it's been altered for Woltk. Such as Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich? and almost every single world achievement out there (Midsummer, Christmas, Valentine's day).

the chinese ebay, aka taobao and other chinese websites sell gold online directly to your mailbox in WoW for chinese money.

the most common way to buy gold however is to trade time card codes in-game for gold to a person who needs a card. it's entirely possible to never pay any of your own money to play WoW if your dedicated to earning gold from others and have a niche as either a raider or powerlevel or farmer.

though economies vary widely between server and we can expect bc to wlk expansions will change this economy further. but 15rmb (2 usa dollars) has continued to be useful enough to buy some high-end epics or many hours of power-leveling service.

you have to remember though, the majority of China works an entire day for less than 60rmb at real jobs. (service or industry)

So what is a QQ address?

It's the chinese version of MSN.

Symien, Why are you asking these questions? What is your article trying to prove?

The easiest way for you to understand CWOW is to probably just play it yourself? As many people said, you can obtain an account easily and just buy prepaid cards to play. You don't even have to buy a CD.

Are you writing an article purely for the purposes of explaining the social difference between CWoW and USWoW?

Are you writing an article purely to discuss goldfarming?

Are you writing about foreigners playing CWoW in China?

Or are you doing research for a game company trying to see what the market is like before you localize or develop your game?

Chun Li wrote:

Symien, Why are you asking these questions? What is your article trying to prove?

Basically, "Interesting Facts About CWOW". My primary interest is amount of time spent playing the game, NetEase problems, health regulations, how much it costs, differences in the client between regions, and social culture (like how players have different types of services that you won't find on US servers - that was very interesting to learn for example.)

I had no idea you could make so much "real world cash" by playing the game for example. That's really neat to learn.

Chun Li wrote:

The easiest way for you to understand CWOW is to probably just play it yourself? As many people said, you can obtain an account easily and just buy prepaid cards to play.

I'm looking for information from the players themselves, something I probably wouldn't be able to figure out in game (that, and the language barrier.)

However, I would LOVE to be able to play on the CWOW servers but the instructions say that I need to have a "Chinese ID" - which I don't.

Are there any price differences between CWOW and TWOW? Or are the hourly rates the exact same?

A 450 pts card (~$18) for example, do those cards function on both CWOW and TWOW? How many hours do they carry?

Thanks

Urubaen wrote:

Depending on the servers though, the AH is only full of enchanting materials, enchants, glyphs and gems. That's it. Click "Sword" and it's empty.

Is there a reason why there are hardly any Epic items being sold on the AH?

What are some of the average AH prices for enchanting mats and glyphs?

For example, Vision Dust (17-20G for a stack?), Greater Eternal Essence, high-level Glyphs (25-100G each?)

Any examples you can provide would be awesome.

By the way, does CWOW (or an optional software install) provide translation in-game? (ie, quests, vendor, AH items, and even chat?)

WoWLaoWai wrote:

it's entirely possible to never pay any of your own money to play WoW if your dedicated to earning gold from others and have a niche as either a raider or powerlevel or farmer.

I think that's really interesting that if you generate enough gold, it's enough to pay for subscriptions, food, even rent.

Are there internet access costs, or is that free in China?

Here's one in-game question: Are there gold beggars (low level characters) in the main cities?

If so, how are they dealt with? (just /ignore)

Or is it more common for players on CWOW to work for their gold?

From the sounds of things, a lot of level 70's hang around the starting zones looking for people to power level for gold. It's like a complete reverse.. almost as if the Level 70's are begging for gold in the noob zones. =]

no, the power levelers are currently in stratholme (45+), scarlet monastery (20+) and shattered halls (55+) and sometimes ZulFurrak (35+). they don't usually go to other places.

there are no gold beggars that i'm aware of at least they don't speak english or open up trade windows.

free internet access? are you joking?

note: most of us are all playing chinese wow in either ENGLISH or french! not chinese! (although i did make lv70 in chinese at first)

i think you have enough information for your first article. good luck. ;P

WoWLaoWai wrote:

i think you have enough information for your first article. good luck. ;P

Agree. You ask more than enough questions just for an "Interesting FACTS about CWOW" article.

With what you're asking, it sounds like you're from a marketing group or a research firm. Or perhaps you're from a consulting agency trying to find some information on how to create games in China for a client?

Suggest you pay for a focus group for those questions.

lol

[quote="Chun Li"]

WoWLaoWai wrote:

Agree. You ask more than enough questions just for an "Interesting FACTS about CWOW" article.

With what you're asking, it sounds like you're from a marketing group or a research firm. Or perhaps you're from a consulting agency trying to find some information on how to create games in China for a client?

Suggest you pay for a focus group for those questions.

I need to ask follow up questions, though. Half of my questions haven't even been answered yet. And also, I want to make sure the information provided is accurate.. otherwise I will be filling in the gaps with a lot of the side chat here. There's also been some contradictory information, for example.

Why would a Marketing Group / Consulting Agency ask for gold prices of Vision Dust?

When you say, "Just buy a card".. I'm like, what card? What are you talking about? From where? How do you activate it? etc. etc. If this was live chat, this would be a lot easier.. but I needed to wait a day before I see the responses.

Also, I assume you would find it pretty annoying in-game when someone says, "Oh, you're from China? You're a Chinese Gold Farmer! Hey everyone.. look over here, a Chinese Gold Farmer! Ban him! Ban him!" I personally would find it very frustrating, but knowing this, I wouldn't go around labeling other people or jumping to conclusions either.

Rather than filling up forum space, is there a moderator I could PM or email directly who is quite knowledgeable and would be okay with a lot of questions (from someone who knows nothing about CWOW)?

I think it is cool that he is doing this...
He could be working for like MMO or Wow.com
They do stuff like this all the time ya know

breseis wrote:

I think it is cool that he is doing this...
He could be working for like MMO or Wow.com
They do stuff like this all the time ya know

Nothing that big. But I think a lot of people who are also curious about WoW China will find the information provided here very interesting, and maybe even useful.

I'd love to go onto the China-based realms, but it appears that a Chinese ID Card is required for signing up? So I'm guessing that unless I have this card, I can't play?

Taiwan realms I probably could though.

I'll say this...
I just started playing wow china
And if this thread was up 2 1/2 weeks ago
I would have been playing sooner.
Now I am behind because wrath is about to
Come out in a week or so.

Symien wrote:

Rather than filling up forum space, is there a moderator I could PM or email directly who is quite knowledgeable and would be okay with a lot of questions (from someone who knows nothing about CWOW)?

If you give us a link to your blog now, that might happen yeah.

bolomas wrote:

Symien wrote:

Rather than filling up forum space, is there a moderator I could PM or email directly who is quite knowledgeable and would be okay with a lot of questions (from someone who knows nothing about CWOW)?

If you give us a link to your blog now, that might happen yeah.

^


There are already a lot of articles out there detailing what a "card" is and how to get one. Additionally, you can get a Chinese ID card easy. This is China. Anything can be bought with money.

I was kind of hoping "deadanus" would have figured it out in that other thread.. you just need to google "world of warcraft china interesting facts"

But since the suspense is killing you, you can just goto www.daeity.com

There are two general CWOW posts there right now, it's stuff you guys probably already know.

Other than that, the blog is mostly about Blizzard at the moment (ie, operating costs, actual player numbers, behind-the-scenes information, Battle.net, Starcraft 2, etc), their Next Gen MMO, and the PC Port of Red Dead Redemption. If you get a chance too, checkout the two Gold-making Strategies and let me know if they apply to the CWOW/TWOW servers. In NA, these strategies are not known by many, so they're very rare and quite lucrative.

If they help you out personally, let me know. Other than that, if you know of anything else "interesting" let me know as well.. I'd be glad to research and publish it.

I'll make sure to link back to this forum, I'm sure there will be a lot of people interesting in joining the community.

Also - If you guys can go back and answer some more of those questions, it would be a great help! I still have a lot more to do.

I actually and sadly used some womans ID card i found on the net. Took me 3 accounts to get 1 correct.

Symien, your link doesn't seem to work.

Alright let's roll.

AH prices (might vary from server to server)

Glyphs- Major: 5 to 15 gold
Minor: Never above 10 gold

Gems- Red,blue,yellow have approximately the same prices. Purple
to Green may vary. Meta Gems cost around 80 gold.

Enchants- moongoose being the most expensive right now with Greater Agility. I've seen Crusader go for 70g.

Otherwise, i buy enchants directly from enchanters. I've found that some of them make enchants for a lower costs. Same thing with gems.


No translation whatsoever on the original chinese client. Most of us play in either french or english. Problem solved.

Symien wrote:

Is there a reason why there are hardly any Epic items being sold on the AH?

The reason is because the prices there, might nevertheless be cheap but gearing up isn't complex nowadays.
Look for the closest Gold raid. Sell a few cards before for some money to buy your epics, and when you come out, you've already got some T6.

Urubaen wrote:

Symien, your link doesn't seem to work.

^

Urubaen wrote:

Symien, your link doesn't seem to work.

lol

It's because of the period at the end.

www.daeity.com. -> www.daeity.com

Apparently, the forum put it in as part of the URL.

your blog is banned in china. well, at least to the the technically challenged.

WoWLaoWai wrote:

your blog is banned in china. well, at least to the the technically challenged.

That sucks. I'm assuming that most of the guys here probably use proxy servers though?

or live in america or some other non banning country lol

QFT

Quote :

the most common way to buy gold however is to trade time card codes in-game for gold to a person who needs a card.

So if this is common....am i best asking in guild if someone wants to buy one from me?...and how much gold would you generally expect to get for one of the gamecards? (both prices please!)

Just so i know...when i start a char on a realm i like to get a little cash to one side for bags, bank slots and other fun things haha

Cheers

I like how the OP was asking you guys questions like you were lab rats. I mean, yeah, a communist nation and a game based in the US IS sorta interesting, but really. Big deal.

He never ever mentioned our help in his blogpost either . Me no helpin' anyone again mon'.

This thread is now about sex.