Hey guys,

As some of you might remember I posted a link to an article explaining that the Chinese government had decided to put a “limit” on the time children could spend in front of the PC. They had decided to make it mandatory for providers such as The9 to implement a system to actively discourage long playing time. The article also referred to some improved security with regards to account making.

Today while playing something I noticed today while playing. This message flashed by my textbox in yellow:

“You have 0.15 until you enter tired time. Your rewards will be cut in half””

Of course this made me alert and I kept an eye out for more. About 15 min later this came:

“You have 1:56 until you enter unhealthy time, at which point you will no longer receive experience or loot until you have logged out for 5 hours.”

This seems to be the result of these measures, since I seem to remember it being a limit on about 4 hours of play per day and/or without break.

Now it raises several questions that perhaps some of you that speak Chinese can learn more about.

1) Is it true, and how does it work in details. What is included and what is not included? Can it be circumvented
2) Is it related to account/login into WoW, or much worse, to the security number you used when you first made a “The9” account, in which care all your WoW-accounts might be blocked.
3) According to the intention it is to block kids. Can we somehow “prove” we are not kids?
4) What will we do when TBC comes out? Only play 4h and then stop? This seems insane.

So, guys, look into this and post all your findings.

Sainan

(An afterthought, I have never seen this before. Could it have to do with the fact that I normally run an english client, where today I had some "catch" of a chinese client since I bought a mount?)

EDIT: After some googling I found some links - however they are all quite old:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/08/24/news_6131845.html
http://www.china.org.cn/english/Life/140915.htm

Well this is how it works for the Chinese locals. To play with no time limit they would have to register with a security number of someone who is above 18 years old. As a result to work around this many children who are below 18 borrow their brothers or friends security number who are above 18 to register. If you have Chinese friends who are above 18 and would allow you to use their security number then you would be able to play with no time limit. Hope this helps.

thing is that we would have to restart from scratch...

Which totally sucks

partyboyz wrote:

Well this is how it works for the Chinese locals. To play with no time limit they would have to register with a security number of someone who is above 18 years old. As a result to work around this many children who are below 18 borrow their brothers or friends security number who are above 18 to register. If you have Chinese friends who are above 18 and would allow you to use their security number then you would be able to play with no time limit. Hope this helps.

Some. but what I do not understand is why we get it NOW. We have played for almost 5 months without this warning and now suddenly it shows up. Have it been like this for chinese people always? And if so, why do we get it now?

And what to do .. We already have 16 days online and level 60ish. No way I will start again just because the number I used was sub-18..... Guess I could wait until the fake number I used turns 18, though after reviewing the number I realize this person was born in november 2006.
S

is there any real loss of loot ???
Is there any downgrade of XP ???

could it be a random warning? like the random fines for Dlding on Emule? coz it doesn't seem to touch under 18 kids...

could be random, could be anything.
could someone please check if XP really gets cut? or loot?
we have had no further patch since then, and this is something that needs to be run from client side as well.

On the other hand, i do have an adult ID card number on my acc. so i won't be concerned. Again, i have never ever received a msg like this.
i have not been online for 4 hours straight lately (xcept fro a raid) and so i might not know.

lets face it. its a good measure. (i am sorry to say, but it is). does it cut down your game?
no. you level a bit slwoer. so what. its just until max level, then you dont care (unless loot / rep is affected).
But kids need some break. in china it IS a harsh problem.
(just look at our MT (the @#$%@#$^@#$%@# idiot) who is playing about 20 hours out of 24. he eats and shits in front of the PC.
god, i hate him.

anyways, please someone try to confirm.
i have no chars to level right now. but if i have to, i will create one and wait for messages.
also, in these cases, please directly screenshot and save the file via email or so. this helps us a lot to help each other.

I am not concerned either. However the message does seem to point that loot is affected. which might be a big problem.

was the message in english?
if it was in chiense. i want to see the screenshot.
someone might have translated "reward" as loot, for example, which could mean rep or other things, instead of loot.

not having loot would affect raids. i don't think they would go that far. you CANT raid just an hour. thats insane.

like i said. can someone please force himself to play with a char to level long enough and check for the message and screeshot?

thank you

nota bene:
i might call the9 customer service and simply ask. who speaks better chinese than me? TAIM? i think ti would be the quickest way and best, instead of just guessing around.

how could it be in english? even with an english version of the game, this problem only exists for Chinese versions. They couldn't translate it, since it doesn't exists in US/EU versions...

The message was in english, which was very strange. We tested on Gretchen and there didnt seem to be a diminised XP gain, though we didnt wait for MANY hours, only until we got the second warnirng. As some of you mentioned, it is strange the message was english. This basically means one of two things 1) The9 is sending out messages in english (very unlikely) or 2) the functionality is already imbedded in WoW. Even for blizzard this seems pretty pro-active codeing three years ago. I have a screen-shot of the second message - send me a pm with email and Ill forward it.

This might just be a storm in a glass of water, and, as you mentioned, it could just be a random warning. I hope so.

Sainan

If you are level 60, getting less exp. doesnt makes sense...

and how the loot system will work with master looting?
How will this affect raids of 40 people? if one of them has excess time will the whole raid not get loots from boss or less loot altogether?

Quote :

even with an english version of the game, this problem only exists for chinese versions.

where do you get your info? this is wrong!!!
anything character related (such as XP) or things that are generated (loot), happens server side.
so you could be playing with a turkish wow, you would still be nerfed. thats why we are trying to figure this thing out.
don't throw things out there... hehe.

as for sai, blizz implemented many messages already in game. such as "your gametime is about to expire in 30 minutes". they dont have prepaid plans in the english speaking countries. but the message is in. see my point?
so they included lots of stuff they planned maybe to enfore at some point.
anyways, lets see what will happen. maybe the weekend will allow us to check this with more time.

88

i don't have playtime anymore... Anyone can just try and play the max time , then go kill monsters and tell us if they still drop the same amount of loot ?

Kthx

i got the screenie from Sai...
i have played far more than 4 hours. no nerf. no message
i asked guildies with no-life outside of wow.
no nerf, no msg.

this message sometimes also appears due to a bug in the game. it was implementred by blizz during beta.
you can check WoW-EU forums for it.

i might not get msg as i have an adult ID number to register my toon.
can anyone with a generated or confirmed underage ID number test?

^
No worries then

if you have child-block:
google this: "Q：身份证验证失败是什么意思？"
then click on first link
then translate this link into your language using google
(I just can not send link's here)

Thanks for your help jockerpva. However, if you check the date on which this thread was written, you'll notice that it's old.
I will lock this.