How is World of Warcraft doing in China? If one player’s collected account is anything to go by, not well at all. A Chinese player posted a plea for help in the game’s subreddit, with pictures and animated gifs showing what happens when an MMORPG is drowning in RMT bot nonsense.
Among the issues this player points out are group finder parties that are nothing but RMT boosting website advertisements, floods of whispered RMT ads when players enter Orgrimmar or Stormwind, and 24-hour gold-farming activity, which has driven the price of WoW Tokens up by 50% over the past month. Furthermore, players that work for RMT sites are bullying legitimate players out of content; dungeon runs are being sold for cash, and things like Darkshore Warfront runs that start off with normal players see those players kicked by an RMT party leader and replaced with people who bought in for a boss fight.
According to the claims, NetEase, the steward for WoW in China, appears to be unwilling to address the matter. Players have sent in bot activity reports, which were responded to with canned sympathy replies but no action, while calls for NetEase to help the matter posted on forums and Weibo have reportedly gone unanswered. Another Chinese player’s reply also recounted a submitted ticket that was almost immediately discarded.
“We hope Blizzard can hear us and convey our appeal to NetEase. We also hope that WoWers around the world can give us a hand,” begs the post. “We are fighting for the same Azeroth, but ours have been deeply corrupted. Please, we don’t want to lose it. Join us toward the criticism against the inaction of NetEase, and help us spread the words. We need NetEase to come out and give us a direct response regarding the spammed gaming environment.”
