Breaking News: Death of Taiwan, Macao and Hong Kong Region!?

That sure sucks I am Chinese, but lucky play on US server, i dont know what to say really.... carry on brother and sisters, wait for GW2 is our last hope i guess:S 大家不要伤心了，事情会好起来的

嗯，大家都到美服来吧　:d

If this is what people really think, and not just speculation, China is a scary place indeed.

From that translation above, it appears that the Asian servers are being seperated from the main servers and no new accounts are being sold. However, it appears that the servers will continue to run. I could have this wrong, considering the garbled translation (wtf is fierce combat anyway?).

Fierce Combat is the literal translation of Guild Wars' chinese name: 激战

Well, I was going to buy a US GW copy after hearing the news(I live in US right now). Just remembered that new account can't trade within 24 hours, so even I got a US copy, I wouldn't be able to transfer my stuff there. This makes me think that the 24 hours update is kinda prepare for this 24-hours notice shut down.

My thoughts as well. China is a huge untapped market and it would be stupid to give up on it without a very good reason. Government steam rolling all over you would be a good one.

Who says the closings aren't tied together. HK and Macao are part of China and Taiwan is contested. Seems like an afterthought, with Anet in the last legs of closing down the China servers, some government official walks by and says the other servers have to go as well.

you know, you do have a very good point there
mayby it's...
Conspiracy!

It's a huge, untapped market where piracy rates approach 100%. That's sort of a problem if you want to make money.

It has been reported that the Government of China has been cutting several internet links to stop students, and others, from getting information out of the country.

I could very well see them putting pressure upon companies to sever game servers for this reason as well.

Conspiracy much? Anyway I would have to agree with you.

Ugh, dont use online translators...


----------


Dear Guild Wars players,

Thank you for the two years support of Guild Wars in Hong Kong and Taiwan. We went through many changes and events. Remember the time when Taiwan had the earthquake. Our international community had a "send the love out" event which made Taiwan and Hong Kong feel the warmth of companionship.

Guild Wars unique gameplay is being supported by many players but due to the contract end in 2008 we regret to tell the players we are stopping service as of May 1 2008. We are in the process of talking to the original company Arena Net about continuing service rights. Both parties do not want to disrupt the players game and are working on the best solution.

Because in Taiwan and Hong Kong they are on a membership/monthly fee as of April 1 they will stop the charging function (can not charge the account). They will stop the support with the original company. They are working on the details. More information will be released on the webpage.

To avoid players rights being violated, after talking with Arena Net they will stop the billing and other details below:

April 1 noon: Stop creating new accounts function.
April 1 noon: Stopping the N-coin (how they buy GW and other merchandise ie. char slots). NCT will not sell any GW merchandise.
April 1: Convenience stores will not sell any GW recharge cards.
April 1: Change the function of the game including can not drop stuff on ground, can not whisper to anyone outside Taiwan/HK server, can not enter Int. district, can not trade with anyone outside Taiwan/HK server, disable merchant and international travel.
May 1 noon: Stop NCT billing function.
June 3 noon: Close GW Taiwan webpage.
Other items will be listed on the webpage later.

Thank you again for the support. Just to reiterate that April 1 the changes will go in. Most changes will not affect PvE and PvP function. We did this to try not to interfere with players but we are in talks with Arena Net about the rights to continue the service so players please do not worry or panic. If you still have any GW credit please contact NCT member about refund.

If our service hasnt been perfect and has caused inconvenience, from all the people that have worked on Guild Wars we are sorry. Thank you for supporting Guild Wars.

This doesn't make any sense, unless they plan on allowing others to enter Taiwan districts. You'd think sealing them off from international would be enough.

What is "international travel" as opposed to "international district"? Is this another word for "map travel" or "travel between campaigns"? Or is there some district-changing options for Taiwan customers right now?

Seems like an awful lot of program changes to be implemented within 24 hours so it must have been in the pipeline.

[edit: removed reference to some deleted posts]

FoxBat, I think its just multiple measure to make sure everything is cut off in any way possible.

Hey Guys
There is quite a few people in Temple ID1 fighting for their cause of keeping up the connection. Although its probably in vain, it would be nice for more people to support this. I know i will be there

Doesn't matter in an mmo where access is granted by unique access keys rather then just having a copy of the game. The points made in your recent thread don't apply here.

I just updated and went back to GTB ID1

Nobody there
Guess this is real and just bad timing (April 1st wise) or someone at Anet is taking a April Foll way over sick and into RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up

Dev Update] Changes to Taiwanese Accounts – 31 March 2008
New government regulations in Taiwan, which take effect April 1, restrict game companies in that region from effectively suspending or banning accounts for participating in professional farming or real-money trading. Guild Wars is highly impacted by local regulations such as this, because Guild Wars operates in a seamless, connected manner between all territories. We cannot sustain a seamless connection when we are unable to effectively police the game in one territory, because professional farmers in that territory could severely damage the game’s economy throughout the world. Therefore, we are forced to disconnect Taiwanese service from the rest of the game world as of April 1.

Users in Taiwan will still be able to participate in their international guilds and compete in international PvP, but as of April 1, they will no longer be able to enter international districts, trade with players outside Taiwan, or play in PvE environments with players outside Taiwan.

That explains a lot.

Atleast theres an explanation now, not just a Bye Bye

if this update note is real, gg NCSoft/Anet. the new government in taiwan will start running on 5/20. I doubt any regulation taken by new taiwan government would take effect on 4/1.....
just my thought, not the truth~

Korean & Japanese servers aren't affected.

I think that Japanese will be the next

What makes you say that?

I'm a player whos account belonging to Taiwanese district .
I think that this is not fair to Taiwanese players .
GW is an international game , not independent or regional .
We also know the China's GW server be closed on March 31 23:59 pm .
That is ok , because China's GW server is regional , it didn't connect to international any time , and players didn't need to pay anything for playing in Chinese server .
But Taiwan is not , when Taiwan's GW server open , it was connect to international , and if we want to play in Taiwan's server , we need to pay for it .
Maybe we paid a few than American or European players , but we still paid for it , right ?
If we want to play Prophecies + Factions + Nightfall + Eye of the North + Bonus Mission Pack in Taiwan's server , we should pay NT3960 , its about $130.2632 .
If Taiwan's server be closed , that mean Taiwan's players efforts in GW will disappear , and can't play GW anymore , but GW still work .
If we want to play GW again , we should pay again for it , that mean I had NT3960 be dropped in the sea .
Hopefully ANet will give us a responsible response .
If Taiwan's GW be closed , I think that Japanese will be the next , right ?
Maybe when GW2 on sale , all GW will be closed .

I am one of the 5,000,000 Best...Fans...ever .
But I think that I paid fake money for playing GW .
So I will be remove .

when korea can travel to American or European , only Taiwan and Japan can't

Taiwan's server is still going to be operational, but for Taiwan only, as the note said. If this is all true, the Taiwan government is not allowing Anet to have control over what they can do with blocking or suspending accts in their game. So Anet just cut them off from the rest of the world to stop the item trading.

As for Japan, I don't think Japan's government has legislation to prevent Anet from policing their gameworld, and therefore I can't see why they would shut down Japan next.

really ?
I had paly in China's GW server about 1 month , but I didn't pay anything for it .

I am very very sure I had register an account in China's server for free .
But I know they also sell cards after a few months from open beta (2007.2)
If you buy those cards , you can get weapon in game , like as Nevermore Flatbow those pre-order item .
Even you have not those , you still can get an account for free .
So those cards are not must .
As I say China's GW server is regional , it didn't connect to international any time .

Japanese player here. In Japanese servers, very few people playing.
So Japanese servers may be stopped in balance with the server cost.

Part of me still hope this is just a completely tasteless April Fools' joke... Either way, I'll never, ever, ever, ever play on a Taiwanese server ever again. EVER! Sorry, NCTaiwan. You royally suck.

Goodbye, everyone... Q__Q

That's very nice of AN - yeah, they've already got your money so why shall they care about the players from Taiwan?

In my opinion the players shall sue AN and get back the money they paid for the game.

And when GW2 comes out - please CONSIDER if its worth buying the game from a company, that treats its customers like a trash.

Anet should do something for taiwanese people. The game had actually released and they did pay to support the game. Anet has yet shut down the business and there is no reason Taiwanese player be stop from playing game the way they used to, especially for those who didn't play game through monthly fee.



so the anet refuse to spend resource to solve the problem at root but choose to remove the major features in game(play game internationally)? It is not a responsible action one took customer money and resort to such action. Anet could at least allow taiwanese or other similar region to migrate to american server.

If ANet decides that there's too few people playing on the japanese servers, they'll likely fuse the japanese area with europe or the US. They have already done this with the various small european language servers (fused with the english-language servers).
However, I don't think that'll happen. The guildwars instance-based model means that it scales easily; if there are few players ANet simply needs to rent fewer servers, thereby cutting cost. This is a big advantage the Guild Wars model has over MMOs with persistent worlds, like WoW, which can not easily reduce the number of servers.

@Taiwf: as others have said, the real problem is with taiwanese politicians being influenced by the lobbying of the gold sellers. NCSoft and ANet are simply protecting the economies of their game, while trying to minimize damage to the legitimate Taiwanese players. It is unfortunate that means that Taiwan is being cut off from the rest of the world.

I do not know anything about taiwanese law, so I don't know why NCSoft/ANet wont let taiwanese players migrate to american servers, but I would assume there are legal issues.

The statement:

"because professional farmers in that territory could severely damage the game’s economy throughout the world "

is a BIG LIE.

The game's economy is currently being devastated by An itself and their mistakes: implementing of Ursan and armbrace duping bug.

If the gold coming from the farmers had any effect on the economy - it would be an INCREASE of all price, not their decrease! As in the real economy: too much money flowing into the market = inflation (prices going up). And what do we see in Guild Wars for the last several months? Prices going DOWN!

Arena Net - please STOP lying to us!!!

我在臺灣的朋友都想知道可不可以把帳號換到美版去玩～不知道ＮＣＴ會不會同意。。。
因為他們如果可以換, 不代表那些在做ＲＭＴ的人也可以換嗎？＞＜

真傷心說，但是看來沒辦法了。真的要等到ＧＷ２才能一起玩嗎？ＱＱ～～～

這就是人生。。。

Vengeful/南非

You know, maybe prices are what they are because ANet's anti-goldseller measures are actually working pretty well? In which case they'd might want to continue doing what they're doing without Taiwanese law getting in the way.

Hoping words everyone whom I say here can help
I am a Taiwanese player that has a passion for gw

I joined this game to have 2 years very happy can let by this game I and the player of world together happiness

But March 31, 2008~the authorities give a shocked message
Want to close Taiwanese pve to outward contact~probably you think some balances that the bad players break game

But please watch for these bad players~definitely include Taiwan~Hong Kong~all players of Macau?
This is to we obey a rules of the game of player is very unfair !

Hope to see all players of my article~can help us

I really like this game~also like very much with everyone in this game of interaction
Thank~

Send an email to the support department asking for a refund for buing Guild Wars. Scan your receipts and send them too.

Arena Net has absolutely NO RIGHT to DISCRIMINATE players from Taiwan, Hong Kong or any other country just because they THINK some players MIGHT do something that MIGHT affect game's economy (which is a LIE, as I showed earlier).

This is just brainless!

If you do not get your refund - do not buy Guild Wars 2! Do you want to support a company, which treats its customers like trash ?

I hate to agree but... you're right What's the difference between AN isolating all players from Taiwan from the rest of the world simply because they suspect some of them might be dangerous for their business - and communists form chinese goverment, isolating people from China from the rest of the world simply because they suspect some of them might be dangerous for their "business" ? I hate to compare in that way - but it's the same way of thinking.

AN violates the most important human right - one is not guilty until proven. You cannot discrimate people because you're afraid they might do smth you do not want them to do. It's not fair.

I do not agree to treat my friend from Taiwan like a criminalist that must be isolated - simply because he's from Taiwan.

I'm totally disappointed -.- What's next? Turning off the servers in Holland, because some pedophiles might get into the game? Isolating players from Romania, because they might steal the gold from other players by hacking their accounts? Stereotypes and stupidity. -.-