World of Warcraft cut off in Iran ..prepare for war

US trade sanctions have led game maker Blizzard to cut off access to World of Warcraft (Wow) in Iran.

Blizzard posted a statement to its player-forum site after hundreds of Iranian players said they had lost access to the game.

Access was lost recently, it said, because it had "tightened up its procedures" to comply with sanctions.

www.bbc.com...

I'm a gamer, and I like to think I know a bit about world affairs/politics. But I really don't see this happening. Call it a hunch from a Blizzard Fan. Blizzard always makes the most money it can get out of anything.... I know it first hand. Trust me or not, it's the truth.

Looks like it maybe true. This is sick. This is something I wouldn't expect from my own government, but mostly, blizzard. SICK!

reply to post by all2human


Generations from now, children will be baffled to learn that WWIII began because Ahmadinejad was denied the opportunity to roll a Panderan Druid.

You know that's a good idea.

This will seriously cut down on the Iranian understanding of how to Tank in a fight. By the time the war starts they will have snipers running out in front of the battle, they will have no idea how to surround an enemy in close quarters , medics on the front lines getting pwnd left and right no one will remember to loot when they do win a battle and they will have no way to map the terrain anymore.

HA!

Seriously, wow would in the end be one of the best ways to contact safely Terrorists overseas for mission details there is more to this than trade sanction, much in the way Bin Laden used porn to relay messages wow is probably a hot bed of contact to sleeper cells with millions of members and many servers and in game chat. Not a bad idea to close it to them if going to war,

reply to post by Maroboduus


Dark Clerics play the undead dude.

From your OP source, the caveat comes...

Many of those posting messages said they could not connect directly to World of Warcraft but could get access when they used a proxy server outside Iran.

Quite a few ATS folks participate in helping to provide those proxies.

Gamers in Iran will keep playing! They just have to be a bit more creative about it!

~Heff

This isn't constructive foreign policy.

All it will do is educate Iranian's in the use of public proxies just like it did in China.

Oh no... Lazy ass people from Iran cant play WOW no more, prepare for war....... I doubt anybody is going to be doing any suicide bombings over this, the game is not that great.

They should have just went into the code and identified all the Iranian players and set all servers to PVP ON if they wanted to get rid of them with dignity, let them have a warriors death at least sheeeesh

LOL....just realized they must all be warlocks attempting to suicide the boss encounters

On a serious note, I agree with the previous poster, it is a great way for them to communicate unhindered with individuals outside the country.....and the communication could easily be disguised as 'game tactic chatter'....at least, if i was putting an op together, that is what I would do.

Edit-and yes, Blizzard has NEVER shied away from making a buck.....remember the great blood letting of '08...where they banned hundreds of thousands of accounts due to the huge adobe security hack....made everyone banned buy a new copy of the game, xpac and re-level everything....huge money maker that was.

reply to post by pointr97


LOL I have actually seriously thought about that while playing arm chair general in my living room and role playing honestly if they are going to fight rather than harass American users with privacy violations etc I'd go to great lengths to cut internet communications period. Trust me I am quite sure that a lot of pro Iranian sympathy enters these forums via proxy and from within under fake pretenses of being western, I know Islam is No 1 in employing paid activists for "the cause" online as well.

Not even taking a political stance here, war is crazy, but if it happens your not left with much choice but to win be it if you agree with the initial reasons or not. Sanctions should have included a cut off of all internet contact with the west period to the best of the ability to do so, knock them off from Japans lines all of Nato and America they have to come through very specific proxies and data lines very easy to track by comparison

Gotta wonder how many lines actually run out of Iran, how many servers etc and if locations are known, you'd think it would be easy once the shooting starts to bunker bust those cables right out on the borders probably main servers are not defended at all by specific anti aircraft etc in Universities and the like which would also be key targets for all the talk of stopping the Nuclear program bombing of Universities would be the single key to making sure they don't acquire nukes for 100 years, now of course your not allowed to technically do that i'd suppose but if you classify the servers as high priority targets due to terror threats and cyber warfare you'd likely get away with it. Due it during Midterms and there wont be another group to take over those reactors after they are hit.

Not being a psycho lol just role playing here IF I was to play war games in places other than virtual worlds that's what i'd do.

Originally posted by Hefficide
From your OP source, the caveat comes...

Many of those posting messages said they could not connect directly to World of Warcraft but could get access when they used a proxy server outside Iran.

Quite a few ATS folks participate in helping to provide those proxies.

Gamers in Iran will keep playing! They just have to be a bit more creative about it!

~Heff

Cheap bump for the mods quote.

I likez where yer hedz @

reply to post by W3RLIED2


Up to 20th level... then what? Secured Credit card payments from Europe? Not exactly in the ease for your typical teenagers, some will figure out ways but really in the end 90% or more will be off aside from free pirated servers.

reply to post by penninja


Negatory.

Proxy servers don't ask for credit card numbers.... At least not the ones I use. All one needs to know is how to connect via a proxy, which is exceedingly simple, and badabing badaboom!

Yer gaming.

LOL Blizz....
Those Iranians are some smart cookies over there ya know.
I'll bet if there is still anyone in Iran that is hooked on the heroine we call WoW, they already are on a private server.
My kids were making their own servers years ago, imagine what a real geek or geeks could do.
All Blizz is doing is losing monthly income.

reply to post by W3RLIED2


I'm talking about paying Blizzard for use of the service period, haven't played in a while but it's only free until 20th level unless something has changed I did not know about. If Blizzard wants them gone obviously they won't be accepting credit card payments from Iran and you'd need a foreign bank account/ card in order to use the service beyond the pwn years correct?

Just asking...

www.bbc.com...

Players of Wow and other games, including Guild Wars, said when they had tried to log in they had been redirected to a page saying the connection had been blocked because the games promoted "superstition and mythology".

Blizzard said it had no information about Iranian government action against online games.

I guess they forgot the real world out here - where we all know Iran is shutting itself off from the worldwide web and Internet effective 1 September 2012 if I remember the date correctly. They will run an Intranet within the country of Iran only.

Originally posted by penninja
You know that's a good idea.

This will seriously cut down on the Iranian understanding of how to Tank in a fight. By the time the war starts they will have snipers running out in front of the battle, they will have no idea how to surround an enemy in close quarters , medics on the front lines getting pwnd left and right no one will remember to loot when they do win a battle and they will have no way to map the terrain anymore.

HA!

Seriously, wow would in the end be one of the best ways to contact safely Terrorists overseas for mission details there is more to this than trade sanction, much in the way Bin Laden used porn to relay messages wow is probably a hot bed of contact to sleeper cells with millions of members and many servers and in game chat. Not a bad idea to close it to them if going to war,

Interesting idea there you got.
A guild of terrorists, they could call themselves the taliban and dance and chat in Stormwind square!
MMMMMMM Nelf chicks were hot though.
But really, the mods jkeep full chat logs for all servers, something like this would be easy to bust.


(Edit)
Just for clarity, I'd bet Leeeeeroy was an Iranian that did not realize his toon had no bomb vest on.

reply to post by Trexter Ziam


I predict within 15 minutes someone uploads the south park Muhammad episodes to their intranet from the time it is active.