Letter from the Producer, XXXII (07/23/2012)

It's a little racist to associate chinese with farms indiscriminately. There are many chinese players who are legit and just want to enjoy the game. Infact, I'd say the overwhelming majority fall into that category.

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Originally Posted by Biggs

I don't think its up to SE. From what I understand, the Chinese only allow this sort of thing if its kept only amongst themselves. Willing to bet they have to make Chinese only servers for this, however I would love to be pleasantly suprised.

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Aye. the peoples republic of china does require foreign mmo's to not only undergo a heavy censorship process but they also require segregated servers. Hell there are even time allotments of how long you can be online playing a game on a given day. (that's actually one of the prime reasons they require segregated servers and a over site company to run things for the parent company in china)

Fun fact, In the Chinese version of eve online there is no mention of the word nuclear any where. All instances of the word were replaced with big bada boom.

China and Korea, this is where you'll find hardcore MMO players.

i welcome more players

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Originally Posted by Andrien

China and Korea, this is where you'll find hardcore MMO players.

i welcome more players

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Yep and after the failure that was Tera..SE has a good chance to snatch up Korean playerbase as they tend to play Chinese MMOs as well. (That actually lets them in.)

Yukata looks ok, i still want a swimsuit though.

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Originally Posted by hrdndv

Bikinis are the only sexy thing in the game for females

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Coming from a miqote this is really disappointing to see. The entire wardrobe for FFXIV was designed for miqote with other races in hind sight.

Why are you talking about chinese players increasing gold farmers? chinese will definitely have their own servers.. not a question of if.

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Originally Posted by Babydoll

Yeah, me too ; ; This is what I mean by SE saying one thing and always disappointment :/ The Yukata are cute/pretty but they are not sexy...at all lol. If I was trying to be sexy for someone I wouldn't go put on that Yukata...>.>

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Originally Posted by Laiferr

Yet another piece of 'skimpy' event gear to throw in the back of my closet. I mean this as sincerely as possible - to the FFXIV team, please realise that not every piece of gear needs to be sexy, and if you are trying to do sexy, it doesn't mean just making something barely crotch length. I am hoping this progression gets knocked off in the re-boot and we can then see our characters in a variety of cute, classy and yes, the occasional (well done) sexy outfit.

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Lol... Catch 22.

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Originally Posted by Ashaylin

Lol... Catch 22.

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Pretty much.

As much as I welcome any new player to final fantasy, Chinese people are the most elitist gamers in the world. I really hope we get segregated servers cause I'd rather not be denied every kind of group cause im not running around with a Relic and Full Dark light. @.@

I really hope for same servers for everyone and not the Tera situation. I want to see more people in the world even if they aren't in my pt.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Yep and after the failure that was Tera..SE has a good chance to snatch up Korean playerbase as they tend to play Chinese MMOs as well. (That actually lets them in.)

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Blade and Soul currently has koreans atm... (NCSoft is Korea's SE y'know)

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Originally Posted by Seif

I really hope for same servers for everyone and not the Tera situation. I want to see more people in the world even if they aren't in my pt.

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People don't want this for FFXIV, they want everything in an Instance especially if there's the possibility of the dreaded C word popping up (Competition), so that ship has sailed sadly. D:

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Originally Posted by AsterBarnivere

Blade and Soul currently has koreans atm... (NCSoft is Korea's SE y'know)

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Hmm, yeah that's true.

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Originally Posted by TokyieRage

As much as I welcome any new player to final fantasy, Chinese people are the most elitist gamers in the world. I really hope we get segregated servers cause I'd rather not be denied every kind of group cause im not running around with a Relic and Full Dark light. @.@

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I want separate Chinese servers. And if not that, then seperate NA servers.

No offense but Japanese players have more then enough xenophobia for me. Wont play, talk or do anything with US players for the most part. A lot worse than in FF11.

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Originally Posted by Tricksy

I want separate Chinese servers. And if not that, then seperate NA servers.

No offense but Japanese players have more then enough xenophobia for me. Wont play, talk or do anything with US players for the most part. A lot worse than in FF11.

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This is horribly misguided and ignorant. The Japanese in XIV are no worse than NA or EU players. Each group has players willing, unwilling, and rude when it comes to playing with the others.

To single out the Japanese side as worse than NA and wanting separate servers for the Chinese because of this misconception is just childish.

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Originally Posted by Tricksy

No offense but Japanese players have more then enough xenophobia for me. Wont play, talk or do anything with US players for the most part. A lot worse than in FF11.

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Xenophobia doesn't fix xenophobia.

Well, all fears about FFXIV being a success enough to maintain just went out the window.

Tapping China for their playerbase is a good thing for the game's future. It insures that the game will get enough of a following to maintain it's longevity as China is a HUGE MMO gaming market. Even garnering a fraction of the active player base means that FFXIV will have a huge subscription base. In fact, the total numbers now stand a chance of beating FFXI's current base purely on Chinese subscriptions alone.

I cannot stress this enough, this was a wise move on SE's part.

Now, that said, China itself is a pretty isolated part of the world for many reasons, and there is indeed the concern of rampant RMT and cross-culture shock in the game. People who make calls of Xenophibia seem to forget that the Early Days of FFXI were worse than FFXIV is now due to several factors. Hopefully the more open group content will help resolve that problem, and may even enable some integration from our fellow Chineese players, if it is chose to do so.

Personally, what I see is a "Any way you want." Approach coming from SE here soon. I think, they are going to release both Region Locked and Region Free servers for 2.0. As it provides the best play options for everyone. Though I the current servers will remain Region Free, so yes, keeping your character in your current server likely will garner meeting some new Chinese members later on down the line. I'm not terribly concerned about that.

My fears about this game reaching a stable enough population to maintain now has been eased with this news, however. Yoshida did find a way to manage to keep his full crew on board after all, and by doing what even FFXI feared to touch.

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Originally Posted by KiriA500

Xenophobia doesn't fix xenophobia.

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Dont get me wrong I love the Japanese players! I invite them to my ls all the time so we can have exotic members... but they always let the invite time-elapse.

I would love to play with them like I did in FF11. But maybe the auto-translate isnt as good in this game, or the population isnt as full and thats affecting it, who knows.

Nah Im straight up weaboo (jk) I love reading about their culture, religion, anime, society, games and technology and for awhile I was a Sony fanboi fanning the flames of PS3>360 for no reason other then I love the Japanese.

But they just seem crueler in FF14 than in FF11. I really meant no offense.

Hyrist chances are it's not SE that wants to bar Chinese players from the servers but more of China wanting to bar it's citizens from the other servers.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

Well, all fears about FFXIV being a success enough to maintain just went out the window.

Tapping China for their playerbase is a good thing for the game's future. It insures that the game will get enough of a following to maintain it's longevity as China is a HUGE MMO gaming market. Even garnering a fraction of the active player base means that FFXIV will have a huge subscription base. In fact, the total numbers now stand a chance of beating FFXI's current base purely on Chinese subscriptions alone.

I cannot stress this enough, this was a wise move on SE's part.

Now, that said, China itself is a pretty isolated part of the world for many reasons, and there is indeed the concern of rampant RMT and cross-culture shock in the game. People who make calls of Xenophibia seem to forget that the Early Days of FFXI were worse than FFXIV is now due to several factors. Hopefully the more open group content will help resolve that problem, and may even enable some integration from our fellow Chineese players, if it is chose to do so.

Personally, what I see is a "Any way you want." Approach coming from SE here soon. I think, they are going to release both Region Locked and Region Free servers for 2.0. As it provides the best play options for everyone. Though I the current servers will remain Region Free, so yes, keeping your character in your current server likely will garner meeting some new Chinese members later on down the line. I'm not terribly concerned about that.

My fears about this game reaching a stable enough population to maintain now has been eased with this news, however. Yoshida did find a way to manage to keep his full crew on board after all, and by doing what even FFXI feared to touch.

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So its for sure? Chinese are sharing serves with us? but I thought China enforced segregated servers?

Also, as hesitant as I am about the explosion in Chinese players. Im sure it'll be good over all for the economy and such. A healthy population makes an MMO always alot more fun.

Thing is I know ill have to blist a lot of Chinese players rmt or otherwise, because /chat could be fulll full full of chinese. Japanese seem really considerate about not spaming chat with Japanese, although I have blisted a few who were "wwwww"ing it up all the time.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

Hyrist chances are it's not SE that wants to bar Chinese players from the servers but more of China wanting to bar it's citizens from the other servers.

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Either way, it was wise to tap the player base. China may want to have their own separate servers, but doing so might also open up the possibility of having optional Region Locked servers for everyone, which was a request for some. Though I'll stay on a Region free server due to having friends in other regions, more options are always nice for those who want it.

Either way, this is a gigantic player-base boon for SE. They'll likely take a hit on the profits having to give licence for a Chinese company to tap that base, but in the end it still will be a huge help in getting this game healthy financially.

Well... bringing in a couple million subs from China would certainly help the outlook of this game.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

Well, all fears about FFXIV being a success enough to maintain just went out the window..

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XIV still has the potential to completely flop on a game design level.

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and by doing what even FFXI feared to touch.

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Yeah, because a company jumps at the chance to work on a version for a group of gamers who continually DDoS'd and hacked people for quite a few years, right? >.>

I'm guessing you forgot SE had to place blocks on Korean and Chinese IP ranges for awhile to stop the DDoSing.

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Originally Posted by Tricksy

Japanese seem really considerate about not spaming chat with Japanese, although I have blisted a few who were "wwwww"ing it up all the time.

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Jp players on Durandal have been using/abusing /shout a lot more in the recent months. Never really understood why.

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Originally Posted by Tricksy

I want separate Chinese servers. And if not that, then seperate NA servers.

No offense but Japanese players have more then enough xenophobia for me. Wont play, talk or do anything with US players for the most part. A lot worse than in FF11.

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I haven't found any xenophobic JP players yet. Most of the "xenophobia" has been on my part, since I don't really want to party with those who don't speak the same language as me for the most part.

Not only that, but a lot of people don't party outside of their LSs anyways.

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

I haven't found any xenophobic JP players yet.

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Have you ever been to Ul'dah?
JAPANESE PLAYER ONLY

What's amusing is they type their entire /shout in Japanese, including all details about what they are doing, what jobs they need etc, so we can't even read it.. then end it with "JAPANESE PLAYER ONLY"

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Originally Posted by Elexia

XIV still has the potential to completely flop on a game design level.

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But the difference here is that a tight niche audience of only a few fans is about 60k, there, it's closer to about 300k for a niche audience. 5 million of WoW's long bragged 11 million subscribers was from China alone. The rest was all other regions combined.

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Yeah, because a company jumps at the chance to work on a version for a group of gamers who continually DDoS'd and hacked people for quite a few years, right? >.>

I'm guessing you forgot SE had to place blocks on Korean and Chinese IP ranges for awhile to stop the DDoSing.

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No, I remember it quite clearly as I was one of the more active pursuers of bots and reporting. (Hell I remember pushing for a similar idea of the STFU). But China hitting Japanese servers with DDos and RMT attacks is irrelevant to the fact that FFXI could have easily doubled its subscription numbers by swallowing its pride allowing the game to be licensed to an outside Chineese company.

A few BS RMT companies do not equal China as a whole, please stuff your Xenophobia in someone else's face.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

A few BS RMT companies do not equal China as a whole, please stuff your Xenophobia in someone else's face.

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I'm Xenophobic? The Fuck? Last I checked:

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Even though RMT is actually US based which merely use chinese as the farmers...they should keep the US away from everyone else too. Given regulations on chinese game development, they will most likely have a separate server setup as well as version because for example you can't display undead or certain types of death in China.

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I'm pretty sure I know that RMT isn't everyone in China, especially considering I play Chinese MMOs and know quite a lot of Chinese players who wanted to play XI but never could because of the bad seeds.

So yeah, take your ignorant Xenophobic accusations elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by Ricky

Have you ever been to Ul'dah?
JAPANESE PLAYER ONLY

What's amusing is they type their entire /shout in Japanese, including all details about what they are doing, what jobs they need etc, so we can't even read it.. then end it with "JAPANESE PLAYER ONLY"

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Yes, I've been to Ul'dah, and no, I have not seen anyone say that.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

So yeah, take your ignorant Xenophobic accusations elsewhere.

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Kay. I'll own that.

So what's your effing beef about me calling out FFXI's mistake in not tapping China's base then?

You seem to be blindly championing the game left and right when, honestly, it could have benefited from the deal. Heck, Chinese servers might have taken some of the heat off of the main servers, in terms of RMT assaults, we'll never know.

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

Yes, I've been to Ul'dah, and no, I have not seen anyone say that.

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Yeah I've never seen this, most exclusion I've seen is NA/EU players saying "Experienced Players only" in their shouts, which excludes pretty much anyone new to the game from participating in content. Japanese shouts generally consist of wanting people who can speak and communicate in Japanese because it makes things a lot more smoothly but they wouldn't outright deny people if they couldn't if they know you're a good player (you can tell good from bad players by how they compose themselves really.)

I see most JP leave out auto-translate because it's just a mess of a system mostly due to the Localization of the game itself, so while auto translates make sense when you do it from the English side, it doesn't exactly come across clearly to other languages, especially to Japanese because certain terms and names are different.

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Originally Posted by Rau

RMT here we come...

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Yeah, i like how he left out the part about them all being RMT.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

Kay. I'll own that.

So what's your effing beef about me calling out FFXI's mistake in not tapping China's base then?.

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There is no beef about it, I'm stating exactly why they didn't initially go after it. No company will do business with people who are purposefully trying to hurt it. This is why now it makes a lot of sense they're trying to tap into the market now that all of the issues are settled and they can work with a company to make it happen.

During the days when the chinese were DDoSing and mass hacking..honestly, it's not even "championing", it's common sense. They weren't DDoSing and hacking because it wasn't supported in China, they were doing it for money and "revenge" due to politics.

2005-2008 was then, 2012+ is now. There are legitimate reasons why they didn't initially try to support China and even had to go so far as to block their access that the legit importers had to jump through hoops to continue to play the game.

They would have had to make separate servers for them as well regardless of hacks or not, but you can't really think SE would have jumped at the chance to support them while that was the source of a lot of problems that ultimately caused SE to adapt the Token system.

I know people love to give SE flack for things, but they're still a business and have some sense of business politics lol.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

There is no beef about it, I'm stating exactly why they didn't initially go after it. No company will do business with people who are purposefully trying to hurt it. This is why now it makes a lot of sense they're trying to tap into the market now that all of the issues are settled and they can work with a company to make it happen.

During the days when the chinese were DDoSing and mass hacking..honestly, it's not even "championing", it's common sense. They weren't DDoSing and hacking because it wasn't supported in China, they were doing it for money and "revenge" due to politics.

2005-2008 was then, 2012+ is now. There are legitimate reasons why they didn't initially try to support China and even had to go so far as to block their access that the legit importers had to jump through hoops to continue to play the game.

They would have had to make separate servers for them as well regardless of hacks or not, but you can't really think SE would have jumped at the chance to support them while that was the source of a lot of problems that ultimately caused SE to adapt the Token system.

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Ok, let's get into specifics. I've no time to look it up, but wasn't Blizzard, in the same year spans in question, working with and setting up WoW Servers in China, when suffering form nearly identical issues?

It just feels like SE generalized due to the political climate, and suffered a huge loss with profit opportunity while doing so, regardless of other issues at the time.

Again, I'm not exact on my start date for WoW China servers, but the dealing at the very least had to be in the works during the issues with Chinese RMT and DDoS attacks - as Blizzard also adapted Security Tokens within the same 2 year span.

Yep, they also had to stretch out development on even the localization of the first expansion pack to china due to their rules on undead and whatnot. Though given it was politics more so than anything, I doubt that would have phased Blizzard at all, but due to the fact China was attacking pretty much any Japanese company at that time, it was a different atmosphere.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

XIV still has the potential to completely flop on a game design level.



Yeah, because a company jumps at the chance to work on a version for a group of gamers who continually DDoS'd and hacked people for quite a few years, right? >.>

I'm guessing you forgot SE had to place blocks on Korean and Chinese IP ranges for awhile to stop the DDoSing.

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Oh Ele, how I love it when you start pwning left, right and center.

Even in other threads when you are pwning me, its still enjoyable to read. You just have ssuch charismatic pwning style.

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Originally Posted by Ricky

Have you ever been to Ul'dah?
JAPANESE PLAYER ONLY

What's amusing is they type their entire /shout in Japanese, including all details about what they are doing, what jobs they need etc, so we can't even read it.. then end it with "JAPANESE PLAYER ONLY"

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Its true this happens. And its fantastic to see.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

I'm Xenophobic? The Fuck? Last I checked:



I'm pretty sure I know that RMT isn't everyone in China, especially considering I play Chinese MMOs and know quite a lot of Chinese players who wanted to play XI but never could because of the bad seeds.

So yeah, take your ignorant Xenophobic accusations elsewhere.

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Im pretty sure I made "xenophpobic" happen. --> Mean girls pseudo reference

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Yep, they also had to stretch out development on even the localization of the first expansion pack to china due to their rules on undead and whatnot. Though given it was politics more so than anything, I doubt that would have phased Blizzard at all, but due to the fact China was attacking pretty much any Japanese company at that time, it was a different atmosphere.

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Wow intense.

So no one answered are the Chinise getting seperate servers?

All of my nope. Cause we need more gold farmers?
&
Still want my swim suits.

Chinese would be getting separate servers and even game version (in a sense that it would be different than what NA/EU/JP would be playing).

That's pretty much the rule you have to follow when you do business with China gaming (MMO for sure) wise.

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Originally Posted by Kerwin

All of my nope. Cause we need more gold farmers?
&
Still want my swim suits.

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SWIMSUITS!!!!!! <3 <3 <3

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Chinese would be getting separate servers and even game version (in a sense that it would be different than what NA/EU/JP would be playing).

That's pretty much the rule you have to follow when you do business with China gaming (MMO for sure) wise.

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WTF you changed your pic? My whole world is falling apart around me!