The title of this news brief may have surprised you. Learning of this little ditty sure as heck surprised us. It seems that everything isn't just peachy for WoW in China. There have been multiple problems, and this has resulted in a decrease in subscriptions.

As you may already be aware, the Chinese game regulating agency GAPP (for General Administration for Press and Publications) cracked down a couple of times; they regulated the amount of time players can spend in any MMO, and they targetted WoW specifically for showing bones on the undead. Undead player character models were changed as a result, so that they no longer show bony joints. This caused delays in the release of The Burning Crusade.

Our best guess is that this says "The Burning Crusade." 

The9 (yes, that's written correctly; why there's no space between "The" and "9" is a mystery to us) is Blizzard's service provider in China. The9 has, apparently, been dragging their feet with WoW as well. They haven't released The Burning Crusade yet; the reasons for this are unclear, though the responsibility is placed squarely on the shoulders of The9. They also provide online services to other game companies, and may have been focusing on them instead of on WoW.

This photo is of the new "boneless" undead avatars.   

To make matters worse, this also means that no content that Blizzard has put out to players since the launch of TBC -- none -- has yet to reach Chinese players. Why? Because they'd need The Burning Crusade to experience that content and, that's right, The9 hasn't seen fit to push TBC to the WoW playerbase.

Our favorite part of this story? The9 sent a rep around to various internet cafe's to pimp out their new online game, SUN. The players got pissed, one jumped the rep and beat him up, while the others stood around and cheered.

Ultimately, both censorship problems and difficulties with The9 have been overcome, and TBC will be released to the public on September 10th.