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Restricted World of Warcraft services to Saudi Arabia subscribers

I have been a World of Warcraft subscriber since 2005, probably one of my favorite games and I switched from Final Fantasy XI Online.

I am not sure of how many players in Saudi Arabia or the Middle East do play it though. But I am aware of a huge player base in Dubai, UAE and montada.com, one of the biggest Arabic speaking gaming forums, have an entire forum dedicated to World of Warcraft. People there still openly talk about buying gold and private servers though (which are against the rules of the game).

You can buy the game (and monthly game cards) locally from Jarir bookstore… yeah, not just a bookstore, silly slogan.

My issue with Blizzard is that the extra features available to most subscribers are inaccessible for subscribers in Saudi Arabia. For example, a service for reinventing former world of warcraft subscribers, “Scroll of Resurrection” is inaccessible because of “Your account is not allowed to access to this page because of its country”. Same goes to the Recruit-a-Friend program where you get this error “Not all accounts are eligible to recruit a friend. For a full list of restrictions, please see the FAQ. Contacting Blizzard support is useless since they reply with no information at all, and it sounded like an automated response anyway.

I do not want Blizzard to open local Middle East servers or have an Arabic localized World of Warcraft client, I just want access to those services which are easy to implement.

Related posts:

  1. Hey Blizzard, you have customers in the Middle East!
  2. World of Warcraft 3.0.2
  3. The new Battle.net
  4. Free World of Warcraft Two Week Trial
  5. Blizzard allows PVE to PVP paid realm transfers

42 comments to Restricted World of Warcraft services to Saudi Arabia subscribers

  • Ronald

    Hey Khaled, I ‘m new here in KSA. playing WoW forever before i came here but now i can’t cause of latency problems. Please can u guide as to wihc is the best connection to play WoW? ( no DSL cause i dont have a landline) thank you.

    [Reply]

    Khaled A. Reply:

    Hello Ronald and welcome to the site!
    You could try to connect using a 3G modem from STC or Mobily. I never got to try it though.

    [Reply]

  • Ronald

    I am currently connecting through mobily with a 3G modem but tbh it sucks. after minutes i disconnect from wow for no reason and other times i have latencies as high as 2000ms. please help

    [Reply]

    Khaled A. Reply:

    2000 ms is too much. Try it from a coffee shop with free wifi :)

    [Reply]

  • Ronald

    the problem is that i want to play from my home in riyadh. bought a new gaming laptop just to spend my spare time playing it.

    [Reply]

    Khaled A. Reply:

    I hate to say this buy try STC’s 3G wireless service :(

    [Reply]

  • Ronald

    will try. thx for your help :)

    [Reply]

    Khaled A. Reply:

    no problem, keep us updated ;)

    [Reply]

  • hurol

    gentlemen
    I have a problem I couldnt find a solution could u help me pls
    I bought a worldofwarcraft game DVD in jeddah Jarir bookstore for my son
    and I came to turkiye for vacation and I gave that dvd to him
    He installed that game by dvd and downloaded some patches
    and couldnt registered that game because it requires an authentication key but my dvd included an expansion key I have so many questions
    1- how can I find my authentication key in DVD
    2- how can I use my expansion key
    3- How will be able to register my game
    thanks

    [Reply]

  • Dennis

    If the CD key isn’t somewhere on the box, package, or manual itself, it will most likely be on some sort of paper insert that came within the box. Once you authenticate the original game, you will be able to use your expansion key to upgrade the account.

    I have a question as well; I’m in the process of learning Arabic, is there any way to get the game to display in Arabic? Maybe not the text that I type in, since obviously script would be unreadable to other players, but possibly the buttons, log in screen, anything like that.

    In regards to the latency issue, I contacted a wireless internet provider and was told that I should expect at least 1000ms latency from any satellite provider. Of course, that makes sense because of the process, but either way 1000ms is unplayable to me in any endgame content.

    شكرا -صادق

    [Reply]

  • Abdullah

    Posting months afterward… It’s probably an add-on of some sort, but I’m not sure there’s one in Arabic… And hurol, when you buy it in saudi arabia, it’s on the manual. I was stupid enough to rip it off and throw it away because I thought it was a price tag or something, so I had to buy a new one!
    Also, 1000ms isn’t that unplayable… Although mobily gets me 300ms most of the time… when it actually works :P

    Zofrenn of Burning Legion

    [Reply]

    Khaled A. Reply:

    Interesting, I also tested it out using Go WiMax. I had no problem entering Dalaran.

    [Reply]

  • Abdalaziz

    salam khaled .
    can i write arabic ? or english in site?

    [Reply]

    Khaled A. Reply:

    what site?

    [Reply]

  • Gary

    I lived in Saudi for 23 years and now live in the USA. I play wow and would love to game with players living in Saudi. Is there any way to join a realm used by gamers in KSA?

    [Reply]

    Khaled A. Reply:

    Most Saudi players are on EU realms. So you cannot join these realms from a US account :(

    [Reply]

  • Omar

    I know that the topic is out-dated but I figured I would add my 2 cents.. as for the “holy” blocking service! this my friend can be unblocked by sending numerous unblock requests to this address:
    http://www.internet.gov.sa/resources/block-unblock-request/view?set_language=en

    I have tried to unblock some sites in the past and it worked! also, you might think that they block sites out of nothing! and that is ture because they use a bot to go around blocking specified key words, I know this because they blocked Yahoo in the past by misstake and then unblocked it again and explained the reason behind it.

    PS. there are many many saudi wow players online than u think ;)

    [Reply]

  • man9our

    hey guys i’m shinigamisan famous with aka shini :P from eu dunemaul anyway i have alot of friends playing wow but wanted to meet more ppl actually playing the game in ksa cya have fun

    [Reply]

  • man9our

    and ya ronald i have the same prob cuz i’m living in the university dorms i can’t use land line connection so i had to use wireless one and still have alot of dc’s -.- and it kinda sucks when i had to reroll from being the main tank in the guild to other dps class because i love tanking :(

    [Reply]

  • Hatim

    Dear Khalid
    I’ve been playing wow now for 2 years now on horde character on Champer of Aspect a PVE server which I got bored with so I’m trying to get a fresh start in a different server. I’m looking for a PVP server which have a large Arab population on ally side. Do you know any? btw STC suck!

    [Reply]

    Hatim Reply:

    k I’ll go for stormreaver Ty for the tip :)

    [Reply]

    mohd Reply:

    well there is couple of realms noticed many arabs most one is kazzak as man9our said , stormscale and stormreaver also got some arab but so few so ain’t gonna work good for u specially few of them who know each other as me and others in stormreaver i know some ppl are arabs either on horde side or ally side but still we don’t gather that much or even do pugs together coz of guild’s etc.
    so as summary for the servers there is:
    kazzak , grim batol and the ones i mentioned above.

    [Reply]

  • man9our

    i though kazak had alot of arab there if ur looking for big pvp servers try like stormreaver

    [Reply]

  • livefree

    I moved to Saudi few months and i have been playing wow before in a private server. I have had my internet cut off twice for playing wow. Anyone know why this is happening?

    [Reply]

  • Lars

    Hi Khaled,

    since I am going to work in Riyadh for at least two years, beginning in August, I wanted to play WoW from there. I am an avtive raider and so my question is, which provider should I try to get?

    [Reply]

  • Lars

    Hmm … may be I should clarify that my question is, which provider has an acceptable ping to the European servers?

    [Reply]

    Khaled A. Reply:

    i think STC DSL is acceptable

    [Reply]

  • Greg

    I arrived this Feb and I have GO and reach back to the U.S. Has not always been smooth but right now avg about 500ms latency. The issue is you will have the same going to Euro servers because the holdup seems to be in Italy once you leave the Middle East.

    Khaled, are there places in Riyadh to get the box sets of the game? I am trying to multi-box and I can’t upgrade my account because they won’t take my credit card from here because it is from U.S.

    [Reply]

  • ahmed

    i arrived this june from tunisia into ksa and i was having an account on millenium-server a europain server of world of warcraft but when i came into saudie i cant any more so i tried a lot of other realm but it’s don’t work and i’m using stc dsl could any body find me a solution for this probleme , to connect at my old realm or to connect in a new server who can be played in ksa please ???? does any body have a solution for this probleme / and please tell me if the mobily’s 3G wireless is good for my connexion to wow ???

    [Reply]

  • hey khaled i have open my site for wow arabic users i hope u cheak it

    [Reply]

    mohammed Reply:

    hey khaled i have open my site for wow arabic users i hope u cheak it wowarab.com/vb

    [Reply]

  • Mohammed Alsayegh

    Salam everyone, i just noticed that Ronald having some problems with the connection stuffz in KSA and i want to say WELCOME!! to KSA. i’ve been having so many problems before but not anymore thank god :)
    i’ve tried the ( mobily 3G broadband connection ) and it was so good, so i figure u may try that too

    [Reply]

  • Cris

    /wave. I’m a Filipino gamer working here in Saudi Arabia. I also have problems with latency specially during weekends but it’s mostly fine for all the week. I’m using Mobily 3G also.

    I hope to find fellow Pinoys here.

    [Reply]

  • rev

    hey..

    im aplayer from the philippines tht mved here in jeddah coz of work..

    i have a GO 2mbps connection wireless, will it work fine with WoW?i play in the US servers

    [Reply]

    Cris Reply:

    @rev, i guess it will work. I got a similar setup and latency is 300ms.

    Are you going to stay here in saudi for long? If yes, i really would suggest playing in Europe servers and join our Filipino guild in Twisting Nether.

    [Reply]

  • i live in canada and i do play this game but the only problem that bothers me a lot is about if it is exssable for me to play this game on any arabic service,that would be great,,
    so if anyone knows how to do that please gust let me know at my e-mail
    s7r-alshoog@hotmail.com

    [Reply]

  • Ahmad

    You know Khalid,
    What really pisses me off about Blizzard now is:
    Firstly, the high and expensive game cards.
    Secondly, they have merged accounts with Battle.net
    Which is rather irritating by the way.
    Now, I can’t access my account on WoW’s site.
    I need a user name and password from Battle.net, which they didn’t gave me before.
    And now, I’m stuck to only playing on private servers.
    Fun, but meh, you get bored of ‘em after a while.

    [Reply]

  • Sonia

    Hey all,
    I use GO Wimax for playing WoW…I got the connection a few months ago with no probs at first (latency was around 400-700, which seemed alright) In the last couple of weeks its gone up to 3000-12000 eeeee! It’s impossible to play and actually enjoy the game, and forget about doing dungeons..My question is: Is anyone else using Go and having these horrible latency issues lately?

    [Reply]

  • Lars

    Hi,

    since I am now in Riyadh, I now have my first-hand experience.

    I started with Wimax from Mobily, which was kind of ok with a Latency of around 400 to 500, depending on WHERE the router would be placed, weird enough. I am living on a compound an so decided to test DSL from the compound. There are not many other residents this time of the year and I hat a latency of 800+, so I dumped this.

    I decided to have a go on Mobily HSPA+ which REALLY made me grin – now I have a latency of 180 – 250ms to the European Servers. That is great, some friends from Germany don’t have a better latency.

    [Reply]

    Cris Reply:

    For the past couple of days i had latency problems with my Mobily HSPA and no way i can raid with it. Now i changed to GO and latency for me now is at 250ms.

    I assume there are so many users of Mobily that the connection is getting slow.

    [Reply]

  • Lars

    What I have to admit is, that Mobily could NOT guarantee coverage for my area. So I would also have had he possibilty to have …. nothing via HSPA+.

    [Reply]

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