Can the game be accessed from the UAE?


Bashere

 

Posted

I'm due to move from the US to the UAE this summer. I've been a long time player and would love to keep playing. But I have found no information on if the game can be accessed from there. Posting here to see if anyone would know.

Thanks.


 

Posted

Well that's up to your ISP there and if UAE has a firewall that'll prevent it. I don't think game's servers care where you are.


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Tempus unum hominem manet

 

Posted

Up until about two years ago, I was in the US Navy. I spent some time deployed to the Persian Gulf about four years ago, and would often pull into port in Dubai, one of the Emirates in the United Arab Emirates.

While I can't promise anything -- each Emirate is different and things may have changed since I was there -- I can tell you that when I was able to access a good enough public wi-fi connection, I could access the game servers. So it wasn't specifically blocked by the government or anything.

The government there does block large chunks of the internet, but it's not as draconian as it could be; they tend to filter out specific content like sexually explicit material (including celebrity gossip blogs). There are some governments, especially in the Middle East, that prevent their people from accessing anything that could subject them to outside influences, including online games, but the UAE (or Dubai at least) isn't one of them. It's a lot less oppressive a place than you might assume, possibly due to the fact that it's trying so hard to be a vacation destination for European tourists.


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Posted

Thank you, Doctor Roswell.

I was less concerned about if it was being deliberately blocked and more concerned about latency. My wife and I have done a lot of research before accepting the the job so we know they are very open in their policies.

Sounds like I'll be able to feed my addiction a bit longer.


 

Posted

UAE is rather open-minded when considered middle east countries. One of reason I think toursim is one of their selling point unlike most of middle east countries and they care about tourists opinion about things so I think you will not have much problem in there.


 

Posted

I was able to play it in Iraq last year, so you should be fine.


 

Posted

Thanks folks!