Playing from mainland China

Is anyone trying to play this game from China? I just started today, and it seems like a really fun and beautifully well thought out game. But the latency and desync are absolutely brutal. The game is only playable at all while on a VPN. Without the VPN, aside from massive lag spikes and the frequent inability to login at all, I get a "you are logging in from a different location" every time I start the game up or change servers. Since my email service is gmail -- frequently inaccessible here without using a VPN -- even starting the game becomes extremely frustrating. While playing with a VPN, the only server with a remotely usable connection is the US server (250-300 latency with occasional spikes). Singapore seems like it should be the best, and typically is around 150 latency, but is extremely unstable. Latency spikes to around 500-1000 every 30 seconds or so, making the game very difficult to play. By the way, if I do manage to get on without the VPN, it is much worse. My VPN server is in Tokyo; I might try changing it to the US and see if that works better the POE's US server.

Is there any possibility for a mainland China server in the future? The Singapore server is not working out. For Chinese people to be able to play the game without major hassle there will basically have to be a server in China. That just seems to be the way it works here. ISPs don't offer any support for access to websites or services outside the country.

The again, the Chinese government seems to be going through one of its periodical temper tantrums. Hopefully everyone's internet connection will speed back up in the next month or two.

If possible, please try to refrain from vaguely racist comments about Chinese players of multiplayer games on the internet. I am not Chinese and there are many things I intensely dislike about this country, but seriously, it's just embarrassing.

Well, to set up a China gateway, wouldn't you need the approval of at least a Chinese ISP to provide the servers, in which case the government would likely censor or deny it anyways?

At least that's what I always thought.

I don't believe that the government has anything specific against Path of Exile so much as any traffic outside of China. I think the main motivation for this, even above censorship, is to force Chinese people into using Chinese online services, even when they are greatly inferior, simply by making foreign services too much of a bother to use. And they accuse the west of economic protectionism (not that the west isn't guilty of protectionism, mind).

I think the result of trying to set up a server here would be very unpredictable and subject to abrupt and inexplicable change. It would really depend on the mood of the official in charge of reviewing it. Online games run by big companies probably have people over here who's particular job it is to wine and dine the officials and perhaps bribe them occasionally to make sure everything is running smoothly. That's not to say it's impossible. It would still make the game a great deal more playable for people in China (my download speed for local websites is around 6 mb/s as compared to 200 kb/s for foreign sites). There would just be issues that arise occasionally that would be unthinkable to people not used to the Chinese environment. A Chinese speaking person would be required to call people on the phone and yell at them until the issues get fixed, which would be stressful and time consuming.

It's up to GGG whether all this would be worth it. It almost certainly wouldn't without a Chinese localization. The game does appear to have a following, however, and even a Chinese (official?) website: http://www.poexile.cn.