I’m going to list here my plan to make through this painful choice of blocking foreign players from World of Warcraft american servers.

– The first step is obviously about getting the box of the game. I ordered it directly through Gamestop. They shipped it in time and the box just took off from Paris, on a plane, heading to Italy where I live. Aside Gamestop you can try to buy it through dvdboxoffice (cheapest choice). But I don’t guarantee you’ll receive the box soon. I had both good and bad luck with them.

Then the problem is about actually getting an account. In fact you cannot use the “free” month included in the box without registering with a valid credit card. And we know that Blizzard blocks foreign credit cards. So, there are workarounds to this problem?

– The first workaround (not confirmed) is about ordering a gamecard. These are prepaid cards with 60 days of “play time”. It’s the easiest way to play without a credit card so it will be probably possible to log in the game even as “foreigners”. Both EBworld and Gamestop ship these cards but they won’t arrive (at the shop) till this Monday.

– The second workaround is by getting and using a Paypal account. Even this possibility is unconfirmed since it’s still not enabled. Blizzard announced that they are trying to solve the issues so that they can enable it. No ETA. Possibly “soon”.

– The third workaround is confirmed by a few players. It’s the easiest one but a bit more “risky”. If Vivendi goes berserk now, in a month or more you can finish with a banned account. It shouldn’t happen but it’s still something not impossible. The trick consist to feed the billing application with a valid australian zip code and obviously setting Australia as your nation. If all goes smoothly the billing process will digest your foreign credit card and you’ll be able to pay monthly as with every other mmorpg.

– The fourth workaround is about getting a virtual credit card. To do this you need an already working credit card. From what I understand you are going to create a virtual card on top of your real one. Then you can change the billing infos of your virtual one so that you can finish with a “faked” USA credit card that Blizzard’s billing process will be able to digest. I went through this and the process isn’t easy. After registering the virtual credit card the company will charge your real card with a random amount. From 0.01$ to 2$. You then have to figure how much exactly it is (calling your bank) and send them this info. This process is needed so that they are sure that you own the credit card. Once your real card is verified they’ll enable your virtual credit card and you’ll receive a new number and CVV2 code. I believe that you can change the “owner” behind this card to whoever you like (and so someone living in the USA, enabling you to get into the game). This is why you can read on the site that the virtual Visa allows “anonymous purchases over the Internet”. The card is also pre-paid. So you can set an amount of money you want to put into it and have it enabled to spend that and not more than that. I also believe that your real credit card won’t be charged at all till you don’t start to effectively spend the credit.

That’s it. When my box arrives I’ll see which one works. Hoping to not finish with a banned account and a lot less money when I’m just trying to play a game and not being a l33t hacker.